The Marketing BOD
The Challenge
Parks is an independent residential letting agency based close to Brighton station and has been trading since the early 90s. Its founder Graham Jasper is still actively involved in the business and is believed to be the longest serving founder in the local industry. Soon after 2002 the industry saw an influx of new letting agencies and therefore growth in competition. Today the local area boasts a massive 120 letting agencies! This coupled with tenants staying for longer in properties and hence a decrease in new tenant demand, meant that Parks needed to become ‘smarter’ at what they did in order to continue with their year on year growth which they had been previously achieving.
I was hired as a marketing consultant to carry out a full marketing audit with business advice and a marketing plan for future business growth.
The Approach
The big challenge was how to differentiate Parks from the competitors, bearing in mind that services offered by letting agencies are pretty much the same. I started with a mystery shopping exercise, literally calling the competition in the role of a prospective landlord, to determine how services were packaged and priced and also to request literature, and check out their customer service. This coupled with a review of websites, brochures, marketing and advertising materials enabled me to quickly determine their strengths and weaknesses and positioning in the market place, which I aligned against Parks.
I went out onto the street and did some market research with a questionnaire and clip board and asked the general public about their experiences with letting agencies. It became clear that generally customer service and attitude of staff were the main issues!
I looked internally at all customer interactions by staff alongside letters and documents and marketing items seen by customers. This coupled with a review of processes and procedures, analysis of sales and other useful data, staff interviews and observations, provided me with all the information I needed to determine a comprehensive and effective Marketing Action Plan, which Parks fully implemented!
Marketing Action Plan highlights
- Product Pricing – changed to a simpler basis and positioned carefully within the market place.
- Company culture and personality – carried out an exercise with senior staff to determine a brand personality. Today everything adheres to these agreed brand characteristics.
- Branding review – created a list of brand guidelines to be followed in all marketing communications and explained the importance of consistent branding.
- Office image – highlighted the image portrayed from the window display to the main focal point when walking into the office. Created a set of image guidelines to adhere to over time. Today the office is a stunning environment and reflects the brand characteristics perfectly.
- Website – created a list of requirements and a website briefing document for the web developer in order to make the website more effective. The website has also moved up significantly within the search engines.
- Marketing activity – reviewed all marketing activity and provided guidelines on marketing, advertising, promotions and PR.
- Customer Service – created servicing guidelines along with changes to some procedures and staff.
- CRM – recommended investment in a CRM system so that regardless of who answers the phone, staff are aware of past history and can give excellent end to end customer service.
- Feedback questionnaires – created customer questionnaires for key service elements. Parks take any comments seriously to help identify any opportunities for improvement. Feedback today is excellent!
- Inserts – highlighted the need to provide certain pieces of useful information at key stages in the letting process. Provided content for information leaflets.
- Letters – created a set of guidelines to be followed for the rewriting of all customer letters.
- MIS – recommended key data requirements to determine better business performance and to drive certain staff behaviours.
- ARLA – recommended that Parks join a professional organisation, which they have, and they adhere to their strict guidelines.
The Results
Seven years on, the number of properties on the books has increased by a whopping 52% to 548. This is a great credit to Parks and demonstrates effective marketing planning in action. The growth in properties is supported by an increase in turnover of 50%, along with healthy profits.
Parks continue to follow the marketing principles learnt and have been transformed into a marketing led organisation. They have a warm and caring customer focused culture which is continuously looking for opportunities for improvement to ensure a quality offering is given to all customers at all times.
Parks continue to work with me on ad hoc projects and I am proud to be associated with such a professional and forward thinking organisation!
