About Cavendish
Cavendish is an independent estate agency with branches in Chester, Mold and Ruthin, handling both sales and lettings. The business is led by Managing Director David Adams. Cavendish runs on Street.co.uk as its CRM, with Spectre powering its prospecting.
The Challenge
Cavendish had tried direct mail once before, around two years earlier, with a different supplier. With only a handful of event triggers and little brand presence behind the letters, it never gained traction. “We didn’t have many event triggers set up at the time, and we didn’t really know what we were doing,” David explains. “The letters would land and people were probably thinking, ‘So what? Who’s Cavendish?’”
The team kept hearing that direct mail was the missing piece. “We’d mention a new funnel or a landlord seminar, and the answer was always, ‘Forget that. Just do more direct mail.’ It almost became a running joke, until we finally sat down and listened.”
There was a second challenge too. Cavendish covers very different markets across its branches, each with its own kind of seller. A one-size-fits-all letter was never going to resonate everywhere.
The Solution
When Cavendish moved to Street.co.uk, adding Spectre was the natural next step, and this time the team went all in. They set up a range of event triggers, so a steady flow of letters and postcards goes out every day. David treats the platform like a game: “I put money in and I get money out the other end. You top up your credits, and the next day a notification tells you you’ve just won an instruction.”
The copy is where Cavendish stands apart. The team put real thought into who their sellers are in each area, and wrote letters to suit. Every letter also draws on David’s own book, The Sellers Playbook, so the advice on the doormat matches the advice in the valuation.
The letters are designed to build trust and familiarity with the brand over time. As David puts it, “It’s selling without selling.”
Spectre also sits inside a wider marketing push that keeps Cavendish visible across its local area. “When that postcard lands now, people pick it up and think, ‘Ah, Cavendish. They’re always in the local paper, I see their boards everywhere.’ It works because we’re everywhere else too.”
The Results
The first success arrived around six weeks in, and the numbers have built steadily since:
- 17x return on credit spend: Over £85,000 in recorded fees now on the market.
- Appraisal to instruction rate improved by 50%: among sellers who had already received Cavendish letters.
“When we did a market appraisal in someone’s home, the conversion was 50% higher when they’d already had letters from us,” David says. “It shows they’re working. They’re warm to the brand before we walk in.”
Both on-market and withdrawn triggers are winning instructions, with different triggers performing best in different areas.
David’s advice to any agent starting out is to stay the course. “There’s no instant gratification with direct mail. You get that first success, then a couple of days later another, and it matures over time. The notifications we get now are from people who started receiving letters four or five months ago.”
What’s Next
With lettings now live on Street.co.uk, Cavendish is applying the same thinking to landlords. Spectre now helps the team spot landlords with properties listed elsewhere. Casey, Cavendish’s customer success manager, continues to support the team with onboarding and training as new staff join.
“I’m glad we started when we did,” David says. “If anything, I wish we’d started earlier.”
