THE DIGIBLE DUDE

Welcome back to the Digible Dudes podcast. In today’s episode, we have Kyla Mittal once again as our special guest. Kyla is a housing specialist for a non-profit organization that focuses on affordable housing. Throughout the episode, we talk about Kyla’s work in secret shopping for fair housing.

Kyla gets into the conversation, describing what exactly she does when she’s secret shopping and the process of inquiring about apartments. She also talks about how the pandemic affected her work and the process of prospecting through phone calls. She talks about how she sometimes has to pretend to be someone else in order to find if there are any discriminations going on.

Kyla continues her conversation, explaining her role as a data collector and how she manages to ask and find information about the complaints and record what they say in a legal way. Further down in the conversation, Kyla answers Reid’s question about discrimination and comparison when doing fair housing.

In the next section, she talks about the property visiting timeline and how certain parts of the process occur in the first 48 hours of secret shopping. Diving into the verification of discrimination, Kyla shared how she involves in the incident as the data collector and what happens after she has done her part and filed the report.

Kyla then shares her experience of doing property visiting and involving clients, which made her nervous initially in fear of forgetting to ask questions and the details about the specific person or incident.

In the next section of the episode, Kyla shares some of the challenges she has to face while being a data collector in the fair housing industry and what measures she takes to do her job as unbiased as possible. Wrapping up the conversation, Kyla shares what motivates her to keep working in fair housing as her career.

[06.31] Secret Shopping as a Side Gig – Kyla talks about her process of contacting and inquiring about apartments.

[09.23] Questions – Most common things apartment managers want to know about potential tenants when inquiring about an apartment.

[12.53] The Role of a Data Collector – How Kyla observe subtle discriminations when shopping for apartments.

[17.07] Discrimination – Kyla gets into the details of what kind of discrimination happens in the industry and measures she takes to evaluate the situation and get proof of discrimination.

[19.23] Reporting – The process of reporting discrimination and measures that are taken to make sure that the testers remain as unbiased as possible.

[26.02] Challenges in Fair housing – Kyla’s unique side hustle can get a bit tricky, sometimes due to numerous reasons. She explains what challenges she faces and what measures she takes to overcome them.

[29.36] Motivation – Why motivates Kyla to continue her work and why she enjoys her work in fair housing.

Welcome to the Digible Dudes Podcast. We’re back this week with another POV episode to look at the apartment marketing industry through another stakeholder’s perspective. Our guest today is Aaron Maas. Aaron is the vice president of multifamily operations at Origin Investments. In today’s episode, we talk about numerous aspects of multifamily real estate marketing, including market trends, partnering, technology, ad campaigns, and many more.

Aaron starts the conversation by sharing his ten-year career journey with several firms in the real estate industry. He dives into some of the work they do at his current position at Origin Investments as well. One of the main things Aaron shares with us is how the market changed and adapted throughout the year due to various contributing factors and how their strategies were fine-tuned to respond to the changing market conditions throughout the year.

In the next section, we dive into how partnering works in the real estate space. Aaron shares some of the unique tactics they use at Origin Investments for working with other firms and building strong relationships with them. Aaron gets into some of the challenges involved in working with other organizations and how to overcome these challenges. He also shares how they approach starting a new partnership with a firm, the process of going from pitching to starting a successful deal, and how to align the goals of the two parties involved.

Moving on to marketing, Aaron talks about trends he sees related to marketing strategies, technology, budgeting, and utilizing data-driven approaches for marketing. He talks about ways to improve retention and effectively respond to ever-changing situations and new competing technologies that emerge in the industry. He also talks about several things marketers should keep in mind with regard to budgeting. Towards the end of the episode, we share some valuable tips & tricks to improve your conversion rates by optimizing your website.

[09:34] Aaron’s Story – Aaron talks about how he got into the real estate industry and his work at Origin Investments.

[16:27] Market Behaviour – How the pandemic and other factors affected the multifamily real estate arena and how it affected Aaron’s strategies and decision-making process this year.

