Workstream Solutions - Online design artwork solutions for publishing print and advertising

The Challenge

When it comes to selling property in the region of Auckland, Barfoot & Thompson can’t be beaten. In 2007 their 62 branches and 950 sales staff sold $6.7 billion worth of property - that’s over $18 million a day.

With specialist expertise selling properties in categories of residential, country and coastal, and commercial, as well as professional management capabilities in the areas of auctions and property management, Barfoot & Thompson have a wide breath of sales and marketing know-how.

Barfoot & Thompson understand that even if you are the market leader you must maintain your competitive edge. You must constantly strive to improve your business including providing your branch network with enhanced systems and streamlined procedures. Barfoot & Thompson therefore, in order to remain in the lead, undertook the task of looking for an advertising and marketing solution that could service a branch network, of their size and stature, with its entire marketing needs.

They wanted a robust system that could integrate with several of their pre-existing systems including their CRM, intranet and website. The solution also had to be holistic so as to encompass the role of their internal media bookings team and design studio, as well as the cross promotional needs of every branch on their network, who work under a scheme where they are encouraged to jointly market properties from other offices to further expand buyer reach.

The Solution

CampaignTRACK, JobTRACK Studio and BookingsMANAGER technologies were integrated into the Barfoot & Thompson suite of office management tools, design studio and media team. A team of five Workstream Solutions Project Management staff relocated themselves to work alongside the Barfoot & Thompson technology department and over a six week period fast tracked the integration of systems, liaising with existing suppliers for product and pricing information, advised on supplier negotiations, assisted with finalising the brand redesign and trained somewhere in the realms of 130 staff to manage and run the day-to-day marketing operations from head office and across the network. Phew!

Facts

• As part of the change management process head office took the opportunity to re-brand all advertising and marketing materials. CampaignTRACK was the ideal vehicle to give instant access to the new look and ensure everyone conformed to the new style and governing brand rules.
• Integration with all existing Barfoot & Thompson systems allowed the offices to pass images and data from one system to another without logging into systems or additional data entry.
• By setting up all existing supplier products, prices and artwork options within the CampaignTRACK ”shopping cart“ agents were now able to create professional marketing budgets with full costings to present in vendor sales pitches.
• Marketing staff across the network were able to self-manage the design process with no design experience following the easy to navigate workflow and using online design templates. Once copy was produced in one marketing piece it was easily lifted to the next ad or piece of collateral without retyping.
• Financial management processes were incorporated as part of the new CampaignTRACK system and book keeping staff from each branch were given authority to view and approve vendor paid marketing budgets in advance of order submission.

More Information

For more information about Barfoot & Thompson you can visit their website at www.barfoot.co.nz.

For more information about Workstream Solutions technology and solutions, please contact us.