THE DIGIBLE DUDE

There's no doubt data is essential for developing a successful marketing strategy. However, most records are stored in several places, making it impossible to retrieve them all for a comprehensive audit of a portfolio or individual assets. In today's episode, we look at a one-of-a-kind product: a business intelligence platform designed specifically for apartment complexes and other rental property portfolios, which provides data analytics and insights to help those complexes and portfolios operate at optimal efficiency. Elizabeth Braman, CEO of Revolution RE, is here today for a fascinating chat about their unique platform.

We start the episode with a brief discussion of Elizabeth's professional background as an investor, executive, and advisor who works in the financial technology, property technology, and commercial real estate industries. She is a co-founder of JoyHub, a startup that streamlines the communication process between landlords and tenants. Also, Elizabeth has been on the leadership team from the company's inception for five distinct companies in the fields of technology and commercial real estate.

Elizabeth's company, Revolution RE, collects information from any available source and then assists property owners, managers, and other key stakeholders in effectively using that information by standardizing it across their multiple digital interfaces. During the conversation, we talk broadly about the entire procedure of data standardization, its potential impact on the real estate business, risks and challenges, opportunities, and Elizabeth's future plans with the remarkable work she is doing at the moment.

[00:00] Today's Guest -  Elizabeth shares her background in various positions and industries.

[09:36] Background - Elizabeth discusses the evolution of her career and the nature of her work.

[17:33] Standardizing Data – The first step, the last step, and the procedure that comes in between when standardizing data.

[24:20] Open Source Data - Elizabeth explains when she believes that new open-source data will be available for investors and operators.

[31:35] No.1 Challenge – Use cases, Market Competition, and Potential Risks

[40:32] Why not yet -  Why has not someone else tackled this problem?

[44:54] The Future - In what ways will the company's model evolve shortly and beyond?

[51:46] Set User Expectations– Elizabeth shares how she communicates with business owners and managers and addresses concerns about cost and timeline.

Resources:

Connect with Elizabeth Braman:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/elizabethbraman/

Website: revolutionre.com/

In this week’s special episode of Digible Dudes podcast, we are here with Sina Shekou, CEO of Aptly; the first AI-powered communication platform for intelligent residence conversations in real estate. We discuss RealPage's recent acquisition of Knock. Throughout the episode, we dive into M&A deals, the competition, past, and present, the high rate of hiring, driving loyalty, the CRM journey, and more.

Starting the conversation, Sina dives into M&A deals, a combination of companies through different types of financial transactions, how hard it is to get into M&A dealings, and how to achieve the desired outcome.

When a company gets acquired, it’s difficult and challenging to convince the world to stay with them and keep the employees together. According to Sina, there are a lot of opportunities for competition but once you’ve taken off your game, you have to fight if you want to survive. One of the biggest problems a marketer has is the inability to get data. It doesn’t always allow companies to accomplish things with a standalone product.

Wrapping up the conversation, Sina dives into the differences between the three software companies; RealPage, Yardi, and Trada when it comes to M&A deals and how RealPage is more concerned about giving the customers that something works for them with their well-thought-out strategy.

[14.57] Mergers and Acquisitions – Sina dives into how hard it is to get an M&A deal as everyone else does.

[22.31] Then vs Now – Sina shares details about the acquisitions of RealPage now versus back then saying that they had a less formal approach back then.

[27.32] The team – Sina shares his idea about how press releases mostly talk about only the product in comparison to talking about the team.

[30.21] The competition – Sina dives into how challenging customer and employee retention can be when businesses get bought by RealPage.

[39.25] The Industry - Sina talks about the pros and cons of the industry when it comes to things like RealPage as a whole.

[43.00] Hiring – Sina drives us through the reason behind hiring increases in RealPage in the last six months.

[49.12] Driving loyalty – Switch cost is the driving fact for loyalty, says Reid.

[52.38] CRM journey with salesforce – The inability to get all the data makes a broken story of a standalone product, says Sina as one of the major problems that every marketer has at present.

[1.11.32] RealPage, Yardi, and Entrada – Sina dives into the difference between the three companies RealPage, Yardi, and Entrada when it comes to M&A deals.

Resources

https://www.getaptly.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sinashekou/

https://www.realpage.com/

https://www.yardi.com/

https://www.trada.co.uk/

Blending with new technologies, the real estate industry is rapidly evolving and making people more engaged. In today’s episode of Digible Dudes podcast, we have another interesting conversation with Trevor Park; VP of Marketing at RentDynamics, a real estate agent who aims to develop the experience of the rental journey through technology. Throughout the episode we dive into Trevor's background, formats of the leasing guide, updating content, a common thread, integration, contribution to the content, and more.