[21:10] The Secret Sauce – Aaron gives a sneak-peek of some of the unique tactics they use at Origin to ensure they’re building strong relationships with investors.

[25:27] Partnering with Other Companies – Advantages and challenges involved in working with multiple firms in several aspects of real estate operations, including technology, human resources, leadership, and autonomy.

[32:10] Partnering Process – Aaron shares his thoughts about how they start new partnerships and the process of pitching services, sharing ideas, and getting started with partnerships.

[38:31] Aligning Goals – How to collaborate with third-party management companies and get the goals of both parties aligned.

[43:06] Assessing Technology and Data – Aaron shares his take on where the multifamily real estate resides in terms of utilizing technology and data-driven strategies.

[48:25] Marketing & Advertising Technology – Aaron talks about the trends he sees in the real estate marketing arena with regard to ad campaigns, strategies, technology, and expenses.

[56:02] Marketing & Competition – Responding to changes that continuously happen in advertising platforms and managing expenditures while retaining the effectiveness of your ad campaigns.

[01:00:00] Retention – Aaron shares his thought on some opportunities to improve your retention numbers under varying market conditions.

[01:04:03] Budgeting – Aaron shares some valuable strategies related to numerous aspects of marketing.

Welcome back to the Digible Dudes Podcast. Today we have a special guest, Ryan Cohn. Ryan is an associate director for the multi-family capital markets team at Newmark Knight Frank. In 2019, his team of 12 brokers was able to sell over $2.16 billion worth of inventory.

Ryan starts the conversation explaining his background, why he chose his career, and what life is like as a broker. He gets into how he set himself apart from a real estate agent and why he prefers commercial real estate over residential work.

In the next part of the episode, we shift our focus into marketing. Ryan talks about how operators and owners are afraid of sharing their plans with property managers and other stakeholders. Ryan explains why building trust and confidence is the way to achieve better outcomes.

In the next section, Ryan talks about the usage of data technology in the brokerage arena. Ryan talks about the way data and technology were utilized before and after the age of the internet, and what the future may hold for the real estate industry in terms of data analysis and technology.

Toward the episode, Ryan talks about the COVID hit this year and how it impacted the real estate arena. He talks about how the buyer pool and the seller pool has gotten much smaller due to the impact of the pandemic and the new conditions people had to adapt to. Ryan shares the measures they used to respond to these new changes in Denver and what you can do to minimize the impact of COVID. Wrapping up the session, Ryan shares some interesting observations they’ve seen throughout the year related to the volume of deals.

[06:40] Ryan’s Background -  Ryan talks about what life is like as a broker and the achievements of his team.

[19.30] Investor and Property Type – Ryan shares his experience about how the relationship between investor and the property type works.

[25.38] Growing as a Multi-family Owner – What it takes to build a strong portfolio as a multi-family owner and how to gain new acquisitions without disposing of previous ones.

[30.18] Risks and Opportunities – Being prepared for risks, working through the uncertainty, and connecting with specialists to take advantage of expert opinions and strategies.

[43.20] Building Trust -  Ryan shares his wisdom on how why it’s important for owners and operators to share their plans with relevant stakeholders and how sharing information helps you build trust and confidence.

[48.20] Utilizing Data & Technology – How the utilization of data and technology contributes to the brokering arena and what the future will hold in terms of technology. Ryan also dives into how automation may affect the role of a broker in the future.

[1:04:48] Impact of COVID – How the COVID-19 pandemic affected the industry and how operators and owners can prepare for the near future.

[1:13:38] Recent Trends – Ryan shares his take on new industry trends related to different market segments.

[1:26:52] Volume of Deals – Ryan shares how the volume of deals varied during the year compared to the last year.

Welcome back to the Digible Dudes Podcast. Today, we are talking on how to scale content for apartments. We start the episode by discussing why most individuals don’t do content marketing for apartments where Reid suggests the three main reasons as to why they do not.

Next, we talk about the quality vs. quantity of online and offline ad campaigns for apartments. We discuss what’s the better method in order to make renters more aware of apartments available for rent, whether social media pages or websites should be used. We go on to talk on the Content generation and development plans such as blogs and articles that individuals can use to promote their apartments for sale.

