It is definitely not lost on us how profitable a great syndicator or single portfolio acquisition can be. Our principal spent years working larger syndicated deals before becoming a marketing strategist extraordinaire. And although the commercial finance business is a big community, often you’ll find the same players working with each other deal after deal. This leaves a number of smaller players often on the outside looking in, but with really creative and unique offerings unnoticed. Does it have to be that way?
So if you are trying to drive more “back-of-the-house” originations, the principles of great “front-of-the-house” marketing can help your team:
Develop a unique message.
Why should the big boys come to you? Are you taking a strong equity position in certain asset classes? Do you have a flexible point of view on inter-creditors? Do you have a unique understanding of or position in an industry? Just saying you have money and are buying/selling isn’t remotely good enough for most of you.
Develop content.
Want to know what NO ONE does in the business? They don’t create content…articles, opinion pieces, outlooks, etc….for other lender’s to become educated on their “back-of-the-house brilliance”. Let them know your unique value proposition and how smart you are.
Get the content to market.
Email thought leadership newsletter 2x per month with 3 articles each should do it. Put an idea, and insight and a tombstone in there and voila…you will be creating strong awareness among lenders you want a piece of. You’ll get some strong leads and inbound calls more than you can imagine within a few months. Also, put a section on the website where you speak directly to other lenders. No, it won’t scare your direct or vendor customers and it will help your team market your capabilities
Events, events, events.
Industry association funder conferences are a great way to harvest the investments you’ve made in seeding them with great thought leadership marketing. Have an “event outside the event” where you are more one on one with your audience. You can use the email marketing to help build momentum into these. Also, look at 2-3 webinars per year where you talk about creative deals and your unique capabilities. These are easy, low-cost and drive crazy ROI
This is not rocket science, but few…if anyone…is really putting a marketing effort around their capabilities. We think a HUGE opportunity lives here. And we can help. If anyone wants to chat about how to make syndications and portfolio acquisitions move faster…give us a holler.