Starting the conversation, Trevor dives into the background information of himself; what position he held in RentDynamics, their leasing enablement, the passion he had for working with all the partners in the industry, finding ways to connect with them, sharing insights with them, and the two volumes focused on leasing cycle.

The world out there is constantly changing. Doing updates on the information that you provide to your customers is important because they need to be aware of the changes that the industry is having. Trevor shares how they are planning to update their guide saying that it will be updated in the first half of the year and the second half of the year. Wrapping up the conversation, Trevor dives into how to get to the list if you want to download or get the leasing guide when it comes out.

[08.35] Background – Trevor dives into what position he held in RentDynamaics and what they do with leasing enablement.

[10.43] The format – Trevor dives into what kind of formats people can find in their leasing guide and the search engine type system they have that answers questions for customers without going for SEO or paid advertising.

[14.17] Update – Trevor talks about what plan they have for updating the guide, how they are planning to launch it before the leasing season and budget season, and the two different versions of it.

[20.09] The common thread – The rejection of speaking engagements of industry leaders in conferences because of not being willing to sponsor is the common thread in the industry according to Trevor.

[25.00] Integrate database – Trevor dives into his idea about how people can open up to talk about how the integration works.

[29.50] Promoting – Trevor shares how are they going to promote their work other than podcasts.

[33.16] Contributing contact – Trevor dives into the two ways that they are going to contribute to the contact of RentDynamics.

[36.58] Get on the list – Trevor shares how to get on to the list when the second version of the guide gets published.

Resources

RentDynamics

https://rentdynamics.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/rent-dynamics/

Connect with Trevor

https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevorcpark/

Welcome back to the Digible Dudes podcast. In this week’s episode, we dive into ‘A Guide to Multifamily Marketing in Minnesota’ with; Kayde Pierce, Senior Account Manager, and Amelia Anvary, Senior Paid Media Strategist at Digible. Throughout the episode, we discuss the background of multifamily in Minneapolis, neighborhood differences, lead to lease projects, living and budgeting in Minneapolis, impression share, studio apartments, concessions, and more.

Starting the conversation, Kayde talks about the background of the multifamily market in Minneapolis and what kind of relationships they have with the clients. The neighborhoods of Minneapolis have different qualities from one another says Kadye; Northeast Minneapolis and North Loop with more creative professionals.

Having an affordable place on their own is a dream of most young people who got just out of school. According to Kayde and Amelia, it increases the studio cost which is a lot more than floorplan types. In the next phase, Amelia dives into some of the learnings she collected in the Minneapolis market; quality in the details of floor plan cost, allocating budget, general apartment searches, using social media platforms for certain ads, assigning the right person to look at the apartment space and tell the customers what can they do with the space and more.

Everybody wants to feel safe when they are at home. That’s what a home is for; feeling safe is the simplest definition of the term ‘home’. Both Amelia and Kayde share what facilities they built in the neighborhoods to make people feel safe. Private parking, secure entry, language use in ad copy, and monitoring social comments are some of the strategies that they use to make people safe and make them believe that Minneapolis is still a great neighborhood. Wrapping up the conversation, Kayde talks about inventions that come out from the state of Minneapolis and how they made them fall in love with the place in the first place.

[06.16] Background – Kayde dives into the background of the multifamily market in Minneapolis.

[08.35] Different neighborhoods – Kayde dives into unique characteristics which differ from neighborhood to neighborhood in Minneapolis.

[11.39] The project – Kayde dives into the project; leads to lease, that they have been working on in combination with the client service side with the data team, and what key points they looked into in the project.

[17.12] Takeaways - Moving to quarter two is peak season because everybody is moving and August, September, and October as the lowest months which have user interests as the key takeaways from the project; lead to lease.

[20.58] Living and budgeting in Minneapolis – Both Amelia and Kayde share the details of how the processes of leasing renewal and researching apartments are happening in Minneapolis.

[24.46] Impression share – Amelia dives into how impression share works and the necessity of maxing impression share.

[29.18] Studio cost – High demand among young people and the lack of studio apartments as the causes which drive studio apartments into a bigger cost.

[33.10] Learnings – Amelia dives into some of the learnings that she gathered from the multifamily market in Minneapolis.

[35.34] Safe experience – Both Kayde and Amelia dives into the details of what they did to make people feel safe in their neighborhoods.

[40.09] Concessions – Amelia dives into how concessions are happening in Minneapolis in times when it’s hard for people to move.

