Reinforcing your brand: First Franklin Financial Corporation, San Jose, California, builds its brand awareness among brokers as a leading nonprime lender with several different approaches that all reinforce its message.

CREATING A BRAND ISN'T JUST FOR RETAILERS ANYMORE. Wholesale nonprime lending is a business that could benefit from following a few of the tricks of the retail trade, especially when signs indicate the mortgage industry is looking less robust. [??] The threat of rising interest rates has started

to discourage many potential buyers from investing in homeownership, slowing mortgage sales in both the prime and nonprime niches. There are fewer home loan applications coming to our mortgage broker customers, meaning less business for lenders. And when it comes to niche markets, such as nonprime home loans, business prospects are even smaller. Nonprime lenders will have to work smarter for market share. [??] So, how does a company like ours make sure that brokers send every nonprime deal our way? By applying retailers' integrated branding strategies to our wholesale brand. [??] The concept of integrated marketing is nothing new. By maintaining a consistent look, feel and message across your marketing vehicles, you'll achieve better recognition of your brand message among your customers. But creating that message (and image) is much more complicated within the wholesale nonprime mortgage environment. Your products and services ultimately benefit borrowers with unique financial needs, but the brand promise must also appeal to your broker customers' desire to find the right lender for their nonprime borrowers quickly and easily. [??] Discovering your brand promise will get you halfway there. A successful branding campaign is one that integrates your marketing message and your people. Without buy-in from your own employees--particularly salespeople, customer service people and those who have direct contact with your customers--your brand identity won't have much value and your marketing efforts will fall flat. To be successful, you need to integrate the right message, media and manpower into your branding campaign.

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Start by defining your business

What is the nonprime niche? There's no established Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac definition of a nonprime loan, so even seasoned mortgage brokers may not understand what types of borrowers would fit into a nonprime program.

Who is a good candidate for a nonprime loan? It could be someone with a good credit history, with a FICO[R] credit score around 700, who would prefer a zero-down-payment home loan in order to protect existing investments. It could be a self-employed borrower with no W-2 and hard-to-verify income. Or it could be a cash-strapped buyer with a past bankruptcy and a 540 FICO score.