Lendmarq
What’s the issue?
Lendmarq is a 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.
What was my impact?
Streamlined process from an average 1 week approval to instant posting.
Team
Product Designer
Head of Marketing
Head of Recruiting
VP of Sales
Executive Team
Timeline
Month 1: Research & Define
Month 2: Guides & Templates
Month 3+: Collect Data
Inconsistent branding impacts more than just visuals
Why do we need a brand?
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.
What’s the negative impact?
Organic leads are not consistent, dropping by 60% YoY.
What could be causing this?
Long pauses in posting content feels like a dead brand
Generic content makes the brand feel cheap
With too many cooks in the kitchen nothing is made
Creating alignment between the users, business, and product
Important to leads
Have a clear goal for creating content that is relevant by lead
Provide relevant content
Important to the business
Establish process that lets marketing publish on a schedule
Grow presence for inbound leads
Important for the product
Create a consistent feel that instills trust in new leads
Establish a trusted brand
How did we get set these metrics?
Working with head of marketing to identify the key roadblocks in the current process
1st month of marketing work made clear how many people were involved in approving a single post
Personal opinion was defining "good" design rather than hearing from leads and using data
So where does Lendmarq stand in the industry?
Competitive analysis
Reviewing competitor socials, websites, and email marketing showed commonoverlap in content and its use cases.
Content breakdowns
There was a clear pattern of content types in the industry
Company background & overview
Events & media
Careers
Inform & educate
Testimonies & validation
Business activity
So I started with the basics
Lets build a brand book
Engaging the executive team to help develop a brand book will remove them from the post by post content creation process. Rather they will oversee larger marketing direction by setting constraints via the brand book.
How does this help?
A consistent voice not just for marketing, but sales as well
Visual guides that give the team access to make content
Establish shared core values that keeps the team aligned
How do we implement this "process"..?
Graphs always help with process!
The current process stifles content creation, data based experimentation, and developing content that resonates with their audience. I spoke with the C-Suite to understand their goals & how they decide to approve a particular piece of content.
Developing Templates Across Content Buckets
This is the part with a bunch of picture and no words... enjoy
Setting Up An Analytics Process
Start now or we wont have data
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).
Simple tests that the team will understand
A/B Tests offer a simple approach to validation testing that doesn't require too many resources and the outcomes are clear.
But really, why A/B tests?
A/B test can be conducted by any team member
The outcome data is simple to understand
A better than B doesn't leave room for subjectivity
Setting metrics to validate our goals
Grow the business
Loan applications/ month
With a new round of funding closing, new leads are key
Grow product interest
Conversion %
Making sure the offerings provided are relevant and competitive
Grow the team
Time to hire from posting
Sales roles fluctuate often, hiring is needed for more growth
How did we validate?
Set a plan to check in monthly and review data, in addition to a memo sent to C-suite
Incorporate the upcoming Hubspot setup to handle the A/B testing
Sync with current leads to better understand their thoughts on the content & offerings
Next Case Study: Umba
