Engage

Introduction

Through our extensive experience at Realhub offering print services for transactional processes and marketing like letterbox drops, we began receiving requests for work outside the general day-to-day. This included redesigning agency branding and creating products such as a Pre-List and a Proposal. The Pre-List document was essentially a flyer agencies would drop to a potential lead to promote themselves and their recent sales as soon as the potential seller expressed interest.

After designing a few of these for clients, we started to consider if this was a product worth turning into a digital offering. Over the course of a few months, we designed web versions of these print products and sought feedback from agencies and brands who produced them.

Background

The positive responses from agencies to our designed templates made it clear that this product was heavily utilized in the marketing process and had significant value. Our previous product experience with Realhub positioned us strategically to take advantage of this opportunity.

We were particularly interested in how close this product was to the conversion point. Providing value at this stage directly tied our software to their success and income. Additionally, this allowed us to branch out from transactional campaign management to year-round income-producing activities for agents. This shift offered a potential subscription income stream, contrasting with our traditional focus on transactionals, which fluctuated with property sales and affected operational profits seasonally.

The Product Solution

Since the product existed in many manual forms for most agencies, we quickly identified what was necessary for our solution.

• Digital and Print: Given the nostalgic pull towards print material in the property market, every proposal needed to be:
  • Customizable
  • Brandable
  • Available as both a digital page and printed document
  • Personalized to the seller
  • Automatically populated with data from the agency
  • Printable in PDF form
  • Faster to create than existing InDesign templates
  • Easier to produce than sending an email to a PA
  • Enhanced with better market data than the agent could access
  • Capable of tracking views, reads, and activity, with feedback to the agent
  • Configurable by template developers, not software engineers

Our first iterations of digital proposals were hand-coded and custom-made for each agency, using data from their Realhub accounts. We quickly learned this approach wouldn’t scale commercially due to the high costs of software engineers relative to market appetite and budget.

The Digital Template Builder: There weren’t any ready-made solutions for what we envisioned. Unlike the white-label offers available for the Realhub artwork builder, the digital proposal space only had tools like PandaDoc, which required extensive customization for agencies.

We explored exporting data to platforms like Webflow but ultimately decided to build our own solution. This decision allowed us to create a unique product that stood out in terms of customer onboarding speed, customization, and final product quality. Competing products lacked the ability to produce fully brand-styled print documents, making our sales and conversions more straightforward.

Our Impact

The software and the templates created with it captured significant market share from our competitors. By being the best and easiest to customize, our team not only helped create a market but also converted in-house designers and DIYers to our product.

• Unified Resources: Built with extendable and customizable core philosophies, any new component, style, or feature added to the template engine benefited all our customers.
• Flywheel Product: Agents are hyper-vigilant about their competitors’ products and tactics. By creating the best-looking, best-performing proposal landing pages, our product quickly spread throughout the market. Potential sellers who invited multiple agents shared competitor pre-lists, which self-promoted our product with built-in credibility and social proof.
• Ease of Use and Cross-Selling: The product could be quickly taught and used. Existing Realhub customers were swiftly onboarded, creating high customer volumes in a short time. This product was a great horizontal move, with both products feeding customers to each other.

Seize the Opportunity… Sometimes.

Engage was an opportunity that emerged from a design project. It’s the kind of opportunity you’d struggle to capture if you weren’t closely involved with the daily workings of your business. Conventional wisdom might suggest turning down projects outside your core offering, but this was clearly worth seizing.

While it could have been a massive distraction, trusting in your team’s ability to execute can sometimes pay off. Following Alice down the rabbit hole can lead to unexpected and rewarding opportunities.