How Broadmark Provides a 5-Star Customer Experience with ActiveCampaign

When Stace Schiefelbein joined Broadmark Realty Capital, she had the opportunity to overhaul the company’s lead management and marketing efforts. This included the tech stack they used to support the business, consisting mainly of Salesforce and standalone spreadsheets. With customer and lead info spread across multiple systems and a not-so-user-friendly CRM setup, she wanted to give her teams the tools they needed to provide the fast and reliable service for which they are known. So, when she found ActiveCampaign’s CRM software, Stace knew she was on the right track. 

Broadmark Realty Capital is a mortgage real estate investment trust (mREIT) specializing in providing short-term financing solutions for commercial and residential investment opportunities across the United States. With over a decade of experience, Broadmark has established a reputation for delivering smart, reliable, and rapid financing options to real estate developers, builders, and investors across the entire debt capital stack for the small to middle market. With this unique customer base comes unique challenges for Broadmark’s marketing and originations teams. Stace joined the company as their first full-time marketing director while Broadmark was going through a rebrand, so she took the opportunity to look at the company’s pain points and where she could improve the process for internal teams and the client experience as well. 

An opportunity to start fresh

Stace brought on digital agency Nomadic Marketing + Software to help with Broadmark’s tech stack and digital presence. Nomadic helped with the company’s new website and recommended ActiveCampaign to support Broadmark’s marketing and sales efforts. “After looking into the platform and going through the demo, I was pleasantly surprised by the flexibility to customize and build automation without a development specialist. Not only is the UX super user-friendly, it also has everything in one place. I can pull analytics, run campaigns and create landing pages without jumping from platform to platform.”

The challenges of a growing company

One of the pain points Stace was looking to solve was clarity and visibility into Broadmark’s leads and sales pipeline. “The team was using Salesforce to track leads, but they were also using Excel, a project management software, and a Loan Operating System (LOS).  It allowed me to evaluate what was and wasn’t working across several departments.” ActiveCampaign’s CRM was intuitive and easy to use, bringing all prospect and customer data into one central location.

Stace was also surprised by how easily she could implement a new CRM system. “Other platforms take six or more months to customize, set up, and launch. Typically, you have to hire a consultant or a specialist to roll out a new CRM; ActiveCampaign was the best of all worlds. It’s easy to use but still has all the functionality we need. I’ve worked in nearly ten different CRMs in my career, and this one has been the easiest to roll out.” Implementation wasn’t just easy; it was fast. “We were able to roll it out within forty-five days, and the support has been incredible from ActiveCampaign.” Thanks to a speedy and straightforward rollout, Stace and her team could see the benefits of ActiveCampaign quickly. 

Maintaining a lean team

The power of marketing and sales automation allows Broadmark to maintain a lean operation while still delivering a best-in-class customer experience. “We spent the last three months of 2022 fine-tuning our email automation. We want to deliver a 5-star customer experience and maintain a lean team. So, we started with a simple Welcome Series. If a contact fills out a form on the website, they automatically get an email, letting them know we received their information.” The welcome series gives the prospect a warm introduction and notifies a Broadmark team member via email that there is a new contact to engage with. “It’s a ten-day series with seven sequential emails telling them why Broadmark should be their partner in real estate finance. It builds in communication consistency that allows the originations to follow up with the prospect leads and make personal connections. We understand that getting in front of new contacts and existing clients fast and consistently makes you memorable.”

Custom reporting provides valuable insight

Perhaps most importantly, Broadmark has gained profound data insight since implementing ActiveCampaign. A self-proclaimed data nerd, Stace worked backward when she rolled out the CRM by customizing the reports to ensure she had the data points she and the team needed to make essential business decisions. “One of the most impressive things about ActiveCampaign is the flexibility of customizing the fields and automation between the deals and the contacts that allow deep data analysis.” Seeing where deals come in from and comparing them to market data has given Stace and the Broadmark team powerful insights on identifying emerging business opportunities and trends specific to their customer base.

The Broadmark team has seen a significant impact on their business since implementing ActiveCampaign. For starters, ActiveCampaign’s marketing and sales automation allow Stace to keep her team lean. As a result, Broadmark has saved over 80 hours a week managing its systems. It doesn’t stop there. Stace says they’ve also increased their open rates by over 10% and increased their contact database by 478% in the first twelve months with ActiveCampaign. 

Scaling toward the future

Overall, Stace is confident that Broadmark is set up for success as they continue to grow and expand into new markets. “I would say it is probably the most cost-effective solution in the market right now. It’s flexible to grow and scale with your business, regardless of the number of platform users or new geographic locations.” Stace has also been impressed with ActiveCampaign’s customer support. The customer service at ActiveCampaign has been phenomenal. The team quickly responds if we have questions or if there is a bug and something isn’t working. Response time is critical because time is of the essence in our business.”

If you’d like to see how your business can benefit from ActiveCampaign’s powerful marketing and sales automation, start your free 14-day trial today!