Marketing Q&A

Meet 3 YMF Speakers

By Geneva Ives on Aug 10, 2016 in Marketing

Our second Yardi Marketing Forum of 2016 is coming up next week, and we couldn’t be much more excited! Multifamily marketers from across North America will meet us in Seattle to talk tech, trends, and best practices during this multi-day conference.

Talented guest speakers – from within and without the real estate industry – are a huge part of the success of this biannual conference. In preparation for the fun and learning ahead, we asked three of them to share some insights into their marketing roles.

Keep reading to learn how these marketing pros got started, what they love about their jobs, and what’s inspiring them right now (spoiler alert: if you’re into Snapchat and Pokémon, you’re not alone).

Meet the speakers:
Kelly Cook, Chief Marketing Officer at Kmart
Alex McGhee, Digital Marketing Manager at Pinnacle
Karen Kossow, VP of Marketing at FORE Property Company

Yardi: How did you get started in marketing?

Kelly: I actually started out in finance, can you believe it?! From there, I managed a reservations call center, and was eventually asked to come to marketing to manage the new marketing IT systems. In marketing, I fell in love with inspiring our employees to deliver magic to our customers.

Alex: I first got a taste of marketing in college when I obtained a minor in Marketing at the University of North Texas. After I graduated, I tried my hand in sales and financial services for a few years then landed a job with a small insurance startup overseeing SEO and SEM. That was really when I got hooked on the marketing career path!

Yardi: What do you like best about your current role?

Kelly: We have 100K passionate and member-focused employees at Kmart working hard every single day to transform our business. They inspire me to be a better leader, better colleague, better employee. Seeing them be the hero to our member – and seeing the member’s reaction… that’s the best part.

Karen: Tough one… there are a number of things. I love that I’m getting to expand my knowledge base by working with new markets. There are a lot of great people here whom I really enjoy. Although it’s not a full rebrand, I am getting to be the driver of a FORE “brand tweak” with new corporate brochure and website. It’s a lot, but I’m a bit of a challenge junky – if everything were easy, I’d be bored.

Yardi: Which marketing trends are inspiring you right now?

Kelly: I’ve been on Snapchat for a long time, but now I’m getting snaps from our members and their kids. My Snapchat ID is runwayroadkill (nickname –  it’s long story, ha). Our members and their children snap me all of the time telling what they want more of or less of. It’s super fantastic!

Alex: Snapchat’s geofilters are very intriguing at the moment. I have also very recently been exploring the benefits of piggy backing off the current global Pokémon trend.

Karen: Yes, I’m also excited about Pokémon Go, and not necessarily for all of the same reasons as others. I do love how people have been leveraging it through social and other marketing tools, but for me it’s the fact that it’s such a successful use of augmented reality. Augmented reality has fascinated me for years, and I can’t wait until the costs to create/implement come down enough that we can find lots of ways to apply it to what we do. Hopefully I’ll still be alive and marketing when that happens!

Yardi: What are you looking forward to most about the Yardi Marketing Forum in Seattle?

Karen: I’ve met and gotten to know so many great people at the forums I’ve previously attended that I’m looking forward to doing so again. I love the ability to brainstorm about the RentCafe platform products and to be able to talk to the experts about them. And…finally…. I’ve never been to Seattle so I’m excited about seeing another new city!

Alex: I look forward to talking about working with the RentCafe team to track how prospects are really using our property websites. I’m also excited to share my great experiences with Yardi in general from a customer service perspective. I have seen nothing but top notch customer service since day one of our relationship with Yardi.

Kelly: I just love, love, love being in a room with passionate, fun, optimistic, smart-as-hell, people who want to be extraordinary, not ordinary!

Let’s Keep the Conversation Going

We’ll be posting live on social media throughout the event and our attendees will be too. To see what we’re up to and get great tips from these guest speakers and others, interact with the hashtag #YardiMktgForum on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Want to plan ahead for next year? Get the details for the first Yardi Marketing Forum in Austin, Texas, in 2017!