Resources

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaydepierce/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ameliaanvary/

In today’s episode, we chat with Greta Wolking; Senior Paid Media Strategist, and Erica Hanger; Senior Content Strategist at Digible about native advertising for multifamily. Native Advertising is where branded content fits seamlessly and - you guessed it - natively into a publisher's webpage.  Throughout the conversation, we dive into what is native advertising, when to use native advertising in your media mix, measuring success, the process of native advertising, campaigns, past, present, and future of native advertising, personalization, generational differences, and more.

Native advertising refers to the use of paid advertisements, such as display adverts, that match the look of an already-existing website, social media platform, or search engine. Starting the conversation, Greta defines what is native advertising, what different ways it can formulate, and how it operates.

Presenting the ideas about the past, present, and future of native advertising, Greta dives into the past when they ran a different kind of category within multifamily and campaigns, TiVo and retargeting, and OS widget integration as future possibilities. When it comes to digital privacy, there are generational differences. While one generation is quite positive about targeted ads, another generation may bear a negative attitude towards them.

Wrapping up the conversation, Greta, Reid, and Erica talk about their hot takes from native advertising; not mentioning the brand more than three times, personalization, and automated content.

[08.08] Native Advertising – Greta starts the conversation by defining what native advertising is.

[11.47] When to use – Greta dives into types and situations where people might use native advertising.

[17.15] Measuring success – Click-through rate, content landing page, and website for the actual client as the three stages of native advertisement according to Erica.

[20.27] Video assets – Reid and Greta share their opinion on the engagement of video in advertising campaigns.

[22.20] The process – Both Erica and Greta dives into the process of native advertising step by step.

[31.48] Campaigns – Erica and Greta discuss the types of campaigns that they can do to update the property.

[34.00] Standard metrics - Greta shares the metrics of the national average and Digibles’ average of click-throughs the client’s website receives when people are reading an article.

[39.03] Past, present, and future – Greta dives into the past, present, and future of native advertising as a whole.

[43.18] Personalization – Greta, Erica, and David share their attitudes on personalized ads.

[44.16] Generational differences – Greta dives into the generational differences about targeted ads saying that when one generation likes the targeted ads, another generation may feel negative about their digital privacy.

[49.44] Hot takes – Greta, Erica, and Reid share what hot takes they have in native advertising.

Resources

Outbrain - https://www.outbrain.com/

Taboola - https://www.taboola.com/

TiVo - https://www.taboola.com/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/erica-h-8950b8185/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gretawolking/

We are back with a special episode in this week’s Digible Dudes podcast. David Staley, President and Co-Founder, Nicole Staley; Co-Founder Chief Experience Officer, and Reid Wicoff; CEO and Co-Founder at Digible are here to talk about David’s recent event when he ran for Guinness Book of World Records for running the fastest 100 miles on a treadmill. Throughout the episode, we dive into the experience David had, the psychological impacts, David’s interest in doing something extraordinary, getting back on track, and more.

Starting the conversation, David dives into his recent experience on his 100-mile run attempt and talks about how people should do the things that they want to because it’s okay if you fail and can start over. Joining the conversation, Reid shares his attitude of how people should not let their pride or dignity hurt their health.

David shares what he learned from the experience, saying how he expected to feel that his pride was falling, but in the end, it didn’t, and it was just like before. David then dives into the time of his first try back in 2015, how he wanted to do something extraordinary and prove to himself that he could do something special.

David shares how he gets into recovering his body after the event. He shares how he was sleeping, how he managed his diet, how his body reacted in the meantime, and how he intends to get back the eight pounds he lost.

Wrapping up the conversation, Nicole and David both talk about being part of a supportive community and what it means to be a part of a community like that.

[00.56] Taking the shot – Taking shots in life is important. It’s okay if you are not successful, you can start over.

[05.55] The pride – Reid talks about how you should not let your pride or dignity destroy your good health.

[06.57] The experience – David dives deep into what he learned from the recent experience.

[09.37] Psychological elements – Reid talks about how psychology impacts the fact that you can do something again once you did some time ago.

[13.10] Doing something extraordinary – David talks about the difference between the first and the second time he got into the run attempt.

[17.08] Heart rate – David talks about how his heart works and what happens when it comes to passing a certain rate.

[25.43] Recovery – David shares what he does to recover after the event.

[28.22] Giving another shot – David shares when he thinks he will be able to back on the game.

In today’s episode of Digible Dudes podcast, we are having a fascinating conversation with Michelle Reinhold; Strategic account manager at Digible, and Anthony Paganucci; Founder & CEO of The Brynson Group", a real estate consulting firm specializing in multifamily about when to hire a marketing director to a property management company. Throughout the conversation, we dive into the right time to hire a marketing consultant, consultant versus marketing person, human touch in multifamily, proactive and reactive, management & differentiation of brands, and more.

