Lending Organizations
Driving Growth Through Coordinated Marketing Efforts
How a National Preferred SBA Lender Grew Application Volume
The Challenge
A national SBA lender’s growth depended on consistent engagement with referral sources like business attorneys, CPA’s, and financial planners. However, Business Development Officers (BDO’s) were responsible for creating and managing their own marketing, which took time away from primary sales acitivities. And, BDO’s are not trained in marketing or graphic design. This resulted in inconsistent branding, uneven referral touchpoints, duplicated effort across the sales team, and less time for direct sales activity.
Leadership needed a scalable way to stay top of mind with valuable referral partners while allowing sales teams to focus on originating and closing loans.
The Approach
A centralized marketing program was implemented to support ongoing, coordinated engagement with referral sources across all markets.
Key initiatives included:
Branded email campaigns to keep the organization top of mind
LinkedIn content and outreach framework reinforcing name recognition and brand consistency
Story-driven content highlighting outcomes, closed deals, and “tombstones” to reinforce credibility
Custom video library highlighting customer success stories, product and process details, and value propositions
Consistent graphic design across all external-facing materials
Event and seminar marketing support with coordinated follow-up
Customized
market support
Shared insights to replicate
high-performing campaigns
This approach enabled the bank’s SBA division personnel to be ”top-of-mind” by repeatedly sharing and highlighting the successes of the organization.
The Results
The coordinated strategy delivered measurable gains in visibility, efficiency, and production:
81% increase in SBA 7(a) application volume (year over year)
Increased referral partner engagement and inbound referral activity
57% increase in total loan closings (year over year)
More time spent by loan officers on relationship-building and deal execution
The Impact
Top-of-Mind Presence
Consistent branding, messaging, and success stories that reinforced credibility and recall
Brand Consistency
A unified, professional presence across all referral touchpoints
Time Savings
Sales team spent less time marketing and more time selling
Best Practice Sharing
Proven messaging and campaigns scaled across markets
Business Growth
Higher output without adding sales headcount
Executive Takeaway
SBA growth is driven by referral trust and recall. By centralizing foundational marketing and consistently sharing brand, stories, and outcomes, this organization stayed top of mind with referral sources – turning marketing into a sales multiplier.