PAR turns a triple play with Feathr’s all-in-one platform

The Triple Play Realtor® Convention & Trade Expo is one of the largest real estate conventions and trade shows of its kind in the United States. It is the place to be if you’re looking to stay ahead in the ever-changing world of real estate. Triple Play is hosted by the New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania Associations of Realtors®.

And the job of telling the world about Triple Play falls on a small team of marketers between the three organizations. At the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors®, Samantha Gatesman, who goes by Sami, is their digital content manager. She works closely with Kevin Juliano, their chief growth officer, to promote the benefits of learning and networking with Realtors® from across the country every December.

Together they’re trying to make the most of the time — from telling local Realtors® about the value of membership to ramping up ticket sales for Triple Play — but it never feels like there are enough hours in the day.

Kevin says, “We'd love to be able to stop and focus and complete something. But there's often so many things begging for attention. We get pulled in multiple directions every day. We’re a small organization of 32, but we’re serving 39,000 Realtors®.”

So step one for Sami and Kevin was to find a marketing platform where they could do the million things they needed to do without jumping from one platform to another. Think of it as another triple play: digital ads, email, and sponsored retargeting all in the same place.

Thinking outside the inbox

Sami knows what they’re up against when it comes time to compete for attention. She says, “The never-ending challenge is being able to stand out in the inbox.”

What drew Sami and Kevin to Feathr initially was the ability to reach members in more ways than email. The team was spending a lot of time producing great webinars, but they weren’t seeing the registrations that hard work deserved.

One of the primary ways of reaching these members was through Email Mapping campaigns (or CRM retargeting). Sami simply uploaded her list of members onto the platform, and then started serving them digital ads.

We all know how busy the world is. And marketing has become in many ways a game of volume. Most people simply aren’t going to take an action after seeing something for the first time. 

Sami says, “Maybe they don't click the ad the first time, but it's just getting in front of them in a different way. Webinar topics change every month, so we want members to have the opportunity to learn more about what interests them. And we know that not every one of our 39,000 members reads every single one of our emails.” 

And these digital ads have helped boost webinar registrations by 442 since they began supporting email with digital advertising. And this is often step one for members, jumping into one of the many benefits of PAR membership.

Sitting on a goldmine

Kevin knew they were sitting on a goldmine when it came to having such a valuable community of members. But how could he leverage it for PAR’s long-term sustainability and growth?

And this is where sponsored retargeting, or Monetization, comes in, which was probably one of the easiest sells for Kevin.

He wasn’t interested in selling his valuable community’s data, but he was interested in making smart connections between his sponsors and his people. With Monetization, PAR could serve ads for its sponsors without sharing any of their personal data with them. That’s because they were simply running their sponsors’ ads to their audience — right in Feathr.

Kevin says, “Two $5,000 sponsorships like that quickly cover the cost of the platform. So, that was the mindset going into Monetization. And we easily made up that difference.”

But after those initial campaigns, he’s realized it’s a value to so many of their sponsors, and has been rebuilding sponsorship packages with the idea that gaining access to 39,000 real estate professionals is a greater value than they had originally priced in.

Turning a Triple Play

But all of these new campaigns are never a replacement for email. And this is why email came back to the forefront when it was time to market the big event, Triple Play.

Every year, thousands of Realtors® descend on Atlantic City, which is only a couple of hours from eastern Pennsylvania. There are opportunities to form strategic partnerships, but Realtors® can also fulfill all of their continuing education requirements to renew their license.

Triple Play isn’t only PAR’s event. But Kevin and Sami take on a lot of work to help promote the event for everyone — even beyond their own organization. 

And this year, they’ve run digital ads and email all through Feathr, simplifying their software suite while increasing the impact of each individual piece. These combined campaigns led to 689 ticket purchases for $76k in revenue!

But part of the magic with consolidation was an added level of control and clarity. 

Sami says, “I love that we are able to do this in-house and not hand it off to someone else. I'm an analytics person, so I want to see what's going on — what people are clicking on.”

Sami pays attention to the small details. And this new level of visibility led to optimizations in the design process. Today, they focus exclusively on the six ad sizes that bring in most clicks and conversions. And they’re more and more diversifying between static imagery and GIFs.

And even if it starts with curiosity, it always ends with action.

Sami says, “We wouldn't be able to make those optimizations if someone else were running the ads. This way, we can see it all in real time.”

It’s all coming together

Before Feathr, though they were getting results with email, they always felt a little in the dark.

Kevin says, “In Feathr, we can see the ROI of an individual email send. That's one of those things we never had a clear picture of before. Now seeing it all in one place allows us to connect those dots and pull the funnel together more effectively.”

With Feathr, PAR is creating greater synergies between their campaigns, but also between their community and partners. And the real kicker: by having it all in one platform, they’re having an easier time with it all, and getting bigger results!

Kevin says, “Having it all centralized enriches the data that we can use for our campaigns. And this is both helpful and powerful at the same time.”