Improving Customer Engagement in Real Estate Through Digitization

Kailey Raymond: Following the events of 2020, home buyers were faced with new possibilities. They weren't tied down to one city any more because of school or work, they could easily relocate. The idea of the dream home took on new meaning. This meant marketers needed to adapt as well. Finding new ways to reach their customers in this digital landscape. David Marine, CMO of Coldwell Banker was on the frontlines of this shift. In this episode, David and I discuss the digitization of real estate, adaptable tactics, and unifying teams around data.

Kailey Raymond: Well, welcome David to Good Data, Better Marketing. Good Data, Better Marketing. That's how we say this name in the show today. We speak with influential marketers and digital innovators on this show, and basically just learn their tricks of the trade. So thank you so much for being here, very excited to hear about your experiences at Coldwell Banker, which as I understand it, you've been at for 21 years and held various positions from product development and now of course, leading the helm in marketing. So tell me about you, David.

David Marine: Well, thanks for having me, Kailey, and it is a pleasure to be talking with you. Yeah, 21 years. It feels a little crazy that it's been that long. But I actually came to Coldwell Banker through what I thought was one of the worst moments in my life, that actually turned out to be a blessing. And as the story goes, out of college, I worked for a small agency, and it was really like less than 10 people. I got to do a little bit of everything. They were focused on a high-tech customer, got involved with that, and I was really satisfied with that job and that position. And then in September of 2001, I put down a downpayment on my first home. In December of 2001, I got married on Valentine's Day, February 14 of 2002. Just two months later, I walked into the office and found out I was getting laid off. After 9/11, a lot of these tech companies were sort of seeing all of their marketing funds dried up. So here I have a new house, a new life, no job. And I remember...

Kailey Raymond: Not where you wanna be.

David Marine: No, no. And not what I had written up as what was gonna be the script.

Kailey Raymond: Totally. The plan changes.

David Marine: It did. And I called my dad on the way home that day and told him I got laid off. I was explaining it to him, I'm like, "What am I gonna do?" And I'll never forget, he says, "David, pack your bags. We're going to Disney World." And I was like, "What? What are you talking about? I gotta put a resume together, I gotta find a job. Got a wife to support." He said, "David, you'll never have another week in your life where you have zero responsibilities. So don't worry about it."

Kailey Raymond: I love that. Yes. David Marine: "Don't worry about it." Tara's my wife's name. "We'll take care of it. You and Tara are going to Disney World." So we went for a week. Fantastic time, my wife had never been before, and then we came back and I started searching for jobs online like crazy. And I actually went two months and over 30 different interviews without an offer. And my parents were worried we're gonna have to move in with them. And worried that I have to sell the house and all that stuff. My wife had just graduated with a Master's degree and she had plans for what she wanted to do, and she had to take a job answering phones at a local business just for some extra income. And then lo and behold, I applied for a job to be the Electronic Product Manager for Coldwell Banker on hotjobs.com, and...

Kailey Raymond: Shout out to HotJobs.

David Marine: Yes. 21 years later, I'm now in charge of marketing for it. And so what I thought was one of the worst moments, it had felt like it at the time, turned out to be a real blessing because who knows how long I would have been with that other agency had I not been forced to leave? And it really opened the door to what has been one of the best career changes in my life.

Kailey Raymond: That's so interesting too, because what it sounds like is from the very beginning, your first job, seems like you were kind of within the high-techy area. You're coming into the electronic product management of an industry where probably at that time didn't have a whole lot of high-tech or electronic going on. So you've probably been kind of on the bleeding edge of a lot of this for a really long time.

David Marine: Timing is everything, and so like my project, I walked in on the first day on the job, they sat me down and my boss put in front of this three-ring binder that's about three inches thick, and he said, "This is a listing presentation. It's the lifeblood of a real estate agent's business. This is what they set down at the kitchen table, they walk through. We need to find a way to make this digital." And so I sat across from him, I said, "Oh, you mean turn it into a PowerPoint presentation?" And he goes, "Can you do that?" I said, "Yeah, I could do that." So claim to fame, created the first ever PowerPoint listing presentation in Coldwell Banker history. And from that time, really from the advent of social media, to mobile, to applications, I've really been blessed to be at the cusp of a lot of these things becoming more mainstream and how they can apply to the business.

David Marine: So I've been involved in everything from the first Facebook page within the real estate industry that we created to the first YouTube channel that allowed you just search for videos of homes for sale, to the first mobile and iPad application in the industry. And I joke about it all the time, like I graduated from college with a degree in Marketing, and everything that I learned in marketing no longer applied. Because I didn't have courses on mobile apps and social media at that point in time. So it's really been a lot of on-the-job learning, which I think has been one of the best things.

