Property
Cushman & Wakefield is the world's largest privately held real estate services firm. The company operates nearly 100 owned and alliance offices in the United States with access to more than 12,000 employees globally. Cushman & Wakefield's brokerage and services professionals are the most trusted in the industry, typically involved in the largest, most complex assignments in major business centres. They offer expertise in all aspects of real estate - from buying, selling, financing, leasing, managing and valuing properties, to providing strategic planning, research, portfolio analysis, site selection and space location assistance, among many other consulting services.
The business sought a marketing agency with insight into the commercial real estate vertical as well as a strategic understanding of effectively positioning B2B thought leadership when managing long sales cycles. With customer sales cycles of up to five years, it was imperative to develop communications that continue to enhance the company’s brand and provide the business with rich customer data that feeds into future marketing activities.
Cushman & Wakefield had migrated to a new CMS platform for its online offering. It was therefore crucial that Concep understood this technology. This migration caused Cushman & Wakefield to rethink its strategy around access to information. Previously, the business had given its valuable content and information for free to anyone who wanted access. Part of the challenge was in how to get customers to understand the value inherent in previously freely available information. The key objective was to reposition Cushman & Wakefield as thought leaders.
There were three headline objectives. The first was to raise awareness of the Knowledge Centre. The remaining two centered around delivering trackable content that provides greater insight into, and relationship with, customers. The business wanted to drive customers to register to the Knowledge Centre and push up subscriptions to the RSS feed.
Concep developed a global communications strategy to drive users to register at Cushman & Wakefield’s newly developed Knowledge Centre. Concep also developed a Microsite featuring examples of content that mirrored some of what is within the Knowledge Centre. The Microsite was designed to be highly search friendly, including linking, meta-tagging and keyword density. Both the Microsite and the email template were designed by Concep to create a seamless and consistent brand journey from initial click-through through to final registration and advancement into the Knowledge Centre.
This was a global campaign that encompassed various regional components. Content within the Knowledge Centre and Microsite is English language, yet emails could be customised to the local language without compromising global brand identity.
The campaign strategy identified processes for deepening customer relationships. To support long sales cycles, Concep identified the most effective means – in terms of both channel and frequency - of delivering content on an ongoing basis to the target audiences. A key challenge in developing this element of the campaign strategy was effective measurement and conversion tracking.
Launching in November 2007, the campaign’s first month generated 6,701 new registrations, of which 75% have signed up to receive email communications. New registrations averaged 119 per day. The email campaign ran globally, across Asia, the Americas and EMEA. In the three months (September through to November 2007) since the launch of the Knowledge Centre there has been an 86% increase documents downloaded. This provides Cushman & Wakefield with a strong base from which to grow customer relationships, to gain greater audience insight, to develop more sophisticated communication strategies to manage high value, long sales cycles.
Concep is now aiming for a fully segmented database. There is also a focus on extending the campaign offline, to engage with numerous existing touch points that constitute Cushman & Wakefield’s marketing mix. An example would be to utilise presence within high value publications such as American Express Centurion Black.
“Concep listened carefully to our objectives, and designed and built the Knowledge Centre in less than three months, and achieved a truly global launch that included various regional components tailored specifically to our key clients and markets. By partnering with Concep, we effectively leverage our thought leadership position, target content more accurately, and allow our clients better access to our extensive research and resources.”
Celine T. Clarke, Executive Managing Director and Global Head,
Corporate Communications for Cushman & Wakefield.
“Concep was able to deliver a value add to help Cushman & Wakefield stay front of mind with clients and potential clients. The Knowledge Centre is effective because it feels like a resource, not an advertisement.”
Matt Cooksley, Global e-Marketing Manager for Cushman & Wakefield
