Member Article

Savvier communications to unlock estate agency growth in 2020

Smarter customer communications will prove key to property sector growth in 2020 – that’s the message from established residential sales and lettings brand, Haslams.

The Reading-based business has a heritage spanning almost 200 years, but the forward-thinking estate agents has continually tried to break new boundaries to remain relevant in a competitive marketplace.

The latest initiative has seen the team invest in state-of-the-art marketing technology from automation platform Force24, as the company gears up for growth over the next 12 months.

With a database of thousands of customers who have sold, bought, let or rented via Haslams, the marketing team will now focus on nurturing and maintaining warm relationships with as many individuals as possible.

“2019 statistics showed that British people now move house, on average, every 20-23 years,” explained Haslams’ marketing manager Melissa Hughes. “However, there are significant variations in the data when you drill down into different geographical areas and also age groups.

“We therefore don’t want to leave things to chance. Previously, once someone had kindly left us a review, they were unlikely to hear from us again. But by devising savvy personalised journeys that deliver the right content, to the right people, at the frequency most suited to them, we’re hoping to remain front-of-mind when consumers do decide to look for their new home.”

But this is not about sending mass ‘batch and blast’ communications, continued Melissa.

“With all our communications, the priority is to add value,” she said. “We’ve thought carefully about the different types of ‘customers’ who may visit our website and now channel our content accordingly. We are also beginning to author guides to pass on as much helpful advice as we can, without being intrusive, and Force24 will help us take this to the next level of sophistication.

“Estate agents aren’t known for continuing to offer helpful home-owning information after someone has picked up their keys. They also aren’t known for leading with an empathic tone which demonstrates a real understanding of an individual’s reason for moving home.

“We don’t want people’s inboxes to be crowded with information that they don’t want to receive. By learning more about every single person in our customer base, we can hopefully enhance their experience, long after their move, to cement relationships and drive Haslams’ growth – all while remaining GDPR-compliant.”

Haslams was so confident in the Force24 platform that competitor products were quickly excluded from the shortlisting process. As part of the onboarding phase, one of the initial priorities will be to ‘speak’ to customers to understand their personal communications preferences, before any of the next-step marketing begins.

Force24 is one of the fastest-growing UK built and managed marketing automation platforms with sector-wide clients including Worldpay, BBC Children in Need and Hitachi.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Katie Mallinson .