359%
Increase in engagements on LinkedIn.
5,623%
Increase in engagements on Facebook.
Dozens
Of new followers on Facebook & LinkedIn.
If you’ve gone house hunting, you likely know about Lenders Mortgage Insurance (LMI).
At first glance, LMI looks like an extra cost/another fee to pay for aspiring homeowners unable to put a 20% deposit down. But Kimberley Schepers, Marketing and Communications Manager at Genworth Australia, explains it differently.
“Our purpose is to help Australians get into their homes sooner,” she said, and it’s true.
LMI didn’t exist in Australia before 1965. Companies like Genworth insure home loans so lenders feel comfortable with the risk of giving a mortgage to people who can’t save a 20% deposit. It’s not the most scintillating product, but it’s literally the single reason millions of Australians are able to buy homes without putting their future on hold.
And for Kimberley, that’s just one of many important brand messages that she needed help promoting through Genworth’s digital channels.
“The reporting has been really fantastic. We receive bi-weekly reporting, intro reporting and monthly reporting which has helped us understand who’s coming to our pages and what content is working.”
Kimberley Schepers
Marketing and Communications Manager
THE CHALLENGE
Engage Multiple Audiences Through Social Channels
“We’re a B2B company; the lenders, the banks, the mutuals are our customers,” Kimberley explained. “But the cost is paid by the borrower at the end of the day, so we’re really B2B2C.”
Then there are the brokers: approximately 60% of mortgages are sold through them in Australia, so that’s a third audience Genworth targets.
Confused yet?
When you have as many target audiences as Genworth, it’s easy to focus only on one or more of them, which is what happened for Genworth.
“We didn’t engage with the borrower as much, and ultimately they are paying for our product,” Kimberley said. “We weren’t directly educating or communicating with them, and our lender customers were only being engaged through our Commercial Partnerships team and not through any digital channels.”
THE SOLUTION
Linkedin and Facebook management.
Social ad management.
Custom imagery.
Target Different Audiences Through Different Platforms
LMI’s price tag shouldn’t be the first thing an aspiring homeowner sees. Rather, they should know and understand the benefits LMI offers them, and how it helps them achieve homeownership goals.
Brafton’s first order of business was figuring out how to generate this high-level awareness among borrowers while still targeting lenders and brokers. We settled on a two-channel approach:
- Use Facebook to target borrowers directly with helpful homebuying pointers.
- Use LinkedIn for B2B messaging that targets brokers and lenders.
The first aspect was straightforward enough. We started creating posts like this for the borrower audience on Facebook:
And this:
On the B2B side, we turned to LinkedIn. We reasoned that brokers and lenders are interested in any content that helps their client, the borrower. When framing educational awareness pieces on LinkedIn, we began promoting it as an asset that can help them engage homebuyers and win new business:
We also began boosting posts and managing paid ad spend across both networks.
Finally, and unrelated to our social strategy, we performed a website content audit for genworth.com.au. We used the results from that audit to create a mockup for a new potential site design that Genworth’s developers intend to use for a forthcoming site launch.
THE OUTCOME
Explosive Growth Followed by Steady Gains
359%
Increase in engagements on LinkedIn.
5,623%
Increase in engagements on Facebook.
Month 1:
- 20 total published posts.
- 95% increase in impressions.
- 4,146% increase in daily reach.
- 5,623% increase in total engagement.
- 9 new followers.
Month 3:
- 32 total published posts.
- 54% increase in impressions.
- 39% increase in total engagement.
- 9 new followers.
Month 1:
- 14 total published posts.
- 161% increase in impressions.
- 165% increase in daily reach.
- 147% increase in total engagement.
- 52 new followers.
- 78 conversions on paid ads.
Month 3:
- 19 total published posts.
- 207% increase in impressions.
- 223% increase in daily reach.
- 359% increase in total engagement.
- 49% increase in engagement rate
- 41 new followers.
Both channels
- Boosted posts had a huge contribution to MoM improvements in impressions, reach and engagements.
Impressions, reach and engagement skyrocketed by the end of month 1. This was expected given Genworth was starting from a low base. Before Brafton, Kimberley and Annette, Genworth’s Marketing Coordinator, had little time available in their busy schedules for social media posting. Social posting was sometimes as infrequent as a few times per month. Unsurprisingly, month 2 wasn’t as meteoric. Metrics were flat for both channels, and some even dropped slightly.
We recalibrated for month 3, however, and saw strong growth on both channels. LinkedIn, where Genworth’s most important commercial audience of brokers and lenders can be found, saw particularly promising results. Impressions, reach and engagement all increased by their greatest margin yet.
“Every time we have a question or need something changed the team is very responsive via email. They’re always asking what else they can do to help us and providing suggestions for improvements.” – Annette Spinks, Marketing Coordinator, Genworth Australia
The paradox of social media is that the more growth you see, the harder it gets to move the needle any further. Ensuring steady gains requires meticulous tracking and constant evaluation of the current strategy, which our team has helped with.
„Every time we have a question or need something changed the team is very responsive via email,” Annette added. “They’re always asking what else they can do to help us and providing suggestions for improvements.”
Social media marketing really is a game of, “plan, create, measure, repeat.”
As long as we stay that course, and we intend to, Facebook and LinkedIn will continue to be a valuable asset for Genworth as it helps bring its customers home.
Genworth, Genworth Financial and the Genworth logo are registered service marks of Genworth Financial, Inc. and used pursuant to licence.
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