The New Real Deal

Last July, Coldwell Banker broke YouTube.

They didn't mean to. But they were uploading agent videos to their new “On Location” branded channel and added so many that YouTube had to revise its rules.

“First, they didn't allow YouTube channels to have more than 1,000 videos on a single playlist,” says David Marine, senior manager of e-marketing at Coldwell's Parsippany, NJ, headquarters. “We broke that. Second, they never had a channel with more than 2,000 videos on it. So when we hit that number, the system basically shut down, and YouTube had to go in and arrange special access.

“I'm putting it on my resume,” he laughs. “The guy who brought YouTube down.”

Why the massive video upload? Because Coldwell Banker Real Estate, the corporate arm that services a network of 100,000 independent broker/owners in the U.S. and 46 other countries, has been on a drive to increase the ways it can get its listings in front of potential homebuyers at all stages of the decision process — including, in the case of the Internet, those who are in what CMO Michael Fischer terms the “dreaming stage.”

“Before coming to Coldwell Banker, I spent 15 years at Nissan North America,” Fischer says. “And I've noticed here in Jersey that the local car lots see some of their heaviest traffic on Sundays — because they're closed. You can go and kick the tires without anyone bothering you.

“One of the beauties of YouTube is that when people are in that dreaming stage, six months away from buying, they're not ready to call anyone, but they might find an online video listing with an agent that just clicks for them. We want to start getting our brand name and our agents' profiles in front of them in that dreaming stage, so that when they're ready to go we're top of mind.”

YouTube videos aren't the only weapon in Coldwell Banker's new-media arsenal. The company has also launched a Facebook page and corporate Twitter account, and is integrating listings with the Dash Express GPS navigation device.

In August, Coldwell also rolled out a free app for smartphones, both the iPhone and Google Android versions. Users can now use Web-enabled phones to search for listings in 28 countries and save their results in a mobile “My Coldwell Banker” account. For any searches saved to their smartphone mobile accounts, users can also opt in to receive alerts of new properties and open houses on their phones.

And last July, visitors to New York's Times Square were able to interact with the electronic billboard above the W Hotel to display a selection of home listings in any Zip Code in the nation. By texting “homes” and the chosen Zip to a short code, they could call up three properties — lowest-priced, median and most expensive — from Coldwell's database for that area. A follow-up text message invited mobile users to surf to the main ColdwellBanker.com site on their phones.

“We have a brand promise of any listing, any time, anywhere, through our listing platform,” Fischer says. “Going on the billboard and letting people pull up listings by mobile was to me the ultimate form of listings any time, anywhere. You're on Broadway at TKTS waiting for ‘Lion King’ seats, and yet you can shop for a home.”

Disruptive technology

All these steps are breaks with tradition in the world of real estate marketing, which has relied on personal contacts within the community, open-house showings, and such channels as classifieds, print ads and direct mail.

Those high-touch, highly local marketing tactics have been real estate staples for more than a century — at least since Colbert Coldwell formed his first real estate firm in 1906 and hired Benjamin Banker as a salesman five years later. But they no longer fit with the way most people start the process of looking for a new home.

“Because of the Web, a real estate agent has no idea who the next customer will be,” says David Siroty, corporate communications director for Coldwell Banker. “They're looking through listings on the Web at work or at home before ever setting foot inside a broker's office.”

Instead, they've been combing Craigslist and prowling Zillow, Trulia and a host of other Internet sites that offer not just listings but the quality-of-life information that agents used to have a lock on, from local schools and shopping to property values. A 2008 study by the National Association of Realtors trade group found that 87% of buyers purchasing a home reported using the Web to do research.

Homebuyers' habits have changed, but the real estate industry has been generally slow to adapt. In 2005, the Department of Justice filed an anti-trust suit against the NAR for obstructing Web-based brokerages in some markets, a suit that was settled only last year.

Looking around for a technological edge, Coldwell Banker realized that while YouTube contained real estate videos galore, they were disorganized, not geo-targeted, impossible to search and often obsolete. “Type in real estate on YouTube and you got 68,000 results with no connections among them,” Siroty says. “We realized we were sitting on a trove of unbelievable information, with 100,000 sales associates, homes to showcase, and agents whose personalities and expertise could jump off the screen.”

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