[08.20] When to hire – When to hire a marketing consultant depends on the three elements; size, tech stack, and structure of the organization.

[17.08] Consultant or marketing person – Michelle dives into the importance of having one person to take care of all the things when it comes to marketing and what result they have on consultant versus marketing person.

[23.10] Dedicated marketer versus consultancy group – Anthony dives into the difference between having a full-time marketer and a consultancy group in your organization which entirely depends on the nature of the organization.

[28.59] Making it easier – Anthony talks about how Brynson makes the process easier for their customers and how they can save time by working with them.

[35.48] Generation of marketers – Michelle shares her idea of how customers begin to hire people who are specific on digital who can handle a lot more brand awareness, new property branding, websites, content, and more.

[38.21] Human touch – Michelle shares her idea about the importance of having a human touch in combination with artificial intelligence when it comes to multifamily.

[46.38] Low occupancy – Michelle and Anthony talk about how organizations tend to blame marketing for low occupancy and how the consultant comes into this kind of situation.

[50.17] The job – Anthony dives deep into one of the biggest questions that people ask them as ‘’why do we need you’’ he explains why people need them because the industry doesn’t stay at the same place, it has ups and downs.

[55.09] Being proactive – Michelle dives into how hard it is to be proactive in the industry and how they are working things out because it’s all about providing data.

[59.14] Brand management – Anthony dives into brand management which is the least proactive thing in the industry where people overlook or wait too long to develop it.

[01.08.37] Brand differentiation – Every brand has a unique identification point says Anthony, and brand differentiation is based on their location, the point they have, etc.

[01.16.15] Being more proactive – Anthony and Michelle share their thoughts on how to be proactive in marketing like doing resident testimonials, and social media content including images and videos on Facebook, Tick Tock, LinkedIn, and Twitter because they will stay there and people know that’s real.

Podcasting has been in growing substantially over the last decade and Spotify seems to be taking on this opportunity to grow as an advertising platform, using advertising for podcasting. In this week’s episode of Digible Dudes podcast, we aim to explore Spotify advertising and what you need to know with Kara Lee; Paid Media Strategist at Digible, and Grace Harrison; Account Manager at Digible. Throughout the episode, we dive into how Spotify advertising works, some of the unique features available in Spotify advertising, and why advertisers in the multi-family space should be looking at Spotify advertising.

Starting the conversation, Kara and Grace introduce Spotify advertising and information like how it works, the duration of an advertisement, where they appear, and more. Spotify is a great experience for listeners because people can choose what they want to hear unlike radio, you can’t choose what you want to hear, you have to hear what the host chose to play. In that regard, radio is a passive platform for listeners and Spotify is an interesting one.

Podcast advertising on Spotify is gaining popularity because of the amazing opportunities to advertise like Q/A, and polls, and also retargeting brings out the best opportunity to engage with advertisements by Spotify itself.

Wrapping up the conversation, Reid dives into the differences between traditional and digital media buying, how difficult it is for the customers, and at last, what podcasts they most like to hear.

[06.58] What is Spotify Advertising- Kara and Grace dive into how advertisements on Spotify operate, and how long and where they appear if you are on Spotify.

[12.07] Subscribers and Free Users- Kara shares the statistics of free and subscribed users currently on Spotify.

[15.13] Generational Difference- Kara and Grace dive into how their generation reacts to advertisements on social media.

[21.44] Property Type - How Spotify is great for brand awareness and how any type of advertising a property wants to do like new lease-up, property renovations, recruitment campaigns, etc will be captured by the correct audience.

[25.57] Spotify versus Radio- How radio is a passive experience when compared to Spotify.

[30.54] Production Cost - Reid and Grace dive into the difference between the production cost of radio and Spotify on advertising.

[34.07] Comparison - How brand awareness is more effective in Spotify than other social media and how it is unique from other social media platforms like TikTok.

[42.40] Programmatic Audio - The use of technology to automate the sale and insertion of advertisements in audio content, such as podcasts, digital radio, and music streaming services, is known as programmatic audio.

[48.14] Hot Takes - Kara and Grace share their idea about podcasts taking over the advertisement field on Spotify with different features and how retargeting offers more opportunities to Spotify listeners.

[57.36] Traditional and Digital Media Buying - Reid talks about how the cost per point in radio and gross rating points in TV work and how frustrating it is for the customers.