Kailey Raymond: Absolutely, this is... Okay, so interesting, so you've seen so much change over the time at Coldwell. And I'm fascinated as well, because you're starting in marketing in your career, you end up actually being the CMO one day, you started also in a post-9/11 world, and now we're in a post-pandemic world. Two very different scenarios, but two major things that impacted the entire globe and the way that people are reacting to it drove a lot of macro trends. So that's what I'm curious to learn about is, what are some of the macro trends in today's world that you're seeing related to real estate, customer experience, customer engagement? And if you want to highlight some across your journey too, by all means, I'm interested because you have the full scope of what that looks like.

David Marine: When the pandemic hit, what was interesting to me is one of the biggest macro trends that I think has now become more commonplace was the digitizing of the real estate experience. And I remember from my first day, this was always something that was talked about, how do we move the transaction online, how do we make it turnkey and simplified? And for 18, 19 years, they were fighting that fight, and I say, "Oh, all it took was a global pandemic and the entire industry changed in less than three months." So now, that watershed moment happened and has moved the transaction much more to a digital native standpoint. And now it's not going away.

David Marine: So really just everyone had to be forced to do that before it could really become adopted. And so obviously that's a very big trend. And I think that coming out of the pandemic, different from 9/11 and even the downturn in 2007, 2008, 2009, is people reassessing where they can potentially live. So everybody had been tied to... There is a circle everybody is drawing in their mind of, "I gotta be within 15-20 miles of this." Work, school, family. And all of a sudden coming out of the pandemic, it's like, "Well, wait a second, remote works an option for so many, I don't have to be tied to this. Oh, and there's different types of education opportunities for my kids or myself or whatever." So all of a sudden the world became open, that's something that we really were focusing on in the last couple of years, is this idea of dreaming about where you would want to live. Because if you ask anybody, "If you could live anywhere, where would it be?" Very rarely does someone say where they're living right now.

Kailey Raymond: Really? Do you have any stats? Is there a percentage that you find?

David Marine: The David Marine Statistical Bureau does not have a statistical significance on that.

Kailey Raymond: All good. David Marine: But it's typically like, "Oh, I would live here." Or I would live by the lake or the ocean, or the mountains or whatever.

Kailey Raymond: Grass is always greener. David Marine: And so it's like, "Well, what's stopping you now?" Now that you can do that, and home values being at all-time highs and kind of the world is open now, it's really changed the perception of what is possible for that place that I wanna call home.

Kailey Raymond: That is... You're talking to somebody who's sitting in a... Probably not, probably, certainly an overpriced Brooklyn apartment who has dreamed about, "What if I just buy a place upstate?" I've been working from home for three years, so that trend really hits me hard, absolutely. And so digitization in your field seems like it accelerated just post-pandemic. That was what, a two-year transformation where everybody just decided to go online, build apps. How did that take place at Coldwell or some of the investments that you all took stock in? 

David Marine: Yeah, I think it was a three-month transition from an agent's standpoint. So we joked with some of my counterparts at the time that we were ahead of our time in how we rolled out certain things. So I'll take you all the way back to 2005-2006. We entered a virtual world called Second Life, and we opened up an office and we sold virtual real estate. And I remember walking into the...

Kailey Raymond: Sims-like? Right? 

David Marine: Oh yes. Yes, yes. And I remember walking into the CMO's office at the time, I'm like, "Just listen to this thing I'm gonna tell you." And trying to sell that through and we're like, "Well, how is this gonna work?" Like, "Well, who knows? But someday this could become something." And people said we were crazy, but it turned out to be one of the biggest PR things that I'd ever been a part of. Just the amount of attention that it drove. We rebuilt an actual real-life home, in the virtual world, so that you could explore. And we had this virtual... A really true virtual open house to walk through it. And so that type of stuff that we were doing in 2006.

David Marine: Now, today, when you talk about the Metaverse and all that kind of stuff, it is like, this is so commonplace. And people are asking, "Well, what's Coldwell doing in that?" I'm like, "Psh, did that 15 years ago."

Kailey Raymond: We did that forever. You're like, "Mark Zuckerberg who?" Come on.

David Marine: Yes, exactly. But from that to, we created the first YouTube channel in real estate, and we built it around listings that had videos associated with it and community videos and agent profile videos. And we've been hammering home this idea of video being one of the best ways that you can showcase not only a home, but yourself and your community, and you as an expert. I like to refer to myself as the video troll. Every so many months, I just come out from under the bridge and stomp around and start preaching about video. And that's something we were doing for a decade and now has become this like, okay, it's part of everything that we do. It's no longer having to sell people on the value of it, it's how do I make it better, how do I refine what I'm doing and use it in different ways? And then obviously from an online standpoint, it used to be how many people can I get to my website, and that battle no longer needs to be won. It was like, "Well, don't go to that, you gotta come to ours."

