Meet Brad Batesole

YMF Baltimore Guest Speaker

By Geneva Ives on Nov 7, 2017 in Marketing

The Yardi Marketing Forum in Baltimore begins November 13! During this sold-out event, multifamily pros from across the country will join us to learn new marketing strategies from expert speakers from both within and without the real estate industry.

Brad Batesole will be one of our guest speakers in Baltimore. Brad is the top marketing instructor for Lynda.com and LinkedIn Learning, with over 10 million views on his coursework. He was featured in Entrepreneur Magazine as a young entrepreneur after launching his first successful business at the age of 15 and has helped bring upstarts like LegalZoom, Lynda.com and Warby Parker to where they are today.

We recently caught up with Brad before the forum to see what’s exciting him now, both in terms of marketing and our upcoming event:

How does your work with LinkedIn impact your ability to speak to different audiences?

LinkedIn is home to an incredibly diverse member base — geographically, demographically and career-wise too. There’s a huge opportunity to speak to people that are in different stages of their career and even their lives. I’ve received incredible messages from all around the world and am often left speechless at what people are learning and how they’re applying it to get ahead.

Marketing is such a universal topic, and LinkedIn has created the opportunity to teach to a huge audience and learn from that audience as well. Some of what I do can look very one-sided – put a course online, and let people watch it. But behind-the-scenes I’m answering emails, talking with our members and learning more about how people are putting their education into action.

What new marketing technology or trends are on your radar right now?

I’ll admit, I’ve been rolling my eyes at virtual reality (VR) for a while. It just didn’t click; I couldn’t really see the widespread appeal and opportunity for it to become a new communication vehicle. But I got a demo a couple of weeks ago, and I was stunned. It’s something that you need to experience to really appreciate, and I’m now excited about what VR can bring to the table. Property managers should be especially excited about this. Imagine virtual tours from the leasing offices of all the different units and properties available.

Additionally, the home-assistant boom is exciting. Look, as much as marketers don’t want to broadcast this to the world…we love information. The more we know, the better we are at our jobs. The more connected the consumer becomes, the more data we can leverage for targeting. I’m excited at how this trend will shift the marketplace, but also incredibly sensitive to our needs as marketers to champion for data-security. Data breaches are bad for everyone. So, in a way, I’m also excited at the trend of shifting the web to HTTPS, for services to leverage encryption universally, and so on.

What are you looking forward to most in Baltimore?

It’s always a thrill to teach in person, meet new people and have real-time dialogue. But, outside of the event, I’m pretty excited to have my first Natty Boh and eat nonstop crab.

And besides marketing, you’re into…

Flying planes and whiskey; at separate times, of course.

Can’t join us at the forum? Connect with Brad on Twitter and catch his marketing master class LIVE on the RentCafe Facebook Page on November 15 at 9:45 a.m. PT/12:45 p.m. ET.