The client: An online estate agency

A national online estate agency approached us for help with their Direct Mail Fulfilment, for them Direct Mail is their central marketing strategy and critical to helping grow their business.

When working with their previous supplier, the estate agency felt they had been failed on many occasions and didn’t have an effective and strong working relationship, which is central to operations in our industry. As a result, the client-supplier relationship had broken down, and the estate agency’s confidence was at an all-time low.

The challenge: Building strong working partnerships

The client approached us needing to be reassured that our processes were transparent and we would keep them informed at each stage of the Direct Mail process. They initially approached us only for alternative quotes, using their existing working model with their supplier.

The client wanted:

• Advice and support from a transparent, proactive and experienced team

• Accurate timelines for campaign distribution

• Same day or next day turnaround times for their campaigns

• Evidence and reassurance of transparent, efficient working methods.

From the start it was clear to us that strong, trusting working relationships with the client would be crucial to our partnership. We had to ensure our proposals could be delivered on time and in budget, every time.

We reviewed our capacity and approaches to identify areas where the client could save time and money by changing their approaches to Direct Mail, whilst still generating the results they were looking for.

The solution: Reliable, bespoke solutions

We were able to implement several measures from day one:

• Installing additional envelope enclosing lines to insert over 27,000 pieces of mail per hour, so we could guarantee a same day of next day campaign Fulfilment.

• Creating a dedicated returns management system to provide seamless multi-site data entries to a shared ‘Do not send’ list

• Managing physical returns of the sent mail, reducing manual handling and keeping the process efficient

• Switching their paper to FSC® certified materials, increasing their sustainability

• Switching their mail franking to Royal Mail’s Mailmark service, generating a cost-effective distribution process.

By transferring their campaign management to our in-house print management system, and putting all these new measures into place, we managed to reduce the costs of their Direct Mail campaigns and build a strong working partnership with the agency.

The result: Cost-efficient Direct Mail

We have saved the client critical time and in-house resources, by becoming their trusted Direct Mail, end-to-end Fulfilment partner. They have also benefitted from our advanced automated stock control and reordering system for their campaign management.