David Marine: So one of the biggest metrics we looked at is from... ComScore comes up with a brand measurement that tracks the amount of traffic to brand destinations online. And for me that's saying, "Okay, our network as a whole, as well as our brand, are people seeking out Coldwell Banker more than our competitors?" And for the last four years, we've been the most visited real estate brand online, and that to me is saying, "Okay, our messaging is working, our marketing is working. And locally, they're also driving it as well, 'cause we continue to see that we're drawing in that real estate consumer." So when you put that all together, those are the types of trends we've been building over the years, but are starting to come into fruition and are more commonplace now.

Kailey Raymond: That's so interesting too. I love that you're honing in on video and have been doing it for such a long time, because we always talk about that as, it's the most rich media form, you get everything from it. And the proliferation of real estate shows on Netflix is probably something that you could have predicted as well. I'm curious what... I was reading something about one of the tools that you're helping customers kind of navigate some of these trends too, with the MOVE Meter tool, do you wanna walk me through what that looks like? 

David Marine: Yeah, the MOVE Meter, that was one of those post-pandemic inspired ideas. Now that people can move anywhere, where would you live? And so beyond looking at the price of, "Hey, it's gonna cost X amount of dollars for a house here. And then X minus 20% there." What are the other factors that are part of that are interesting to people? Lifestyle factors, what is the workforce environment like, all those types of livability things. And so we really didn't see a tool that existed out there that could compare those things, so we created that to help entice sellers to dream about what their possibilities are.

David Marine: And listing inventory, the amount of homes that are for sale is an issue as people who are concerned about coming out of the pandemic, "Alright, how am I gonna do this? Is it safe?" Then even now it's like, "Well, what am I gonna do? Where am I gonna go? Can I find a new place?" So trying to get people off that fence and see what are the possibilities out there. And say, I don't have to... Whether it's five miles or 500 miles, you can start dreaming about what those possibilities are. What we've seen from that is the majority of our MOVE Meter searches are done across thousands of miles.

David Marine: One of the top destinations coming out of the pandemic was Austin, Texas, that was one of the most searched for. Florida as a state...

Kailey Raymond: Texas, baby. David Marine: Was one of the number one states. Everybody was like, "Let me get somewhere warmer and that's more affordable than where I'm currently living." But New York, it still pops, it's still a curiosity thing that people wanna be part of the big city. And so that was the idea of to try and how do we incite confidence in sellers to get off the fence and allow this to be a conversation starter of, "Yeah, I can mess around with this thing and figure out, oh, I didn't realize that how affordable it was or what they had to offer in Columbus, Ohio."

David Marine: And then I can talk to a Coldwell Banker agent to get down to brass tacks and figure out what is realistic or not. But we've seen our agents use this tool to help feed our markets, to showcase, "Hey, you wanna move from there to here. You wanna move from LA to Coeur d'Alene in Idaho, look at the value that you've got here." And vice versa too, if like, "Okay, if you sell your house here, here are some other options of where you can go and then have a similar either make-up of the style of the city that you want or even improvement."

Kailey Raymond: It's an incredible both lead generation and brand campaign. Very, very smart. I love the way that you're describing.

David Marine: Thank you.

Kailey Raymond: Yeah. Capitalizing on a lot of the trends that I'm sure some companies could have seen as quite challenging for their position post-pandemic, and really making it something that allowed people to be inspired. I think that's a really cool marketing tactic and strategy that you're employing. What I'm curious about too, is just obviously the pandemic was challenging for real estate, many, many industries, how did that impact the journey that you're bringing customers on? I know we talked about a lot of digital channels, but were there any other challenges that you all had at Coldwell Banker? 

David Marine: Yeah. One of the biggest challenges is that we had started to do a rebrand in the fall of 2019, and our big campaign launch was going to happen in March of 2020. Literally we were gonna launch the March Men's Basketball tournaments. And it got... The world shut down like the week before.

Kailey Raymond: Tom Hanks got COVID and the world shut down.