We then chat on what’s the best method to use online in order to capture an interested client’s attention, whether it’s an email follow up or using a personalized webpage. Afterward, we discuss how apartment renters and sellers can use their current residents for their marketing campaigns. We talk in-depth about running review campaigns, getting residents to give testimonials, and providing residents with an incentive to promote vacant housing. We chat on how to use the given reviews and testimonials on social media to promote apartments available for rent.

Toad the end of the episode, we discuss the budget surrounding content marketing. We discuss the amount that should be invested in the short term vs. long term in content marketing and whether sellers should run the campaigns themselves or whether they should hire a third party for the task.

[1:54] Apartment Marketing Strategies - Reasons as to why sellers don’t use content marketing

[4:44] Content Marketing - Quality Vs. Quantity

[6:05] Content Marketing - Online Vs. Offline

[8:21] Online Marketing - Methods that can be used to capture the attention of interested clients.

[13:36] What We Did at Digible - Marketing strategies we used at Digible: Our podcast, comic strip, and much more!

[19:53] Advertising campaigns - Getting the help your current residents to promote vacant apartment spaces

[22:44] Advertising Strategies - Providing incentives to current residents to promote apartment spaces

[26:06] Advertising through current residents - Organic Vs. Inorganic referrals

[33:30] Advertising Strategies – Making use of neighborhood podcasts.

[35:53] Content Marketing Budgets – How to prepare budgets for the long term and short term.

[40:50] Marketing Campaigns – Pros and cons of using a third party and doing it on your own.

Google’s US ad sales revenue is expected to decline in 2020 for the first time since Google went public in 2004. In today’s episode of The Digible Dudes, we’re diving into what it means for you how it’ll affect apartment marketing.

We start the episode by discussing the percentage of the drop and how a decline in ad sale revenue for Google will impact digital marketing strategies in the multi-family industry. We go on to discuss its impact on digital apartment marketing in both the short and long term.

We then discuss the impact on COVID-19 on digital advertising. We chat about how it’s affecting the ad campaigns on social media platforms and the revenue of companies such as Google, Instagram, and Facebook. We also talk about the campaigns by many large brands to boycott Facebook in order to fight against racist advertising.

Afterward, we dive into why Google’s ad revenue is expected to drop, whether it’s due to COVID-19 or whether it’s because other companies such as Facebook, Amazon, and Tik Tok are now becoming more popular amongst SMBs to run ad campaigns.

At the end of the episode, we discuss how ad revenue is earned by major social media companies such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Tik Tok and we talk about how small businesses can monitor their ad campaigns on various digital platforms such as Facebook, Tik Tok, and Google such as using Google Analytics.

[0:40] Short Term vs. Long Term - A drop in Google’s ad sales revenue and What this means for apartment marketing.

[6:49] Google vs. Facebook vs. Amazon - Percentage changes in ad sales revenue in 2020 against previous years.

[9:47] COVID-19 Impact – How the pandemic affected digital advertising and revenue for Google and Amazon.

[13:09] The Fight Against Racism – Recently, several big brands decided to boycott major social media platforms. We discuss the reasons for this trend and the effects of it.

[15:04] Ad Revenue – A comparison of the ad revenues of Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Facebook

[20:23] SMB Trends - Why SMBs are switching from Google to other platforms for ad campaigns.

[24:48] Analytics – Tips & tricks for tracking ROI of your ad campaigns using analytics.

[28:18] Running Ad Campaigns on Google - Paid listings, ad-words, and inorganic search results.

[31:34] A new Digital Platform, TikTok – How TikTok ad revenue for the companies varies across the globe.

[38:08] Advertisements & Search Behavior – How the characteristics & behaviors of search features vary between Google & Amazon.

[40:10] Reasons Behind Success – We dive into what contributed to the long term success of 3 giants, Google, Amazon, and Facebook.

