Case Study: Ryder & Dutton

In this case study, we share why Ryder & Dutton rolled out their leaflet drops to all 26 branches. In addition, discover their most effective marketing strategy and most engaging flyer designs.

The Client: Ryder & Dutton are multi-award-winning Estate Agents with a 26 office branch network across West Yorkshire and Lancashire, also incorporating Mortimers Estate Agents. Recently, they were acquired by one of Leeds largest agents, Manning Stainton.

The Targeting: We began providing print and flyer distribution campaigns for their Huddersfield Town Centre office, cycling critical areas in and around Huddersfield with about 20,000-30,000 leaflets per month. They were so successful that the Ryder & Dutton Directors requested we provide bi-monthly leaflet distribution campaigns to all 26 Ryder & Dutton branches. Each branch repeated to the same specific sectors on a bi-monthly basis, taking our advice that the more times people receive your flyer, the more likely they will respond. This resulted in 80,000-90,000 leaflets printed (on environmentally friendly carbon capture paper) and distributed each month.

The Flyer Design: Where possible, the flyer design was focused around a season or event appropriate for that month. A notably successful design was an Easter Egg colouring-in competition for kids, with entries uploaded on social media for the winning entries to win easter eggs. As a result, Ryder & Dutton received hundreds of responses from kids, which helped to strengthen the brand within local communities further.

Another notable design was when they were one of the first Estate Agents to launch free online valuations. We had calls from different offices asking if we were distributing in their area that morning as they had already received several online valuation forms on their website!

The keys to note here are that a leaflet design, which encourages a receiver to respond and provides a tangible benefit, will generate the most robust response.

The Results: The whole point of the multi-branch multi-stage door to door campaigns for Ryder & Dutton was to provide a sustained flow of new leads into each branch. This is exactly what happened, and as a result, the campaign was annually renewed. Further, Ryder asked us to extend the campaign to incorporate their Auction House franchise to provide prospects with the option for a quicker and more guaranteed sale via auction (an extra 40,000 per month). In addition, our Head of Sales Marketing, Andrew Robinson, was asked to work as a consultant with their vision team to prepare their marketing strategy for the following year.

How we Achieved This: The critical marketing principle that Ryder & Dutton adopted is our drip effect marketing strategy. This is where you repeat to the same audience frequently to build up brand awareness, creating brand trust and, ultimately, brand engagement.