David Marine: Yes. Exactly. Just ruined it for the rest of us. So that was another challenge of we're going through this identity shift for what we thought all the right reasons and the right execution, and then it forced us to be like, "Well, now what do we do?" And people are worried about, "Can I go to the store or not?", versus how do we create this momentum behind our brand identity. And what is interesting to me is that I would have never planned to rebrand during a pandemic, but it turned out to be one of the best things for our brand at that point in time. We were branded around this identity of what we call our North Star logo. So obviously the star and our logo symbolizes two things. 5-pointed star, a universal symbol for excellence, dates back to Pythagoras in Ancient Greece.

Kailey Raymond: Shout out to Math, let's go.

David Marine: Yes, we use it as a symbol for something that can be improved upon. But it's also symbolic of the North Star and that you use, it never moves, it's always there in the sky, and it's been guiding people home for thousands upon thousands of years. Something that Coldwell Banker has been doing for over 117 years.

David Marine: So what we saw with our messaging as part of our rebrand campaign is that that resonated with people better than anything else. Both consumers as well as agents within our own network. And they're like, "Yes, this is the point in time where we need, who can we trust? Who's gonna guide us through this craziness? Can I go to an open house or not? Is it okay to have people come in?" And that really cemented the identity and the messaging. And what we saw is that consumers also saw it as an authentic message to who they perceived Coldwell Banker to be.

David Marine: I'm a big fan of doing testing and messaging and being creative ahead of time. And what we saw from that... 'Cause there's a concern like "Can we run ads during a pandemic, is it okay to promote ourselves, is that... Will we get lambasted online for it?" But what we saw is people were like, "Yes, this is exactly what I want to hear from a real estate brand. And it's what I expect to hear from Coldwell Banker as well, perceiving them as the most trusted brand in real estate."

David Marine: So that was a big learning moment for us as a whole that has helped propel us and helped build momentum. And a lot of times when you rebrand and you change a logo that's been around for 40 plus years, it's like, "Well, what are you doing? Why are you doing that for and how long is it gonna take for people to identify that? But we found at the end of 2020, a survey was done by an independent third-party source, LucidPress, and we were already the most recognized brand in real estate, just a year removed from changing our identity. So that to me spoke volumes of the work that my team did, but also how that connected with the audience as a whole.

Kailey Raymond: That's really interesting. And time when everybody was looking for somebody to trust and the symbolism behind the way that you approached that. And the fact that you are getting it to resonate both internally and with your customer base, I think, is something that is really rare. I think very often companies look at themselves and kind of pat themselves in the back or use internal lingo in a lot of ways. And like the customer doesn't care about that. They care about their use case and their problem. So to find that is really amazing. Coldwell's also a national company in and out. You have offices all over the place.

David Marine: 40 countries, yeah, 100,000 agents, 40 countries across the globe.

Kailey Raymond: How do you ensure your tactics and this can be from a brand or from whatever perspective you're gonna take it, but how do you make sure that that's adaptable to localized markets as well? 

David Marine: Yeah, it's not an easy endeavor by any stretch as well. So one of the things that I try to instill in my team is what we create. I want it to be so irresistible that people have no option but to use it and say like, yes, I connect with that. I want that for my own versus like, you have to do this and you have to use that. So whether that's through our focus on the emotional messaging and the concept of home more than investments and understanding how much that truly means, that our network as a whole, has really rallied behind internationally as well, because it doesn't matter what language you speak or where you live, home is an extension of who you are as a person. It's why we adorn our walls with photographs of those that we love and things that represent who we are.

David Marine: So I think that's part of it as well, but it's also finding ways to simplify the ability for them to embrace what you're doing. So most recently, I've been searching for a, what I'll call a custom video tool for years now and say like, instead of paying video editors to edit end cards and replace footage and all these types of shots, because in real estate, if you show a shot of a home, you're guaranteed to tick off like 30 other people are like, that doesn't look like a home in my area, right? Those aren't Florida palm trees. Those are California palm trees.

Kailey Raymond: I was gonna say, it's always the plant enthusiasts that'll take a look at the flora and fauna and tell you that you're wrong.

David Marine: That's not Arizona cactus.

Kailey Raymond: Yeah, exactly.

David Marine: So we finally, and through some help with our video partner, REP Digital, we came across a product that could truly create custom video on the fly. And so what we've done is we built these templated videos where you can swap out claims that are in them, footage that is in them.

Kailey Raymond: Wow.

David Marine: And even yard signs where we've created a template and all you have to do is type in what your phone number is and your URL and it'll update the yard sign and it doesn't look cheesy. It looks like a professionally produced real shot video. And that to me...

Kailey Raymond: Is that like generative AI or something? 

David Marine: Oh, no, it's just a part of this software that's called Morpheus.

Kailey Raymond: Pretty cool.

