Project Overview

iPads are the hottest new toy for digital organisations, while professional, risk free presentations that deliver a compelling value story are the goal of every sales management team. Integrated with key sales tools, REA Group's Sales Presenter iPad app makes it easy for account managers across all business units to create a customised client presentation in minutes. The Sales Presenter includes the ability to monitor usage to assess relevance of message, email relevant slides post-meeting to a customer, and personalise the presentation with the client’s logo. REA Group’s sales presenter app has improved the quality of customer conversations and relationships.

Organisation

REA Group

Team

Marketing team: Natalie Feehan, Stuart Quintal, Jackie Pippin, Wendy Cameron; Go-to-market team: Rebecca Pfitzner, Darryn McShane, Kelly Mitchell; REA Group Technology support; External agency: Story Communications - Aaron Cooper, Joel Thomson, Kate Speakman

Project Brief

A time and motion study identified that account managers across REA Group’s realestate.com.au, realcommercial.com.au and REA Media businesses spent significant time preparing client presentations, sometimes up to 60% of their week. This impacted their ability to build customer relationships and promote the return on investment offered by REA Group’s products and services.
To ensure consistent messaging, the objective was to create a centrally managed presentation which could easily be customised for each customer and used the latest technology - reinforcing REA Group’s position as an innovator within the digital media industry.
A presentation framework was created covering every type of customer conversation, however, four additional and critical requirements were identified:
1. The presentation tool had to be able to easily and quickly update the plethora of standardised industry metrics each month (e.g. Nielsen Online Ratings);
2. Every presentation had to be able to be customised to individual customers, including the ability to add names of people attending the meeting, their organisation’s name, and use of their brand throughout the presentation;
3. It had to give sales managers the ability to measure how often the tool was used, by which account managers and with whom; and
4. It had to be easy to implement future content changes.
This provided our B2B agency partner, Story Communications, and REA Group’s technology, marketing and go-to-market teams the mandate to create a brand-specific tool that could be easily deployed to every account manager’s iPad and updated as necessary.

Project Need

Neatly encapsulated within an iOS app with html5 powering the content, a 200 page presentation tells the value story for brands realestate.com.au and realcommercial.com.au. Dynamic design enables flyout boxes to reveal additional statistics and insights and active links to key information points to help articulate the REA Group value story.
Key features of Sales Presenter that improve sales force productivity include:
• A scheduling tool to help manage forward appointments and prepare all upcoming presentations;
• Ability to create a customised presentation showing only the slides that will meet the information needs of the specific client in less than 90 seconds;
• Bookmark slides of particular interest to a client and email a PDF to the customer post presentation with the relevant information; and
• Link out to various sales tools such as a CRM and reporting interface, and websites regularly used during a customer meeting.
Additionally, the sales management dashboard can provide accurate recommendations on where content can be improved via real time monitoring of which slides are being used. The dashboard also measures how many customer appointments each account manager attends to ensure all customers are being met with on a regular basis to improve overall customer satisfaction.
A monthly data feed updates the various industry-qualified metrics and provides updated customer logos to ensure each presentation can be specifically tailored to the customer. Content can also be updated in real time with account managers performing a quick and easy ‘sync’ as required.

User Experience

As every REA Group account manager is provided with an iPad as a tool of trade, they have the ability to create a basic presentation within 90 seconds. With extra time, they can reorder the structure of the presentation, turn key slides or (or off), and organise the various other sales tools in readiness for the meeting via the one interface.
Using the technology available within the iPad, each presentation can be started in seconds and the account manager can swipe their way through the appropriate slides to meet the needs of their customers.
While each presentation is in progress, if a customer identifies one or many slides that are of specific interest to them, the account manager can bookmark those slides. At the end of the presentation, a PDF of the specific slides – or the presentation in its entirety - can be generated and emailed to the customer as a record of the meeting and what was covered.
The Sales Presenter has been instrumental in strengthening perceptions of REA Group as a digital innovator within the online advertising and real estate industries. The Sales Presenter positions REA Group as an organisation that understands the benefits of digital technology and how it can be used to support REA Group’s customers to achieve their desired results.

Project Marketing

REA Group’s Sales Presenter app is one of the core tools in the delivery of a holistic value story tailored to deliver key messages to consumers, property owners and customers. It is specifically designed for account managers to use in customer conversations and education seminars.
To ensure REA Group’s value story continues to evolve and remains relevant, the sales presenter is continually updated to accommodate new product initiatives and industry updates.
Account managers love the Sales Presenter app for its ability to create professional, tailored, up-to-the-minute presentations and the fact it has reduced the time needed to prepare customer-specific presentations from up to 60% of an account manager’s week to as little as 90 seconds.