This week on the Digible Dudes Podcast, we are joined by Manny Puentes, who is the founder and CEO of Rebel Al and has been working in the advertising industry for over 20 years. In today’s episode, we focus on marketing, advertising, and ad fraud. We start with Manny talking about his company, Rebel Al, and what inspired him to start it. He also talks about what the company does and who its target clientele is.

Next, we discuss how marketing and advertising strategies evolved over the past few years. We chat about, back when digital just came in and how businesses started to use this as a platform for marketing. We then go on to talk about how now, digital is integrated into almost everything we do in life. Afterward, we discuss ad fraud, how it came to be in the digital world of marketing. We also talk about what happened when businesses realized fraud was occurring and the development of anti-fraud companies.

We then discuss the roles and relationships between anti-fraud companies, publishers, advertisers, and businesses. Further, we chat on how and when advertising companies should invest money for a good ROI. Finally, we talk about what to expect as a business or a client when working with anti-fraud companies for marketing and advertising. We also discuss who to team up with as a business when trying to avoid marketing fraud. We end this episode by chatting about taxes that have become a heavy burden to bear for businesses when marketing and the financial implications of ad fraud to companies.

[3:47] Manny’s Story – Manny’s career path and what inspired him to start Rebel Al.

[8:08] Advertising and Security – How the advertising industry evolved over the years and how security eventually became a concern.

[13:13] Fraud - What can be considered as Ad fraud?

[18:05] Evolution of Ad Fraud - The beginning of Ad fraud and its current status.

[23:54] Roles & Relationships - Finances of Publishing, roles of advertisers, and publishers.

[29:06] Quantity Vs. Quality – How the digital advertising industry reacted to ad fraud over the years, to improve the quality of ad results.

[37:06] Working With Agencies - What to expect when you’re working with an anti-fraud agency.

[41:39] Detecting Fraud - Using Google analytics and referring URL’s to track marketing campaigns.

[48:37] Financial Implications – How ad fraud can affect the financial aspect of businesses and publishers.

[54:06] Keeping the Balance – Manny shares some valuable points that will help you make the best of your digital marketing strategy.

Dennis Cogbill, from Joshua Tree Conference Group, gets on the mic to school the DIgible Dudes on how COVID has impacted Multifamily events, and the lasting impact. Dennis Cogbill is the managing director at Joshua Tree conference group. The Joshua Tree conference group produces some of the largest conferences in the US in the multi-family industry.

We start by discussing the impact of COVID-19 on conferences hosted across the US. Dennis talks about how conferences such as AME and Mtech have been canceled or postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak.

We then go to chat on what people hope to gain by coming to conferences, whether they come for just the content or more to socialize with others within their industries.

Next, we talk about the potential future of conferences post-COVID-19. We chat on whether conferences will be in person, online, or a mix of the two and technology adjustments when moving forward after COVID. Further, we chat on pre-planning and monetization when hosting a conference. Dennis also talks to us about techniques that he uses for monetization.

Afterward, we discuss webinars, the benefits, and it’s disadvantages compared to in-person conferences. We chat about some of the great content you can listen to through webinars nowadays when compared with before COVID.

At the end of this episode, we talk about what it might be like attending a conference post-COVID. We chat on the potential of contacting COVID, Whether there would be heavy health precautionary measures or whether things will continue as usual.

[3:15] The impact of COVID-19 - Cancellation and postponing of events and conferences across the US

[11:44] Virtual Platforms Vs. In-person conferences - What’s better and why. David and Reid’s Webinar

[13:03] Virtual Events - Planning a large, successful conference

[17:00] Event Planning - Pre-planning and selecting speakers for a conference

[20:48] Monetization - Monetizing virtual events and webinars

[25:23] Conferences post COVID-19 -  Adjustments and alterations to schedules.

[32:54] Monetization - Monetizing conferences through sponsors and charged content

[37:48] Recent Events - The impact of COVID-19, riots, and recessions on the lives of US citizens.

[42:03] Event Planning - Planning a conference during COVID-19

[50:18] Final thoughts - Questions and Hot takes with Dennis