David Marine: And that has been a huge thing. We've been testing it within our network over the last couple of months. And we had over seven, I think I just got a report today, it said over 8,000 videos have been customized since we launched it in October to a small group of marketers who are within our larger companies that are across the country. And so that to me is, now we've created messaging that we know works because we've tested it and refined it from a brand perspective. But we're no longer force feeding you have to use it exactly this way. You can now take it and update it.

David Marine: So this year we're planning to launch some custom MOVE Meter specific videos. So you wanna say, hey, I wanna show the move from Memphis, Tennessee to Knoxville, Tennessee in my ad, but somebody else wants to show from Austin to Houston. That has the ability to do it. It's all centered around winning messaging that we know works, but it allows them to then customize it, use it locally. To me, that is a huge, huge win.

Kailey Raymond: That's so interesting being able to take something that is branded and can scale, but has the ability to flex to local markets to resonate. It is so, so hard to do. I need a tool like that. I am like, yeah, I'm pushing my team right now to leverage tools like ChatGPT to figure out if there's ways that we can really quickly customize per vertical, for instance, if we can take an ebook and just customize introductions and conclusions and pepper in some themes in between, could be a really fast win. So these new tools, definitely something that we need to look into.

David Marine: And ChatGPT on the real estate side, I think can do wonders, especially for property descriptions, because you're always struggling with, how do I describe a four bedroom colonial 13 different ways, right? That's the type of area where I think like, all right, it's something simple. It can help automate. And hopefully even improve some of the creativity of it. We haven't tested it from a brand messaging standpoint, but for those tactics that you have to do frequently, I think that those are going to be great tools to help make it a little bit more differentiated.

Kailey Raymond: That's a great use case. I guarantee if you put that prompt in, it would spit it out in 30 seconds.

David Marine: Oh, yeah. For sure.

Kailey Raymond: And you'd probably be able to use most of them. Very cool.

Kailey Raymond: So the central kind of like thesis question of the show, and you've touched on a couple of these so far, but it just centers around how you're leveraging a lot of the data that you're collecting, whether it's through, you know, in person agent connections, through whether it's through brand marketing, whether it's through your mobile apps and your website, like how are you combining and using all of that data and how is that influencing your marketing?

David Marine: I'm a big sports guy and I like to know if I'm winning or not. And playing without a scoreboard to me is like, it's worthless, right? I need to know, am I winning or am I losing? 

Kailey Raymond: David's competitive.

David Marine: Exactly.

Kailey Raymond: Okay. Great.

David Marine: I hate losing. So for me data is gonna help show whether we're performing at the level we expect or not. We have a ton of data out there from it, whether it's media performance, research, we do annual research both inside the industry of agents within Coldwell Banker and outside to see what is their perception of this, what's their likelihood to join us, what's the temperature check of how they perceive our brand? We do consumer brand surveys as well. We do a market mixed model to measure what the return on our ad spend is. But one of the most interesting things that we measure that to me I think is differentiator for us within real estate, because I'm not sure anyone else does it, is we do creative measurement. We actually were the first customer for a company called Ace Metrix, which just got bought by iSpot TV and they measure creative effectiveness and how persuasive it is and what are the key indicators of what people get from watching your ads. And to me, that has been one of the greatest things to do because it makes sure that your media is being spent wisely because you've got messaging that you know already works. You can have great media, but you have bad messaging, it's not gonna work. It's a mix of both.

David Marine: And through that over the last 10 years, we've been rated number one as having the most effective advertising in real estate. And in fact, one of our campaigns was one of the top 20 ads ever rated across all industries.

Kailey Raymond: Wow.

David Marine: And so Ace Metrix does it for all different categories. And so that has helped say, okay, I know this campaign and this direction we're heading is working. Let's now figure out how we execute it from specific media? How do we make it customizable? And to me, that is one of the biggest measurement secrets that we've had. In addition to being able to show, walk into any type of presentation and say, why are we doing that? I don't like that. Or I disagree with that and say, well, okay, you don't like it, but here's how it is either working or it's not. So then you're operating less on feelings and opinion and more on what's the score on the scoreboard.

Kailey Raymond: Very interesting. So what you're really talking about is personalization. You're hitting people with the right message at the right time...

David Marine: Yes.

Kailey Raymond: On the right channel. What I'm curious to learn more about too is combining those. So I'm assuming you have a lot of different properties, whether it's mobile app, web app, whatever...

David Marine: Sure.

Kailey Raymond: Different channels you want to talk about. How are you taking those signals and gathering that information around a specific individual cohort of people and then delivering that message back out to make sure it is resonating and you are in those number one ranked ads? 

