According to Gartner Research, worldwide sales of client relationship management (CRM) software grew by 13.4% in 2013 to over $20 billion in sales. 41% of the sales came from software as a service (SaaS) providers. Communications, media and IT services are the top 3 verticals. Real estate has always been an attractive category for CRM software developers, in fact, it seems like there is a new entrant into the space on a fairly regular basis, so much so, we’re going to do a regular feature of CRM’s in an effort to help our readers nail down the platform that works best for them.

To start the series off, we’re featuring the latest company to announce a CRM offering, Trulia One. I had the opportunity to join Trulia’s VP of marketing, Stephen Rossi, and senior product marketing manager, Catherine Keller to find out more about the platform.

Like most CRM platforms being launched these days, Trulia One is a SaaS offering, mobile first. Users have the ability to import contacts from their current platforms like Google or Yahoo or via an imported CSV file.  Whether they come from Zillow, Realtor.Com or elsewhere, the ability to import leads is open to any originating source and all leads are filtered as push alerts. Users can assign a heat map level of cold to hot on leads.

Trulia One is designed to consolidate marketing, contact and lead management into a single interface.

The “Marketing Center” was developed in conjunction with Snapfish to provide the ability to create marketing campaigns, both print and e-mail. One of the biggest problems with CRM platforms is the fact that they can be cumbersome and difficult to use and subject to feature creep. Trulia One’s interface is intuitive and easy to follow. When asked what He thought set it apart from the Myriad offerings in the space, Rossi pointed out that it’s the only offering of it’s kind that has a free entry level version.

Trulia is confident that after using the free version, users will step up to their upgraded “Elite” product at $99 per month. Included in the Trulia One Elite package are:

• A personalized MLS website with consumer analytics
• An “ad free” featured listing, a success coaching platform
• Premium upgrades to the email and print marketing center campaigns
• An “Elite” Profile “badge” on the Trulia agent profile

The Real Estate CRM space is a pretty crowded one. We’d love to know more about the platforms our readers are using and how they stack up against one another. What features set them apart? Chime in and let us know.