CHALLENGING THE MONOPOLY
T H E C H A L L E N G E :
Develop a full-funnel paid media lead conversion campaign to steal market share away from the legacy market-leading CRE appraisal software and establish Rockport VAL as the official Alternative.
​O U R E X E C U T I O N :
We created a three-sixty-degree marketing strategy to take on this behemoth through multiple creative solutions and executed them through paid channels such as search and social.
We then built a robust lead scoring system for our audience in order to qualify the leads.
We also built Rockport a new website, merging their five products, to drive the new leads to.
OBJECTIVE & GOALS:
We were briefed to get a major US bank to switch from the legacy market-leading CRE appraisal software to our client, Rockport VAL, and establish VAL as the Alternative solution for appraisers.
SOUNDS SIMPLE, RIGHT?
NOT QUITE...
CRE Appraisers evaluate commercial properties to establish their market value, using a range of resources, but chiefly through software. One company has dominated CRE appraisal software in the US since inception. Up until now, there has been no other Alternative…
In any B2B SaaS campaign, the end objective is always leads. For Rockport VAL there was a bigger objective: Sway user sentiment away from the monopoly towards Rockport VAL and land a major US bank.
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This felt like an impossible task at first. Our client told us that it would be incredibly difficult to move one of the big banks because their systems are so deeply entrenched in the monopoly’s software.
But, if we were successful, there would be a huge ripple effect in the appraisal industry. Banks use external appraisal firms to evaluate properties, and they dictate to these external firms what software to use. One big bank switching to Rockport VAL would mean that many small external appraisal firms would have to make the switch too.
Our client wanted to achieve this in six months.
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CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!
With the above in mind, our goals became:
Drive six months of highly qualified leads (this was not just a numbers game – we needed to reach senior job titles at the largest banks in the US) to trial Rockport VAL for free and book demos.
Land one of the big US banks
We set ourselves a target of bringing in 300 leads over the six-month period to achieve the above:
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July: 15 leads
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August: 25 leads
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September: 35 leads
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October: 50 leads
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November: 75 leads
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December: 100 leads
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TOTAL: 300 leads
TARGET AUDIENCE
& STRATEGY
We decided to cast a highly focused net at large CRE companies and banks and their decision makers.
The size of the CRE appraisal market is small in terms of the number of people (who actually make these business decisions) that we could target. And let’s be honest…it’s appraisal software. We weren’t exactly selling Kylie Jenner’s make-up range.
Our approach was driven by a six-month run of multiple campaigns targeting our audience through the following digital channels:
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Google Search
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Google Display
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LinkedIn
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Facebook
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YouTube​
From this, our process for qualifying leads
BECAME A SCIENCE.
free trials of the platform in 6 months
7.75%
Produced a Google Search Ads CTR of
WE DEVELOPED A LEAD SCORING SYSTEM FOR OUR AUIDIENCE.
Each time a lead filled in a form on our website, we categorized them into one of four tiers, based on the following criteria:
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Did they submit legitimate contact details?
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How big was the company?
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Did the company fall within our client wish list (we referred to these as “Superbowl clients”)?
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How much time did they spend on the Rockport VAL platform during their free trial?
An expected $ value amount was assigned to each lead based on which tier they fell into. The bigger and more important the company was, and the more time they spent in the VAL platform, the higher tier they were assigned with a higher expected $ value.
IMPLEMENTATION
& CREATIVITY
Our first challenge was to ensure that Rockport VAL was positioned correctly in the market so that appraisers could begin to see VAL as the official Alternative.
We had heard through the grapevine that the legacy system was spreading misinformation that VAL was a small team running out of a garage and therefore not a legitimate option for CRE appraisal software.
This is however not the case. Rockport VAL is a product of Rockport – an enterprise-level software provider that has been successfully operating for over 20 years. They have a suite of products that services the entire lifecycle of commercial real estate. Unfortunately, our audience was not yet making that connection. So, we changed that.
We went ahead and merged the products under the parent umbrella of ‘The Rockport Group’ and built a brand-new website that showcases the full suite and allowed us to lean on the Group’s history and legacy to support our claim that Rockport VAL is the Alternative in CRE appraisal software.
We ran a campaign to our audience announcing this merge and the launch of our new website.
We then created a variety of creative assets highlighting Rockport VAL as ‘The Alternative’ and touched on the audience pain points that we knew were bothering them and would make them start considering a switch. We drove our audience to our new website to request a free trial or demo of VAL.
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HOLD UP! A FEW MONTHS INTO OUR CAMPAIGN...
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The legacy system announced that they would be force-converting all existing and new clients to their new ‘cloud-based’ system and simultaneously alluded to the fact that they would be taking ownership of their client’s data.
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This gave us an opportunity to target a potential Achilles heel in their armor. We quickly pivoted our strategy to educate the audience about what this all really meant as these ‘updates’ are often done with a lot of jargon and fine print. Using metaphors and simple language, we developed creative content and Search Ads that would highlight areas where we knew it would hurt them the most; from data misuse, to forced conversions, and poor customer service.
RESULTS
After six months we generated 307 highly qualified leads, when we got a call from the client:
Will Trepp (Rockport COO):
“WE JUST LANDED ONE OF THE
LARGEST US BANKS!!!”
It was a huge moment (some people cried).
Then, as hoped, with one of the biggest banks in the US switching over to Rockport VAL, the bubble burst and a ripple effect began with more and more banks starting to engage with Rockport about migrating to the VAL platform.
Your team's performance on this campaign was
I know we asked a lot out of you, and you delivered. I think the commercial real estate appraisal industry will remember 2022 as the year the world changed. Truly spectacular, both in the planning & creativity but also the execution!”
- Will Trepp, Co-Founder and COO of The Rockport Group.
7.75%
Produced a Google Search Ads CTR of
free trials of the platform in 6 months
Our marketing helped Rockport secure one of the largest
banks in the US
potentially changing the appraisal market for everyone.
130%
Managed a cost per lead that was
below industry benchmark.
Winner
for Best Campaign Effectiveness at The Global Agency Awards 2023.
Increased website page views by
190 %
Set up
160
free trials of the platform in 6 months
Generated
307
Leads in 6 months