Saffron Building Society set some pretty ambitious strategic objectives for its mortgage business, including define a new product range, clearly differentiate the brand, and offer borrowers genuine and compelling reasons to choose Saffron. To do this, the mortgage proposition was completely revisited, and an intermediary facing product range, identity, and website were developed for ‘Saffron for Intermediaries’, launched via an integrated awareness campaign.
In order to gain maximum awareness and clarity, the strategy was executed across mixed channels, positioning Saffron as the ‘home of special situations’ – the range of lending products designed for specific situations.
A standalone logo and strapline for Saffron for Intermediaries was developed, setting it apart from the consumer division. Saffron’s online presence was firmly established with a new responsive intermediary website, which allows brokers to view the product range and information using any device.
Supporting the website are an email template developed for product communications, and online advertising. The online and press advertising was lead with a brand positioning ad, leading into a series of product ads matching specific borrower situations with a Saffron mortgage. We also produced a specific intermediary product guide that offers an at-a-glance view of key product information.
How did this campaign perform?
If we compare sales funnel figures against the same period in 2012:
- Total applications made up 280%
- Value of applications made up 220%
- Value of offers made up 18%
And the website achieved some great figures for the same period too:
- 161% increase in weekly unique user visits to site
- 80% increase in page views across site
- 32% increase in average time spent on site
- 16% increase in organic traffic from search engines
- 35% increase in new visitors
- Daily call volumes rose, averaging a daily increase of 288% and peaking at nearly 800%
- Email sign up has grown, averaging a weekly increase of 129%
We had some great feedback about this campaign, and we’ll finish this post with a quote from Marketing Manager of Saffron Building Society.
‘The integrated approach of this campaign has really paid off – the combination of new brand identity launch, functional website with targeted PR and advertising campaign has been very effective in both positioning the Society as the go-to lender for special situations and generating leads cost effectively.’
Carol Harrison