The real estate industry has been talking about affinity marketing for over 20 years. “I know. I designed, deployed and managed my first affinity program for a broker in 2003, and have done so for other brokers and for my own company ever since then,” said Kim Cunningham, president and founder of OnePoint Solutions, LLC.
It’s time to take a new look at affinity marketing—through an analytic lens. To do this, you need data. OnePoint Solutions’ data shows that when a program is done right, it can generate solid revenue and support many other important brokerage goals.
Over the past 11 years, OnePoint Solutions has managed its own affinity and lump-sum relocation programs, using that time to hone its technology platforms, service delivery methods and, most importantly, capture a decade of data that relates exclusively to affinity marketing and lump-sum relocation services. Once the pump was primed, our conversion data has been both impressive and consistent, proving that this poorly served market sector can produce real value.
We share this important proprietary data, not only to show how well our approach and technology works, but, more fundamentally, to demonstrate that this is a viable market sector to pursue.
Most companies aren’t tracking their own affinity marketing data. And if they are, they’re certainly not sharing it. So how do you know what does and doesn’t work? How do you get leadership buy-in? And how can you project revenue without any historical data?
OnePoint Solutions believes that this critical data will help those who want to enter the affinity and lump-sum relocation market sector to assess, design, deploy and manage a successful lead-generating program through affinity marketing.
If you already have an affinity program, with signed client organizations, but it’s not producing up to its potential, compare your results using this data, then consider renovating your program and relaunching.
Brokers, team leaders and agents want more control over their business. Leads from third-party sources are either expensive or only convert 1%-3% of the time, or both. Brokers need to realize sustainable growth by generating quality business, keep as much revenue as possible in-house, dictate their own business rules, determine referral fees, if any, and retain and recruit top agents and teams.
Can a properly designed and run affinity marketing help to achieve these goals? OnePoint Solutions is certain that it can. But “this isn’t your father’s affinity program.” The data proves that this is, in fact, a viable market sector to pursue.
Here’s the story OnePoint’s numbers tell.
Business development—how long will it take?
It takes time to fill a sales pipeline—time to engage and sign a client organization, get their employees to register in your affinity program, work with the assigned agent and complete a transaction. In our experience, it will take an average of one year to start earning revenue from your first introduction to a prospect, to begin closing transactions. Once you’ve launched the program within a client organization, it takes, on average, 24 days to assign your first real estate opportunity. Our numbers reflect a complete sales cycle, starting from scratch and represent averages.
- The sales cycle starts with the initial introduction of your affinity program to a prospect, through networking, emails, or phone calls, and is followed by exploratory conversations and follow ups during the first three months after initial contact.
- The next phase includes signing the new client after a proposal has been submitted. Anticipate that the prospect may spend up to 4 months conducting their internal discussions of your proposal with all stakeholders.
- Once a prospect presses the ‘GO’ button, they’ll launch the new benefit to all employees. You can expect to assign your first real estate opportunity within 24 days.
- Once an employee has been assigned to an agent, their transaction is normally completed within 4 months. This includes the time to list and/or search for a new home, and the time between agreement and closing.
In our experience, starting from scratch, it’s taken between 8 to 19 months from initial introduction to our first closed transaction. If you already have clients, your pipeline will be shorter. There are also many situations when transactions close more quickly. The takeaway here is that you need to be patient and let the process play out.
Program conversion rates
You are starting to sign client organizations. Congratulations! Many brokers have been here before but have failed to get traction and conversions. OnePoint’s technology platforms and business approach address many of the challenges in this market sector and is helping brokers all over the country assess, design, deploy and manage their own in-house affinity marketing programs. For the purposes of this article, we are sharing our success story by the numbers—11 years of historical data.
The important data to be considered when discussing conversion rates include the total U.S. employee/member base, how many in this population will register or visit your affinity website, how many of those who register will let you assign an agent and of those, who is assigned to an agent and how many will complete a transaction once assigned. Here’s what our data shows.
- Registration rate: ¼ – ½% of 1% of employees will register. This is the initial annual rate. Registrations increase as awareness is built through messaging and word of mouth.
- Real estate assignment rate: 35% of those who registered will be assigned to an agent. Not all registered employees were interested in real estate at the time they registered.
- Close rate: 60% of the assigned affinity real estate referrals will close. 70% of assigned relocation referrals will close. This astounding conversion ratio doesn’t just happen. There are many factors that must line up for your program to see this level of success.
Now that you have the data, the question is—are you ready to think differently?
For additional information or a demo, visit www.OnePointSolutions.net or contact Kim Cunningham at kcunningham@onepointsolutions.net.
