The first-home buyers’ market, particularly in main centres, can be fraught. Newbies, armed with unrealistic expectations, earnestly start a savings journey only to be disillusioned by the growing gap between their dreams and their means.

To get first-home buyers off on the right foot, in 2014 Westpac created HomeSaver, a savings account and home loan package – including a savings account, first-home deposit booster, preferential low-equity loan approval, a great interest rate, savings and home-buying tips, plus support and motivation to stay focussed.

At the same time, Westpac attempted to harvest HomeSaver goals from its customers, achieving 25% conversion (defined as customers who entered the microsite and set their goal).

In 2015, not satisfied that 75% of the audience were not participating, Westpac leveraged the previous campaign to create the HomeSaver Goal Set campaign with two aims:

1. get customers to take the crucial first step in their home-saving  journey: setting a realistic savings deposit target and cut-off date
2. obtain data to begin a conversation with customers and develop a profitable long-term relationship.

Key elements of the HomeSaver Goal Set campaign were:

• supporting communications across email, SMS and online banking, providing encouragement to get the most from HomeSaver by setting a savings goal.
• a microsite where customers calculate a realistic savings goal required for their first home and a target date.

The campaign delivers multi-channel, motivational communications: 51.8% of customers clicked-through from the initial eDM to the goal-setting microsite (previously 36.5%), and the number of customers setting a HomeSaver Goal increased by 16% to a total 41%, while only 4% submitted an unrealistic (e.g. $123,456,789) or nonsense  (e.g. $50) goal.