Shared marketing and co-branding are ever important. For realtors and lenders alike, creating marketing collateral although necessary to grow their business can be a pain.
Keeping brand consistency across social media, emails, video presentations, cards, flyers, and postcards is by any means a hassle-free task. And yet, it is clear these professionals acknowledge the impact marketing has in the long and short run.
The good news is that real state specialists and loan officers can streamline their branding efforts and develop a service together. Sharing custom marketing material and using principles of co-branding to boost the impact of their business facilitates landing more deals on both sides.
What is Shared Marketing?
The concept of shared marketing is simple. Two companies with similar target personas collaborate to promote each other’s services or products. In order to make successful alliances, the companies must share core values and currently hold similar goals.
For example, in the home mortgage business, lenders and brokers could partner to offer a comprehensive set of services that assist clients from the moment they go to the open house event to when they settle for a specific type of credit to buy the property.
In this case, neither loan officers nor real estate professionals need to create a new product. They complement the current portfolio of services they offer to come up with a system similar to a “one-stop-shop”. This can significantly help people in the market choose and finance a home.
Here, shared marketing focuses on building a partnership in which both ends have active and similar participation. It upholds and forwards the roles of realtors and lenders together as the best way to buy or renovate properties.
What is Co-Branding?
Similar to shared marketing, co-branding puts in the spotlight the products and services offered by realtors and loan officers, but by creating a new product. That means, there will be a new brand in which both play their part to satisfy specific customer needs.
Let’s say, a loan officer with experience in personal finances wants to expand the product reach and actively engage with the community. Chances are that financial planners are interested in providing a comprehensive set of services to their clients, and recommend trustworthy educational resources for former and potential customers.
They could partner and create a learning course sponsored by the two brands.
Customers can learn how to handle taxes, payments, and investments without dwindling their credit score in this ‘learning course’.
The material will hold the logos, brand values, and identity from the financial planner and lender. However, it is a completely separate product from their current portfolio of services.
Other good examples would be loan officers partnering with schools for training students or with builders to offer customized services for clients looking for giving their home a new lease of life.
The Groundbreaking Benefits of Shared Marketing and Co-Branding
Co-branding and shared marketing bring far-reaching opportunities to grow business in an innovative manner. Some of the benefits awaiting loan officers are:
Networking Opportunities
Co-branding and share marketing proposals are different than cold calls or emails. They are significantly more attractive as the goals are measurable and clear.
Both parties (the real estate professionals and the lender) can benefit if they partner.
This provides a solid foundation to establish a relationship with the referral source.
Improved Customer Service
Clients prefer officers that are able to give them substantial options and complete information about the processes they need to carry out before and after acquiring credit.
The fewer struggles for finding the people, the better customer qualifies the overall service of the lender.
Decreased Costs
Given that the campaigns will be led by both the loan officer and real estate agent, the cost of marketing collateral definitely shrinks.
Moreover, time put to give structure to the branding strategy and perform market research is usually optimized.
Boost to Credibility
Two well-established brands land more customers than one.
Clients are keen to sign for credit and work with realtors that know their business enough to recommend the ideal loan officer for a specific house.
Loan officers putting efforts to collaborate with referral sources to customize products and deliver a better service leave a long-lasting impression of professionalism and credibility.
Closing with Shared Marketing and Co-Branding
What we call “shared marketing and co-branding” has developed into an alternative way of promoting businesses instead of traditional advertising methods. It is believed it can help us reach more people at less cost than traditional advertising methods.
Shared marketing and co-branding are ever important. Hopefully, this article helped to explain what they are so you can make your next joint venture work!