[01.02.00] Favorite Podcasts- They dive into what podcasts they like most to hear.

Conversational AI refers to the use of chatbots, messaging apps, and voice-based assistants in combination with machine learning to automate communication with customers for your brand. In today’s episode, we dive into the AI communication world with Sina Shekou, the Co-founder, and CEO of Aptly, which is the first AI-powered communication platform for intelligent resident conversations in real estate.

[08.35] Background- Sina shares some background information of Aptly, how he got started with the software, and the intention of helping people in the real estate industry in Northern California.

[10.25] Getting Started- Sina shares how he got into the industry of building software for people who struggle with the real estate industry.

[16.30] Property Technology - Property technology, also known as Proptech, is the application of information technology and platform economics to the real estate industry.

[21.21] Learning from Entrepreneurs- Sina and Reid dive into the experience of working with entrepreneurs and learning from them.

[28.44] The Vision- Sina shares the vision they had before building the software, which seems to be finding a solution for a proper work management platform anchoring it around communication and the necessity of it because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

[33.33] CRM- Customer relationship management (CRM) is the process by which a company or other organization manages its interactions with customers, typically by analyzing large amounts of data.

[40.43] Competition- Sina talks about the competition they have with other companies in the same field, how they inspire their products to be better and how they are different.

[45.46] Investments- Sina shares that being the master record of customers and being irreplaceable directs them toward investments.

[52.35] Workflow Automation- Workflow automation software is a low-code solution that uses machine learning and low-code applications to interact with commonly used third-party cloud solutions.

[58.07] Decision Tree Process- A strong decision-making tool, decision tree analysis launches an organized, non-parametric approach to problem-solving. It makes it easier to assess and contrast the outcomes of the many options, as displayed in a decision tree. The most competitive alternative should be chosen.

[1.00.44] Jim Collins- James C. “Jim” Collins, an American researcher, writer, speaker, and consultant who specializes in business management, business sustainability, and growth, was born in 1958.

[1.08.08] Drawing Customers- Interacting with the customers by blending technology and human makes the process authentic which draws customers.

[1.12.15] 2050- Sina shares his thoughts about the future in the field and according to him, in the next 20-30 years people are going to take ownership of their identity and share it with people to get a better product out of it.

[1.23.15] Challenges- Being replaceable is the biggest challenge in the field.

In this week of Digible Dudes, David and Reid chat about some major changes that have happened in the company, how they are adapting, some interesting books about building a company, along with an insight on what is on the horizon for Digible's growth and future.

Starting the conversation, David and Reid share how Digible focused on hitting profitability this year and interesting movements they had on the client’s side also.

David shares his attitude about Fiona Calls; saying that it plays a huge part in the company’s future. They dive into Digible's 30% growth in the past six months, the incremental hiring, and the challenges of navigating rapid growth.

David then talks about a couple of employee turnovers in Digible saying that the next phase of the career is important to people and it’s understandable in their perspective to seek new opportunities out there.

Reid and David then moved on to talk about the five stages of the decline of a business from the book, "How the Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give in" by Jim Collins reveals that by starting to think about how a company falls, you can identify what to do and what not to do and also what stage your business is at currently.

David mentions a book by Simon Sinek called "The Infinite Game" and shares that according to the book, doing a business is an infinite game; there are no winners or losers. He explains the importance of focusing on short-term wins instead of long-term wins by illustrating a great example between Apple versus Microsoft based on the book.

Entering the final phase of the conversation, David and Reid share what they are most concerned about at the company and also they share that they do not only consider profitability or growth but the balance between them.

[05.06] Profitability- David and Reid share how Digible focused on hitting profitability but stayed on track this year.

[08.01] Fiona Calls- The software logs and monitors your calls using artificial intelligence, giving you insights into your most beneficial client interactions.

[13.51] Growth- 30% growth just in six months and how Digible is adapting to the situation.

[16.21] Employee Turnover- The act of replacing an existing employee with a new employee.

[16.21] Blitzscaling: The Lightning‑Fast Path to Building Massively- A book by Chris Yeh and Reid Hoffman about the science of rapidly building out a company to serve a global market.

[23.35] How the Mighty Fall- A book by Jim Collins about the five stages of the decline of a business.

[27.37] The Infinite Game- A book by Simon Sinek revealing a bold framework for leadership in the present changing world.

[37.28] Hiring- David shares hiring and investment as his main concerns for the company.

[39.29] Fair Housing- Reid shares Fair housing as his major concern for the company because it is becoming more and more real with a large number of properties.

[42.10] The Balance- David and Reid talk about balancing both the profitability and growth in Digible.