David Marine: Yeah, we're trying to create audience segments that we want to specifically target. So coming out of the last two years, we've shifted from being focused on buyers to like how we drive listing inventory so let's focus on sellers. And what does that seller look like? Who already has a propensity to want to work with us that we can get easier off the fence and where are the gaps? And so through some studies, we found that our sweet spot is typically second time sellers. Like those are the most likely people to have worked with us in the past, want to work with us in the future. And also we rank very highly within luxury households. So we've already known that that is kind of where we need to focus.

David Marine: Now, those who are either first time sellers are probably where we have to do a little bit more work and invest a little bit more into driving that type of activity. But what that has allowed us to do is then from that profile, what is the media that we're purchasing that indexes highest against that? How are we adjusting our messaging specifically for that versus another? Obviously, everybody does AB Testing these days, but we've even done some simple things is we're just gonna switch the picture of this thing and the message of this thing and let's hit it to two different audiences and see which one is performing better.

David Marine: We typically like to have the Hub & Spoke approach of let's drive everyone to our digital storefront, it's coldwellbanker.com and we'll capture everything through that way to be able to see like what is our lead rate, cost per lead, return on ad spending and all that. And we've seen some really good successes over this past year, where we're able to lower our cost per lead, which to me is always a shock because I feel like it's eventually gonna go up at some point but lower our cost per lead and we're actually driving more paid leads through coldwellbanker.com this past year than we have in the past as well. So we've seen some good successes there and this year we're actually gonna be revamping, we're close to revamping our coldwellbanker.com website destination that will also give some additional enhanced improvements to help refine that process.

Kailey Raymond: That's awesome. It's amazing what those segmentations allow you to do in terms of ad suppression or lookalike audiences to be able to decrease the costs of your advertising and make sure that you're getting the right people to a lot of your sites. I'm very curious, that's awesome that you were able to do that because you're right, it is a very tough market right now. A lot of the ad spends have been going up, up, up when budgets have been going down, down, down.

David Marine: Yes. That's for sure. As long as you can show that it's still driving the revenue that you want and the performance that you want, then you know what? I'm willing to spend more because I know that it's gonna work in this way. But yeah, we're big fans of Power BI tools as well. We're using that for measuring our market share across the country. Specifically, we have some big goals for growing our luxury market share. So we've built out a Power BI layer that can showcase down to the zip code county to showcase what is our market share year over year, where are there opportunities for maybe potential franchise sales or where do we need to heavy up some education for agents to get them to better support the clientele that's there.

David Marine: So we're knee-deep in data, but the key is, and while everybody wants to have data, is it gonna be actionable or not? It's like, I can have all this stuff, but if I'm not willing to do something from it, then it's completely worthless. So that's really the key. And that's also a mentality shift of how your organization is set up and how your teams are built around to get people focused on, all right, we need to use this to activate growth.

Kailey Raymond: I'm glad that you said that because one of the areas that we talk about as well all the time is the idea of good data. And you're right. You can collect all the data in the world. Data is growing at exponential rates. Doesn't data double every 18 months? It's unbelievable the amount of information there is in the world today, but being able to act on it is an entirely different thing. So what are some of the ways that you're making sure that you know what that good data is and that that data is clean and actionable in real time? How are you doing that? 

David Marine: Yeah, clean data is like the holy grail of marketers is that I know this is true. I know this is real. It's not just made up. And I've used more than once over the past six months a quote, I believe it's by Mark Twain where he says there's lies, there's damn lies and there's statistics. And so you wanna make sure that whatever statistics you're using are truly actionable versus like, oh, let me paint this in a different way. And a lot of times you don't realize that until you've activated it. You say like, okay, I had this hypothesis, now we need to test that little scientific method and guess what, now it's producing those results and I know that it's working.

David Marine: So I'll go back to the creative measurement exercise. And one of the things when we first started using this tool to see like our ads are effective or not it's like, well, what is this really gonna do? How's this really impacting? Great, they think that it's a really cute ad and you got puppies and babies in it, but is it really helping you? And at one point in time, we were creating a campaign and I was planning to use a popular song in it. And then we tested it and was like, well, you know what? Let's test it with that and then let's also test it with just a generic house track that we found. We found out that the generic tracks scored like 50 points higher than the popular song.

David Marine: And so that not only showed, whoa, it was significantly high and in fact, that was the highest rated ad we've ever had. It not only did that, but it saved me over half a million dollars by not having to purchase that song.

Kailey Raymond: A win-win.

David Marine: So then all of a sudden you're like, okay, that is actionable data, right? It's saving me money and it's proving to be more effective. Like that's one of the greatest use cases of how can data help impact the bottom line. So I love telling that story because that was one of those eye-opening moments of like, okay, now I really can see the value of it beyond just making claims.

