Helmores
Helmores marketing has always been very pro-active and as such, they were starting to wrongly be perceived by some as an expensive agent. Consequently, they’d seen a loss of market share at the lower end of the market with ‘cheaper’ agents dominating market share in Exeter and the surrounding areas.
A brief that required a new approach
To counter this Helmores launched a dedicated First Time Buyers department to help inexperienced buyers through the entire journey, holding their hand, right up to completion and beyond. The challenge then was to promote this new offer and of course earn back market share.
To cut through the clutter of Estate Agency marketing we took this brief as an opportunity to challenge the expected within the market with a campaign that was brave but made good business sense.
"Brave are my absolute go to people for new marketing ideas, branding, and design work. If you're in search of a company to elevate your business with new and innovate ideas I highly recommend you speak to them."
First Homes and your first kiss
Everyone remembers their first kiss or their first car or even their first mobile phone and so we turned peoples 'first times' into a playful cross-channel marketing campaign that encouraged social media engagement. We incentivised our audience to get involved by offering the perfect prize for a first-time buyer - a £100 voucher for the recently launched IKEA store in Exeter.
We launched the campaign with a large scale mail drop to the whole of EX17, whilst at the same time we posted a series of playful “vox pops” street interviews asking people if they remembered their first times.
Facebook, press and local bus shelter advertising completed the channels as we encouraged people to tell us their funniest first times - whilst all the time subtly selling in our first-time buyers centre. The creative was irreverent and playfully illustrated the nostalgia of a 'first time' event. It drew the eye immediately and as such meant competition entries came in every form, including a handwritten letter from one person.
Results that delivered
The campaign was a phenomenal success for Helmores - after losing ground to local agents in the first time buyers market the First Time campaign boosted their market share of properties sub £200,000 by 26% in the 6 months following its launch.
Not only that but Helmores also earnt additional revenue from financial and conveyancing services that they didn’t have before! The success of the campaign and Helmores overall marketing effort was acknowledged in 2019 as they scooped the Best overall UK Estate Agent at The Guild of Property Professionals awards. It has also been acknowledged by other awards with Just Enough Brave scooping a Highly Commended award at the 2019 Wester Morning News Business Awards .
