CASE STUDY
A CRM for the Real Estate Industry
Savills: Maximizing ROI through Marketing with monday.com
Savills, a globally recognized leader in the real estate industry, has been at the forefront of property advisory services since its founding in 1855 in the United Kingdom. Over the years, the company has built an enduring legacy, evolving into a multinational corporation with over 40,000 employees across 70 countries. Despite its global presence, like many long-established firms, Savills faced challenges in modernizing and aligning its internal processes, particularly within its UK marketing teams.
The Challenge: Inconsistent Messaging and Inefficient Processes
By 2021, Savills’ UK marketing efforts had become fragmented, with various teams working on different real estate sectors without cohesive oversight. This lack of coordination led to inefficiencies, inconsistent brand messaging, and underutilization of the team’s talent. The scattered efforts made it difficult for Savills to present a unified brand image, affecting the return on investment (ROI) for its marketing spend.
Savills recognised the need for a strategic overhaul and appointed Vix Bennett as Head of UK Brand and Marketing. Bennett’s primary task was to unite the marketing teams under a single, streamlined process to ensure consistent messaging and more efficient use of the team’s talents. “The ultimate goal was to deliver ROI for our marketing spend,” says Vix. “It was clear to me that there was talent in the team, but they just weren’t being used in the right way.”
The Solution: Centralizing Efforts with monday.com
To address the fragmented nature of Savills’ marketing teams, Bennett focused on three critical areas: people, processes, and platforms. She restructured the marketing division to cater to the company’s core sectors—residential, commercial, and rural real estate. Meanwhile, she tasked Georgina Green, the Associate Director and Senior Marketing Planning and Operations Manager, with finding a digital platform to streamline internal processes and improve efficiency.
After evaluating several platforms, monday.com quickly rose to the top of their list. The platform’s flexibility, ease of use, and ability to integrate with existing tools made it the perfect fit for Savills. Its user-friendly interface allowed marketing teams with varying technical proficiency to adopt it seamlessly. Additionally, monday.com’s adaptability enabled teams to maintain their unique working styles while still collaborating effectively.
“monday.com is a great place to have everyone in one space and collaborate, but also without hindering individual teams’ ways of working,” notes Green.
Transforming Workflows with monday.com
The first major change implemented using monday.com was the introduction of a form to track all marketing requests. This form fed into an automated dashboard that provided a clear visual overview of how resources were being allocated. The data revealed an eye-opening statistic: only four of Savills’ 17 divisions were making full use of the marketing department’s services, and much of the work requested was administrative or internal, such as name tags and organizational charts.
With this insight, Bennett’s team used monday.com’s automation features to address low-value tasks. For example, when a request for business cards or other basic items came in, the system automatically provided on-brand templates that employees could use themselves. This simple automation allowed the design team to focus on high-impact projects like external campaigns and client work, which ultimately drove more revenue for the company.
Expanding Marketing’s Reach and Impact
With the busy work minimized, Savills’ marketing department was able to extend its services to all 17 divisions. The team also began taking on more creative and high-value projects that had previously been outsourced. This shift not only saved the company over £200,000 in outsourcing costs but also allowed the internal team to maximize its potential and deliver better results.
Using monday.com, Bennett and Green could track project pipelines, measure ROI, and balance resources more effectively. This transparency ensured that marketing efforts were always aligned with company priorities. For instance, when external design services were offered to clients, Bennett could quickly assess the potential income and ensure the team was meeting or exceeding its revenue targets.
“It’s ten times easier to showcase our impact to leadership and prove we’re getting a return on the investment in our marketing team,” says Vix.
Spreading Success Across the Company
The success of monday.com in the marketing department soon caught the attention of other departments within Savills. Public Relations (PR) began using the platform to manage their content plans, improving transparency and collaboration with Marketing. The result was fewer meetings and email threads, allowing for more productive and creative work.
Even within the marketing department, the potential of monday.com had not been fully realized. Bennett and Green continue to explore ways to combine workflows and boards to further streamline collaboration and enhance campaign management.
“monday.com is proving to be an excellent platform to help us realize our ambitions,” says Bennett.
Why monday.com is Perfect for the Real Estate Industry
The real estate industry is fast-paced and highly competitive, requiring a solution that can manage complex workflows and dynamic teams. monday.com is uniquely suited for real estate companies like Savills because of its ability to integrate seamlessly with other tools, its intuitive user interface, and its flexibility to adapt to various working styles. Whether managing marketing, client communications, or project timelines, real estate companies can benefit from the transparency and collaboration that monday.com offers. With its powerful automation features, teams can eliminate repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on high-value work that directly impacts revenue. This level of efficiency and visibility makes monday.com an indispensable tool for real estate firms looking to maximize ROI and streamline operations.