Kailey Raymond: I love that. That actually reminds me, I was reading about this because I was fascinated by it, is in a lot of the like Netflix reality shows, they have all these songs that sound really familiar, but aren't songs that you recognize. And I was like, is this an industry? Like, are there all these people that are creating these songs that are just for Netflix? And it sounds like, you know, tunes that you would kind of resonate with, but they aren't from artists that you would recognize. The answer is yes, there's like two or three of these companies that are creating these songs that really resonate with users and customers, but they aren't... They're not costly. And so they're saving tons of money. So it's a win-win that you're talking about.

David Marine: Exactly. I mean, why would you spend on Harry Styles' song when I can get even just 1% less engagement for something that is one hundredth of the cost? 

Kailey Raymond: That's so funny, I love that. Yeah, I was like, this has gotta be an industry. And if it isn't, I'm starting a company right now because I don't know anything about the music industry, but this is an opportunity. We've talked a lot about the way that you're engaging, your customers and using data to do it. I wanna know if you get any inspiration from those around you. It can be in your industry, it could be elsewhere. Who do you think is right? Who's doing it right in terms of customer engagement, customer experience? 

David Marine: Yeah, what's interesting, the consumer journey side of things. Within real estate, it is a very long journey from when you first start looking to when you ultimately buy, and then beyond that, it's years. So what's fascinating to me is those who have a consumer journey of mere minutes. And while there's pros and cons to them, I'm really impressed with DoorDash, GrubHub style and how they have said, all right, you've got a five minute window where someone is thinking about ordering something and then you have to get them to that turnkey, no hurdles, boom, and provide great service.

David Marine: And on top of that, everybody's had an issue where like the order got messed up or it's late or whatever, and I've found the responsiveness of them to say like, listen, we need to solve this quickly, throw them $10 coupon, next one's on us, whatever it might be, because they know that that satisfaction window is so small that it has to be a really great experience. And I've had both fantastic experiences and poor experiences on the platform, but I keep going back because I know, even if it goes wrong, that they're gonna find a way to make it right. So to me, that's one of the most impressive ones.

Kailey Raymond: And they're gonna throw you discount codes if you don't go on it for a couple of months.

David Marine: Oh, for sure, for sure. That's why you gotta rotate them.

Kailey Raymond: This is the game that I play. I shift between Uber and Lyft. I'm like, who's gonna give me a discount this month? 

David Marine: That's right, where's my 20%? 

Kailey Raymond: I love it. Do you have a favorite campaign that either you've run or again, somebody that might inspire you that's based on data? 

David Marine: Campaign that's based on data. Well, one of my favorite campaigns that I've run, the one that I referenced about where we were gonna plan to use a pop song and then didn't, turned out to be one of the... It was the highest-rated campaign that we've ever run. And it was centered around a program we did called Homes for Dogs Project, where we were finding homes for adoptable dogs. And one of the statistics that we came across that actually made us start this was that more people owned puppies than had children. And so therefore...

Kailey Raymond: Wow, the birth rate is really low.

David Marine: We're like, and they're very much a part of the home. Like if you have a puppy in your home, like your home is all about that dog. So we partnered with adoptapet.com, which is the largest adoption site out there to find homes for adoptable pets. And we created this campaign in a groundswell within our network to like hold local pet adoption events. And it was centered around this campaign called Somebody to Love. So you can guess the song that we were going to be using based on that. And it really, it struck a chord and it told the story of a guy who lost someone. You don't know who it is and are they alive? Do they break up? I don't know what happened. And then he comes across this dog and kind of that fills the gap in his life. That just created such an incredible reaction from our network as well as consumers.

David Marine: And then it was also activated locally through hosting these different events and our companies are still doing it today. So to me, that is one of the biggest things. And while it's not so much a campaign, we have had a long-term two-year partnership with St. Jude Children's Hospital as our charity of choice. And they're just such a fantastic organization and we've done different campaigns and pushes with them.

David Marine: And one of the most exciting things, and when you look at what the power of connecting with a person and the story that they tell is we had recently at our annual event, the Gen Blue Experience, someone from St. Jude's come and speak and told the story of their daughter who was hospitalized. They ultimately lost her battle with cancer and that inspired her to stop working and to come work for St. Jude so that she could help other families that are going through this thing. And so they give this speech and then we put a challenge out to the network, like, hey, we'd love to raise $30,000. And we ended up raising over $100,000 in less than an hour online.

