For centuries, explorers looked to the stars to help them navigate new worlds. In Baltimore, stargazers aren’t using the night sky to track galaxies explore the Milky Way. Instead, the same modeling and algorithms used to map galaxies is being repurposed for a more pedestrian purpose: urban vacancies. Astrophysicists and city planners are working together to find new ways to manage abandoned buildings and future development. Patterns and Particles As part of an effort to help the city manage housing stock and anticipate residency trends, Baltimore recently partnered with John Hopkins University astrophysicist Tamás Budavári to find a way to detect patterns and predict which parts of the city will thrive, and which areas will end up empty and abandoned. According to Budavári, though astrophysics may have little in common with urban planning, at the core is a fundamental need to detect and detail patterns not readily apparent. “I thought: Can we measure this correlation of clustering of vacant houses the same way we made measurements about astronomy,” Budavári explains in a recent interview with Wired. Data and Diligence Last year, Baltimore Housing Commissioner Michael Braverman contacted Budavári about developing an algorithmic tool capable of predicting the city’s vacancies. Working through the John Hopkin’s Center for Government Excellence (GovEx), Budavári and Braverman are working together to find a proactive approach to the city’s urban planning. The key? Data. GovEx is a three-year program funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies. The goal of the organization involves aiding municipalities with the collection and analysis of data, so that “governments [can] effectively use data in order to make informed decisions on services that improve people’s lives.” The program also connects 120 partner municipalities across the country, helping each city manage data and share strategies. “We can take what we learn,...

A savvy group of marketers joined us for learning, networking and fun at the bi-annual Yardi Marketing Forum (YMF) in Baltimore last week. During the event, attendees explored the latest trends in digital marketing, tips and tricks to optimize outcomes, and real estate technology. As noted by Esther Bonardi, Yardi vice president of marketing, the event is “all about helping you tap into your inner marketing genius.” Here are some of the top digital marketing themes covered: Get in touch with your audience As marketers, we’ve traditionally divvied up our target audiences by demographic information. In today’s noisy digital landscape, we need to meet our customers where they’re at. Speakers Brad Downs, vice president of marketing for the Baltimore Ravens, and Brad Batesole, staff author at LinkedIn, shared strategies to better reach target audiences. Drawing from his fifteen years of experience in sports marketing, Downs stressed the importance of moving from brand first to fan first. “It’s that fan first mentality. Our fans are incredibly important to us. Fans want to feel as important as they are,” he said. By focusing on fans first, opportunities to engage and foster fandom become easier to identify. Downs demonstrated that life stage marketing goes beyond traditional demographic segmentation, resulting in better customer experiences, tailored events and increased engagement. For the Ravens, life stage segmentation resulted in targeted fan development campaigns focused around women and adolescents. This included Purple, a community building initiative to cultivate the female fan base, and RISE, a football outreach program for local children and high schoolers in emerging Ravens strongholds. Life stage segmentation helped draw 130,000 fans to Ravens marketing events,  development of an international audience, and an average attendance of 71,000 people at each home game. At Wednesday’s marketing master class, Batesole...

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)...