Knowledge Is Power Part 1: Using Education-Centric  Marketing to Build Authority  in Mortgage Lending and Banking

Trust doesn’t come easy in a world with constant access to knowledge – and financial organizations often face more skepticism than most. It’s up to lenders, banks, and financial organizations to earn consumers’ trust in a competitive market long before they ever spend a single dime.   

But you won’t earn anything if you’re still using product-first marketing tactics. While this isn’t a surprise to some of the world’s most successful brands, those that place their customers’ needs at the center of their marketing efforts to provide them with real value are reaping the biggest rewards. Luckily, lenders, banks and financial organizations have something that consumers want.  

Knowledge

As America’s largest generation enters their prime earning years, many lack the understanding – or confidence – needed to make decisions around repaying student loans, buying their first home or saving for retirement. That’s where you come in.  

With access to market research and decades of experience, your organization can swoop in with an education-centric marketing model and position itself as an industry authority. Your efforts may rescue more than one consumer from paralysis or even financial ruin, and you will earn the trust – and business of many more. We’ll show you how.

Share Your Wealth (of Knowledge) with an Educational Marketing Strategy

Education-centric marketing focuses on sharing knowledge to generate trust from your target audience. Using educational messages, your brand can expose the needs of your ideal customer and instill a sense of confidence in their decisions as well as your products and services.  

The education-based approach is different than more traditional marketing tactics in that you’ll reach out to your ideal customers earlier in their buyer journeys with no obligations from them. Instead, you work to provide upfront value right away. By the time your prospect is ready to make a purchase, you should be a natural choice, facilitating the sales process.  

What kind of data should you be collecting as you develop an education-centric marketing strategy? Listen to Expert Strategies #36 with Joe Welu, “Education-Centric Marketing: Why It’s Critical.”

An Example of Education-Centric Marketing

A mortgage lender can create blog posts – or even host workshops – on building a credit score, saving for a down payment or how to find the best mortgage lender.  

To increase traffic and awareness, you then run ads for those blog posts targeting young professionals. They might not be actively seeking to purchase a home, but there’s a good chance they are repaying college loans and motivated at the thought of gaining greater financial independence.  

At the end of your blog posts, your prospect then clicks on a call-to-action (CTA) that links to free guides or sign-ups for informational seminars on how to build a credit score of 750+ or purchase a home in under two years. 

In your guides and seminars, you offer up your products and services as either the next step or a solution, combined with other tips and best practices your prospect can opt to implement. 

Finally, your top producers follow up with email nurture campaigns sharing their most successful customer stories or more relevant tips, culminating in a complimentary consultation or other special offer.

Give and Let Learn

As you can imagine, none of this happens overnight. But once your prospects test your advice and see that it works, they’ll start to pay attention to what you have to say. As you share more advice or offer up success stories from other customers, they’ll learn tidbits they can apply to their own situations and boost their confidence. And finally, if they sit down with you and you tailor your advice to their needs, you’ll establish a personal connection – and the trust that comes with it.