David Marine: And when you look at how can you create things that is gonna inspire people to act, that is truly amazing. Well, we want to sell homes and that's been part of who we are every day, when that can also be partnered with something that speaks beyond just the bottom line, you're connecting with people, whether it be through dogs or wanting to send these sick kids back to their homes to be able to enjoy that. To me, that is a great part of being part of the Coldwell Banker brand because we understand the emotional aspects of home ownership better than anyone else.

Kailey Raymond: I love that. Yes, the ability to do good and do well as a business.

David Marine: Exactly.

Kailey Raymond: I think if you can find those two things together, it is an absolute sweet spot. Twilio has a few amazing examples too, where we power a lot of text messages. And so we work with The Trevor Project or Red Cross. And so really cool to be able to see how you're making an impact in the world. We talked about trends at the beginning and some of the things that you're doing to kind of make sure you're capitalizing on those. Do you see anything that's changing or on the horizon as it relates to data and marketing in the next six, 12 months? 

David Marine: Yeah, I think the globalization, specific to real estate, of the market and the real estate economy is a very large trend that is, it's on the cusp of turning around. You know, people talk about the world has opened up again and all that kind of stuff. But I think we're going to start seeing, and especially in the luxury sector as well, the interest from the international buyer in the United States as well as vice versa. What's crazy from a data standpoint is the data we have domestically is like a hundred times greater than the data that is available internationally. So trying to solve the... There's no MLSs and centralized data sources. And some countries have a lot, most of them don't.

David Marine: So when we can figure out a way that there is now this economy that can use that data, like that will be a huge benefit for real estate brands, as well as I think those international real estate consumers who are looking to buy and sell. That's not there yet. So that's something to keep an eye on. And we have international surveys that are out there. And one of the things that are coming back is that the majority of international buyers still see home in the same way that domestically we do as a sound investment that has long-term incentives. And it's the one investment that you can actually physically enjoy as well. So it's not going out of style. So that's one of the big things I would take a look at.

Kailey Raymond: That's so interesting. I didn't realize that there was such a difference in the way that the data is collected in different countries and how you'll be able to use it.

David Marine: Oh yeah.

Kailey Raymond: Wow.

David Marine: There's different rules for a whole lot of different countries out there. It's very interesting to navigate. But what's cool is when you bring a lot of our international agents to our annual event every year, they have the same hurdles that they're trying to overcome. And they can share best practices with the agents from Beverly Hills and Miami and Raleigh, North Carolina in between. So the way that they connect with customers, how they build their sphere is very similar. But the actual transaction aspect and how they can go about mining that data is always different.

Kailey Raymond: That's a massive opportunity. I'm excited to check in with you a bit to learn how that's going. Last question for you today, David, is what steps or recommendations would you have for somebody if they were looking to up-level their customer engagement strategies? 

David Marine: I would look at the team you have around you and ask yourself, are these the right people who can put you on the right path? That's one of the hardest things as I grew in my career is assessing, well, I really like this person and they've been around for a while, but are they the right fit for where we need to make changes in the future? And I have been beyond blessed with the team that's around me, that I have infinite confidence that they are exactly the right people for this moment and what needs to be done. And when you can say that, yes, these are the right people and they're gonna have a like-mindedness to reach our goal, but they can also be different in their opinions, that's going to give you the roundabout surround sound that you need to hear. David Marine: And so I often say like, I don't need another David Marine. I need someone who's gonna fill the gap that I have. And one the gaps that I have is I am awful at attention to detail. And like, I love the big picture and show me the pretty things. And then... But I've hired a woman, Michelle Walsh, she is in those details and the minutia. And it's like, yes, I need you to help fill that in. And I need someone who's got a different creative eye than me that can come in and add an element there.

David Marine: So really once you can have a team around you that is the right fit to tackle the task at hand, then it's gonna make tackling it much simpler. And you will have the motivation that they're all heading in the same direction. The greatest compliment that someone could give about my team was someone we hired from outside the organization who came in and they said, you know what? Everyone here wants to do a good job. It's like, what? That sounds horrible. Like where shouldn't... That's such a low bar.

Kailey Raymond: It means they care. It means they care.

David Marine: Shouldn't everyone want to do a good job though? Like, isn't that... But no, they don't. But it's because they care about the people around them and they care about making sure everyone is successful. So I think that once you have that in place, everything else becomes a whole lot easier and any hurdles that come up are much easier to overcome.

Kailey Raymond: That's great. Team is at the center. Make sure you're filling the gaps of the skills that might be a blind spot for yourself or other folks. Great advice. It's been really fun getting to know you and the real estate industry today. Thanks so much, David.

David Marine: Same here, Kailey. I appreciate you having me on.