Lendmarq
Establishing Process to Enhance Marketing and Increase Brand Presence
Context
Lendmarq is a comprehensive loan originator working across the US. They are looking to grow their inbound funnel and increase conversion. Where they are struggling is being perceived as the leading industry lender due to their inconsistent branding & content schedule.
Impact
Streamlined process from an average 1 week approval to instant posting. Created a consistent brand voice across content creation and internal brand assets. Setup and created a plan to measure marketing metrics for data backed decision making.
Stakeholder Structure
Head of Marketing
Head of Recruiting
VP of Sales
Executive Team
Product Designer (Me)
Timeline
(ongoing)
Month 1: Research & Define
Month 2: Create Guidelines and Templates
Months 3+: Collect Data for Analytics
Branding without consistency impacts more than just visuals
Lendmarq's marketing was not presenting their value add, and was lacking visibility across social platforms due to a slow content creation process and inconsistency.
Generic content limits growth and brand perception
Identifying Key Gaps & Opportunities
Opportunity
Establish a brand
Grow presence
Target relevant content
Goals
Create consistency with guidelines so viewers can correlate to Lendmarq
Instill process to post on a schedule showing an active brand
Content relevant to individual customer needs
Market & Competitor Content Analysis
Reviewing competitor socials, websites, and email marketing showed common overlap in content and its use cases.
The following content buckets were set for the content creation process to focus developing.
Company Background
Builds brand perception through mission
Events & Media
Builds brand awareness directly with customers
Careers
Builds brand awareness with potential hires
Inform & Educate
Shows industry knowledge & builds brand perception
Testimonies & Validation
Builds brand perception & shows value proposition through customers
Business Activity
Shows value proposition & highlights services through active deals
So I Designed A Brand Book... But Why?
Engaging the executive team to help develop & approve a Brand Book will remove them from the content creation process on a post by post basis and oversee larger marketing direction by setting constraints. This also creates a consistent brand image across all content internal and external.
Establishing Process
The current process stifles content creation, data based experimentation, and developing content that resonates with their audience. I spoke with cross-functional team members to understand their goals and why they decide to approve (or not to) a particular piece of content.
Guidelines remove personal opinions from decision making. Relying on audience engagement data & priority to pushing live is what will move the needle for KPI's.
Developing Templates Across Content Buckets
Each content bucket has its own metrics to target. The creation of content is prioritized based on where we have the most urgency of requests, and ease of creating the supporting information. As the content funnel normalizes, the prioritization will be based on metric goals & audience engagement.
Company Background
Website traffic
Social engagement
Events & Media
Event attendance/ sign-ups
Social following
Business Activity
Lead generation
Social following
Inform & Educate
Website traffic
Social engagement
Testimonies & Validation
Conversion rates
Net promoter score
Careers
Application rates
Quality of applicants
Setting Up An Analytics Process
Collecting data takes time, so we needed to start ASAP. Email campaigns were setup to measure open rates & responses. Social focused on impressions & direct engagement (e.g. comments & likes).
A/B Testing will help us understand what resonates with the audience
Setting Business Goals & Metrics
Working with the executive team, clear goals were set and a way to measure our success. This is something we will be reviewing monthly, but setting expectations that we will need ~6 months to have enough data to inform long term strategies.
Grow the top of the funnel
Goals
Metrics
Conversion % across email & social
Double internal headcount
Time to hire from posting
Grow loan originations
Loan applications per month
How To React To Changing Business Needs
The world of loan originations is dictated by the markets outside our control. There needs to be space to pivot, react, and get ahead with content that can get ahead of the competition.
A flexible content schedule allows for our goals to be met and reactions to the market not turn into fires
