Turning Clicks into Clients: How We Optimized Twain Financial’s Digital Marketing

Whenever we receive a phone call or email from a potential client, we ask them how they heard about Atomicdust. Sometimes they know someone we’ve worked with. Sometimes they’ve seen an ad on social media. Sometimes they’ve searched for the solutions to marketing challenges and come across a blog post like this one. We’ve spent a lot of time optimizing our website and experimenting with ways to grow traffic and leads.

So, when Twain Financial asked us to generate awareness and attract new clients to their PACE loan program, we were excited to share our digital marketing knowledge and strategies.

A break from the brand program.

The majority of the projects we work on follow a similar framework. We conduct in-depth research, develop voice and tone, create visual identities and build brand expressions. Since we’re starting from scratch, there’s a lot of work to be done between building a brand’s foundation and building a marketing campaign.

When Twain approached us, they already had a brand. They had a voice. They had a look. But they didn’t know what to do next. They needed help creating a digital presence that would attract new clients.

Even though there were brand elements in place, digital marketing campaigns come with their own challenges. They require balancing strategy and tactics across numerous channels to ensure that every moving piece is aligned to meet a single goal.

We were ready to take on the challenge and start creating a campaign that would help Twain reach new audiences and attract new clients.

Does your content meet your audience’s needs?

PACE, which stands for Property Assessed Clean Energy, offers funding for energy-efficient updates to commercial real estate projects. It’s a relatively new program in many states, so in addition to telling people that Twain offered the service, education was critical.

Before we started driving traffic to Twain’s PACE page, we wanted to make sure it had content that was relevant and meaningful. Initially, the page was pretty bare. It wasn’t showing up in Google searches, and if we created ads that directed to it, people likely wouldn’t spend much time on the page.

The key to creating content that resonates is pretty simple: think like your audience. What challenges do they face? What are things they’d Google to get to your page? And once they land on the page, what would they want to know?

In Twain’s case, the target audience was real estate developers. Because the PACE program is newer, if they are unfamiliar with the loan program, they’d need to learn the basics. Then, they’d wonder why it matters—are their projects eligible for funding? How much? And lastly, they’d want to know who Twain is and whether they’d make a good financial partner.

With these concerns in mind, we crafted messaging that answered each question as concisely as possible. We didn’t want the page to be long and complicated, so we created subpages that offered the opportunity to explore more detailed industry-specific content if it was relevant. And just like that, the PACE landing page was filled with content that was ready to be seen.

Offer value in exchange for information.

A website that draws in traffic but doesn’t incite people to take action isn’t very effective, so we added a simple contact form at the bottom of each page. We also wanted to create additional opportunities to collect information, but needed a compelling reason for people to share their contact info. The answer? Gated content.

After conducting our own research, we saw the need for an in-depth guide to PACE financing. One that answered common questions and walked through the process of securing a loan. Working together with Twain’s loan experts, we created one. We added a link on the landing page, offering a free download in exchange for an email address. Gated content like this guide can be a powerful tool to generate leads.

Messaging + Frequency = Traffic

Marty Neumeier, an author, speaker and branding expert, wrote a book called The Dictionary of Brand. In it, he defines all kinds of industry buzzwords—like frequency. Neumeier defines it as “the number of times a viewer is exposed to an advertisement.” It’s often mentioned alongside reach, which is “the number of people exposed to an advertising or brand message.” Successful campaigns balance the two, ideally hitting a large audience with messaging across channels and occasions.

In Twain’s case, we were working with a very specific product, targeting a very specific audience.  So we focused on frequency, hitting that same audience with a variety of ads to build awareness, establish familiarity and inspire action over time.

With solid content and contact methods in place, we were able to start building out marketing materials that would drive people to Twain’s website. We created custom email templates, sell sheets, Google ads, and LinkedIn sponsored content ads and InMail campaigns. We created ads targeting the broader real estate development audience, and experimented with focusing on specific industries, like hospitality development as well.

Drumroll, please!

We tested multiple messaging strategies across every channel to see what concepts inspired action. Each month, we evaluated the performance of the campaigns, and built new messaging based on the previous month’s insights. With such a specific audience, we wanted to maximize our frequency to inspire action.

As we continued to optimize and refine our ads—things really started to pick up. One month, Twain experienced a 169% increase in traffic to their website compared to the same month the year before. Overall, their site saw a 90% increase in traffic over a six-month period. And the PACE financing landing pages we optimized saw an 80.5% increase in traffic through organic searches. These numbers mean more leads that Twain can nurture and turn into customers.

Lots of little tactics. One big goal.

With a little foundation building, we were able to jump into a variety of tactical executions and begin to see their impact. We built Twain a network of evolving assets that work together to reach their target audience again and again, persuading prospects to take action.

While the frequency formula works as a guide, digital marketing comes with a lot of analyzing and optimizing. Every ad, email and content update is an opportunity to discover new insights that can lead to breakthroughs—breakthroughs that can lead to major sales.

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