Case Study: Real Living

Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 RSS Feed | Trackback

Getting personal with customers through direct mail

The challenge: outgrowing internal fulfillment processes

Real Living quickly increased to 65 franchises in 20 states and continues to expand its franchise footprint across the country. As a result of this rapid growth, their internal direct mail fulfillment processes became labor intensive, slow and unmanageable. Real Living executives felt it was distracting them from their true business focus — being a top real estate agency.

According to Alex Green, Vice President of Marketing, Real Living needed an automated, technology- driven, easy-to-use direct marketing system. “Our current solution was cumbersome and labor intensive. We just couldn’t offer our agents true flexibility.” she said.

Gaining the personal touch

Real Living’s online direct marketing portal enables agents to keep in close contact with their customers. Agents can place their direct mail or printing orders online, knowing they will be processed and in the mail the next business day. Real living has provided more than 1,000 direct mail templates — so that their agents can implement custom and personalized automated direct mail campaigns either on the fly or scheduled up to a year in advance.

“It’s important that our agents don’t lose the personal touch and feel with their local markets. QuantumDigital’s AutoMail feature allows them to set their campaigns for a year and keeps their focus on acquiring new business, not running to the post office,” says Gretchen Bartholomew, Director of Operations at Real Living.

The Real Living direct marketing portal also allows agents to adjust and personalize the corporate branded mailers for their local markets, yet still provides the brand protection that Real Living was looking for.

QuantumDigital’s Management Dashboard also allows Real Living executives to keep a pulse on their company’s direct marketing activity. “Before the online Management Dashboard reporting tool, we had to try and track our marketing activity manually. Now I simply login and view an up-to-date snapshot on all direct mail and printing activity.” says Green. “I can drill down further to view detailed office or agent level reports. It has saved me a lot of time and effort.”

Franchisee Usage is on the Rise

Direct mail usage rates have increased to 2.2 million pieces this year, an increase of 500,000 more than last year. Lori Wily, Director of Customer and Agent services says, “The number is continuing to grow.”

Looking ahead, Real Living plans to take advantage of QuantumDigital’s new eMarketing offerings. “I see direct mail and email being a huge focus for us in 2008,” says Bartholomew. Agents will soon have the ability to send personalized direct mail, email or both to their customer and prospect base.

“QuantumDigital helped us create an automated, technology-driven solution. They are always investing back into making their system better and more functional and we get to reap the benefits!”
– Alex Green, Vice President of Marketing, Real Living, Inc.