Evolving the Brand Identity of a Fast-Growing Company
As Renovo began expanding from Chicago into 15+ markets across the country, I was tasked with updating and managing the brand identity of the company. With a focus on social and direct mail marketing, it was important to ensure a consistent brand image, while allowing for some individuality within each market.
With many social media accounts, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter, it was important to create social ads that would be formatted well for each platform. We found that square graphics worked best across all platforms.
By writing ad copy with solid Calls-to-Action, we were able to increase lead follow-through rates and generate a generous return on investment. Direct Mail alone generated over $50 Million in business in 2021.
Renovo Financial was a relatively young company when I joined. Increasing Brand Awareness was a high priority when developing ad campaigns. It was important to ensure new leads could easily understand who we were at glance.
Creating and maintaining a Brand Guideline was a core objective of mine at Renovo. Selecting brand typography, colors and and logo/icon guidelines was key to ensuring consistency as we brought new designers onto the team and branched out into more markets.
Inter was the font I landed on due to its versatility and clean design. With many weight variations, a phrase can make a bold statement or step away from the spotlight. And with a spot in Google Fonts, I knew web browsers would have no trouble rendering Inter on the Renovo website.
Email Marketing is another challenge entirely. A catchy subject line, combined with compelling imagery, read-worthy copy and clear calls-to-action will lead to a higher open rate and click-through rate.
Click-Through Rate 6.1%
Improving Website SEO and Lead Capture Performance
Renovo Financial was growing fast. They needed a fresh site design to compliment their updated brand identity. With a focus on targeted keywords and thoughtful calls-to-action, the goal was to generate improved SEO and lead capture performance.
My goal with the new site design was to create a warm and welcoming, yet clean and professional first impression for our visitors. Through thoughtful placement of key calls-to-action, I gave them plenty ways to learn more about our service and to get started applying for a loan right away.
With links to important pages like our loan programs, locations and application form, our site architecture is cleanly established. This, coupled with frequent use of keywords and phrases, like "real estate investment loans" throughout each page, improve SEO and help us appear on the front page of Google.
Many of our online ads and social posts will link viewers directly to a specific loan program landing page. Investors shopping for loans often want to see the details as quickly as possible, so I placed all the important details about our products front and center. I made it easy to get to our application form from there with a clear "Get Started" button.
Old Application Form
Our application form is relatively long and takes some time to get through. But by breaking it into 3 easy steps, I'm able to capture important lead data from every lead who makes it past even the first step.
If they leave before completing all 3 steps of the form, we can still send them follow-up emails and to try to begin a conversation and capture their business.
New Application Form
