Three meetings a week, every week

The challenge

Everybody sells to estate agents. Portals, proptech, lead generation, photographers, board suppliers, software - the branch phone rings with it all day. The person who decides is the owner or director, and they are out on valuations for most of it. Whoever answers has heard every pitch and is paid to protect the diary.

3media’s offer makes it harder in an unusual way. A bespoke printed property magazine, designed and printed for the agent at no cost, sounds too good on a cold call. The first job is not persuading the agent they want it. It is getting them to believe it.

The approach

1. Call the branch, not the head office

   The decision on a magazine sits with the person whose name is above the door. Outreach went to branch owners, directors and franchisees directly, at the times an agent is actually at a desk - mid-morning, between viewings, the end of the day - rather than to a central office that would pass it on.

2. Lead with the product in the hand

   The quickest way past “there must be a catch” was a printed sample, so the pitch was built around getting one in front of the agent: their listings, their branding, local advertisers paying for it. Once an agent has held one, the conversation is about which listings go in, not whether it is real.

3. Qualify on listings and ownership

   A meeting was only a meeting if the agent had the stock to fill a publication and the authority to sign for one. That kept the diary full of conversations 3media could close rather than conversations that would need to go upstairs.

4. Run it at full-time rhythm

   Daily dials, meetings confirmed the day before, a weekly review with 3media showing meetings booked, sat, contracts out and contracts signed. Every agent stayed on the board until they signed or said no.

What the campaign returned

The agents below are described by type rather than named. They are 3media’s customers and prospects, not Caption’s, and we have not asked them.

• Three meetings a week on average, in a market where most vendors struggle to get one.
• Meetings sat with branches of national sales-and-lettings franchise networks, a London agency with dozens of offices, and independents across London, the Home Counties, the Midlands and South Wales.
• Agents signed. The route from first call to contract was measured in weeks, and 3media’s own team spent their time in meetings rather than finding them.
• A pipeline of further branches that had engaged and were waiting on the right moment - a new office, a rebrand, a quiet month - to take a sample.

Why it worked

One market, one message, one full-time person on it every day. Estate agency is a business of branches and personalities, not procurement, so it rewards persistence and a pitch short enough to land between two viewings. The number that matters here is not the size of the list. It is that the diary stayed full.