After developing marketing, websites and content for the healthcare industry, financial institutions, TV networks and World Wrestling Entertainment, SungJin Yun wanted to apply his experience in a new way. When he was presented with an opportunity to help shepherd a new web presence that would enable Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty to attract and retain clients in today’s competitive environment, it seemed like the perfect fit.
“I heard from real estate friends that the industry was always five to 10 years behind when it came to technology, web design, marketing, content or email development,” says Yun. “But when they asked about solutions, all I could tell them was that the solutions already existed.”
As senior director of digital strategy at Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty on Long Island, New York, Yun saw an opportunity to have a voice at a brokerage that was on the verge of exponential growth.
With 25 offices, 1,000 agents and $4 billion in sales last year, Yun was excited to help the century-old brand shine online via user-friendly web features that would better attract and retain clients. At the same time, he wanted to deliver enhanced functionality to his agent team while supplying real-time information so that marketing colleagues and executives could better allocate resources.
Arriving at the firm in 2019, it didn’t take Yun long to notice a variety of red flags that caused concern with the web vendor the brokerage had recently retained.
“They were already pretty far along,” Yun says of the new web project, “but we found a lot of things that led us to believe that we couldn’t launch with this partner.”
After careful consideration, Yun and his employer made the call to pivot and began working with Real Estate Webmasters—a decision Yun was impressed with after speaking with company CEO Morgan Carey.
“Morgan was personally invested in making sure we’d have a successful website,” says Yun. “We were looking for a partner, not a vendor whose only interest was how much money we could spend, and Morgan took the reins and said that he would be our project manager. And I took him up on it.”
Poised to begin unveiling their new web presence, powered by Real Estate Webmasters’ Renaissance platform, Yun expects a few important things to occur as the transition and new integration is completed.
“We want to launch with a maximized consumer experience. A lot of our traffic comes from community pages, so we want to emphasize and enhance that on our new website,” explains Yun.
“I’m hoping to see a greater lead generation influx that I can use as a talking point between agents and sellers,” he adds. “I want to make sure we have better search visibility and do better when people are searching specifically for listings. I also want to show that we’re innovative. We’ve been around for 100 years, but we’re not old. We’re experienced, and we want every visitor to come to our website and say, ‘Hey, I want a relationship with this brand.'”
Yun has such confidence in his team’s ability to work hand-in-hand with Real Estate Webmasters that he didn’t balk when CEO Deirdre O’Connell challenged her digital marketing team to help the firm double its sales to $8 billion in the first year of the new web platform’s integration.
“I hope it’s $10 billion,” Yun says with a laugh. “I know CEOs like to double things, but I try to go over the mark.”
For more information, please visit www.realestatewebmasters.com.
