More Conversions, Better Connections
Real estate investment is an enormous industry, but it’s not always easy to find the right funding for property development. Both newbies and seasoned pros want to connect with the lenders who can offer them the best rates — without spending hours shopping around. That’s the gap that Connected Investor’s eXchange (CiX) wanted to fill. As the name suggests, it matched investors with funding providers. With borrowers getting competitive offers and lenders getting qualified leads into their pipeline, it was a win-win situation!
However, CiX needed more lenders to meet demand. Many capital providers didn’t know how to nurture relationships with real estate investors, who often have very particular needs. Meanwhile, their old-fashioned website wasn’t instilling confidence in prospective investors. CiX knew that the more partnerships they could forge, the more leads they could convert, and vice versa — leading to more revenue for all involved!
So, they brought in Thumbstop Media to improve their conversion rates and better align their sales and lender relationships. Here’s what happened.
Building Better Partnerships
Connected Investors eXchange was created with the vision of becoming the premier B2B lending platform for real estate investors. To do this, it needed to connect prospective borrowers with the best capital provider for their needs — whether that was a hard money company, private lender, or something else.
CiX promised its customers that they would have transparency and better rates by using the platform. There was just one problem: there weren’t enough lenders to suit all CiX’s leads.
At Thumbstop Media, our primary task was to source more lenders to participate in the exchange. To do this, we needed to pull out our best B2B marketing tactics and help CiX find its best partners — plus, teach those partners how to take full advantage of the leads CiX sent their way.
Naturally, LinkedIn was our best bet. We created an outbound engine for CiX’s LinkedIn page, sending automated drip campaigns and scheduling meetings with potential partners. After we’d refined this outreach process and helped CiX bring new lenders on board, we got to work teaching their sales teams how to close deals with CiX’s leads. The end result was that the exchange signed several clients, leading to half a million in revenue in new business.
A Digital Conversion Machine
CiX’s original website did not speak to their brand’s position as the definitive source of lender matching for real estate investors. It had a casual vibe with a cartoon header, and the main CTA asked lenders to “choose an amount.” This made CiX seem like a lender rather than a network. The copy and overall value proposition were vague, promising less stress and lofty results, without any real connection to their target audience’s interests.
We started by rebranding the website to give it a more professional, sophisticated look and feel. This included a stunning photo header, a cleaner layout and user flow, and copy that spoke directly to what real estate investors really wanted to know: could they get private money for their latest investment, and how could they skip the haggling with lenders?
That turned out to be one of CiX’s biggest selling points. So, we crafted a multiple-option CTA that funneled leads depending on what they want to do: flip a property, rent one out, or improve their own home. By implementing this new funnel over a professional header, we increased CiX’s conversion rate by 6 percent. More qualified leads were now filling out the form that connected them with lenders — which meant more revenue for both CiX and their partners. As the saying goes, a rising tide floats all boats!
In Phase 3 of the project, we developed a new revenue stream for CiX. Our extensive persona research found that many real estate investors also need capital for other aspects of their business. By adding a few extra questions at the end of CiX’s inquiry form, we were able to connect leads to more lenders for additional funding options. This generated a new line of business with $3 million in extra revenue — simply by modifying an existing lead capture.
Helping Lenders Close More Deals
If CiX’s partners couldn’t turn prospective borrowers into customers, CiX would take the fall. However, we knew that not everything hinged on the platform’s inquiry form. As part of our rebranding for CiX, we’d built out detailed personas for various real estate investors: everyone from property flippers to landlords to folks who wanted to expand their portfolio. With this research in hand, we were ready to
In Phase 1, we provided managed SDR and VDR Services for CiX. This paved the way for us to consult with each partner’s sales teams and help them connect with the leads we helped CiX generate. This boosted their conversions, which meant more revenue for CiX and a greater reputation for the platform. We also implemented CRM integration to help both CiX and its partners better
The final piece was marketing automation. With a streamlined pipeline and highly targeted outreach, those qualified leads could be nurtured with minimal hands-on work at the top of the funnel. This not only boosted the connection rate by 8 percent but also freed up the reps’ time to turn hot leads into happy borrowers. CiX was now more than a matching platform: it was a complete lead generation machine that handed its partners plenty of hot leads — along with opportunities to upsell.
All in all, Thumbstop’s dual rebranding and conversion optimization helped CiX achieve its vision of becoming the premier lending network for real estate investors. Their unique platform was a success — and both their partners and the borrowers found their ideal capital products.