Rockend is one of Australia’s leading property management software companies. At the forefront of real estate management systems for 40 years, today approximately 60% of all Australian rental properties, and 40% of strata lots, are managed using Rockend software.

The real estate industry faces disruption from a number of quarters, and Rockend is no exception: the company itself was acquired by global real estate software company MRI Software in late-July, helping it expand across complementary market segments. 

Yet Rockend’s business vision remains unaltered: to create new value for real estate professionals. And under the direction of Catherine Vissiere, Head of Marketing at Rockend, the company is delivering a marketing strategy built on digital and social foundations designed to support business growth, extend and reposition the Rockend brand, and nurture closer engagement with property managers. 

As she points out, “We’re about helping real estate agents do less of the routine ‘rinse-and-repeat’ work that many remain shackled to, and more of the added-value selling, marketing and relationship management they joined the industry to do. Property managers often struggle to do this.  Our role is to help them reset their value proposition. And in this disruptive market, we’re using technology to drive engagement, manage outcomes and measure program performance.”

The importance of data in strategy

Data defines Rockend’s marketing. The company uses Digivizer to manage the performance of its digital marketing programs and works with Digivizer’s agency services team on content development, creative, community management and paid media management.

Catherine Vissiere again: “I first worked with Digivizer during my time at Microsoft, and decided to bring them on-board at Rockend as a strategic partner. I had seen first-hand the power of their innovative digital analytics platform and their pursuit of continuous, insights-driven programs that delivery growth. They are a company that is leading the digital marketing industry in their pursuit of innovation, working closely with their customers in generating value.”

Creating new value and empathy with property managers

The two companies collaborate to create, publish, manage and monitor content that aligns this strategy for growth and leadership with the needs of the property managers who are Rockend’s target audience.

Rockend has built a new community around property managers, called Property Rockstars, migrating them from older solutions to a new cloud-based solution, and identifying and attracting new users. The intent is to deliver helpful, relevant content, showing a deep understanding and empathy for the property manager – and the data shows it’s working: Rockend’s share of voice on social against competitors in June 2019 was at 75%, with its nearest competitor at 14%. 

People are talking about the company, and engaging with the brand more than ever. Followers have grown 39-40% growth in 12 months across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. The Property RockStar community has over 1,500 property managers who share content and support with each other. Engagement is up in the group – by 65% in the last two months alone. And video views have increased 13 times to over 624,000 views.  

What’s more, the company can compare performance across all these platforms, and compare organic performance with paid: paid leads have more than tripled, with a 74% reduction in cost-per-lead, and a click-through-rate that is more than double Google benchmarks.

“We want to own new debates in an increasingly complex and competitive space, and share these discussions in context with our customers,” says Catherine Vissiere. “They increasingly rely on us for expertise and insights – for example, sharing insights into how to manage difficult tenants or landlords, or providing support when property managers witness domestic violence in homes they manage. We want to form meaningful and sustainable relationships with them.”

The plan is built around a balanced mix of organic and paid media activity. Integral to both is identifying and working with advocates, communicating product updates, understanding and acting on feedback, and being clear about the content required to delight users and customers.

“One advantage with Digivizer is being able to connect our Google spend (which Digivizer manages) and Digivizer, meaning we can manage and track channel performance in paid search alongside social, in real-time,” says Catherine Vissiere.

Rebuilding brand

Almost 12 months ago, Rockend underwent a substantial rebrand, launching new online communities and merging others.

Rockend’s objectives will continue now that the company is owned by MRI. The Rockend brand will remain, new products will be brought into Australia to offer users here, and Rockend-developed products will be marketed overseas.

“Our partnership with Digivizer gives me the confidence of knowing precisely what content is working for us, why, and what can we do more of. We share a similar culture of experimentation which allows us to jointly innovate, and continuously look for improvement of the performance of our social communities, using Digivizer’s transparent, real-time, data-driven platform.”

“Overall we believe we are delivering helpful, relevant content, showing a deep understanding and empathy for the Property Manager which is working for us.”

Rockend uses Digivizer Digital Marketing Analytics Platform to provide real-time insights across owned, earned and paid media. Sign up for free today.