My presentation at the 2013 AFSLR conference.

1. Building a Brand in an Industry of
Anonymity
Jon Robinson
jrobinson@debt.org
@jrobinson82
jbrobinson413
Facebook.com/jbrobinson413

2. Slideshare.com/jrobinsondebt/

3. What am I going to show you?
• How important is trust?
• How to acquire customers you didn’t know
existed.
• Prove to you that branding is important. Show
you how to filter out the noise of your
competitors.
• Show you how to do this with little/no
additional investment.

4. Who Am I?

5. Who Am I? (Really)

6. Student Loan
Consolidation on
the Web

7. •
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•
•
•
•
•
Who are these companies?
Where are they located?
What are they going to do for you?
How much do their services cost?
Who are the people in these photos?
What separates one from another?
Will a customer even remember who they contacted?

9. Three Types of Users
• Immediate Converters
– Landing Pages, Radio, TV, E-Mail
• Referrals
– Word of Mouth
You Get
These!
You Might
Get These
• Long Term Conversions
– Social Media, Large Organic Sites
• Trust & Branding, Communicating with
Clients
How Do You Get
These?

10. Three Types of Users
• Immediate Converters
– Easy to quantify
• Referrals
– Harder to quantify
• Long Term Conversions
– Hardest to quantify
• Tracking technologies – Talk to Matt
• If it was easy everyone would do it.

11. Our Presence
www.debt.org
@debthelporg
/
@debtonatorsays
debtonatorsays
Facebook.com/debt.org
Plus.google.com/+DebtOrg

12. What does this all mean?
•
•
•
•
We are real
We are relatable
We are accessible
We are transparent

13. •
•
•
•
Real
Relatable
Accessible
Transparent
• Google Us.

14. How Can You Do This? (for little or no money)
No
Website?
College
Student or
Wordpress
Template
Find a relatable existing employee
that loves social media
Give them autonomy
Find Bloggers
to Contribute
to your
Website

15. What Else Can You Do?
• Write content that
doesn’t have to do with
selling your service.
– Infogr.am
• Be Altruistic. Show you
care about something
more than a sale. They’ll
notice.
• Tweet as your company
• Run a Contest

16. What Else Can You Do?
• The Best Marketing is
FREE. Leads ‘Wanted
Information Only’? Be
nice and they’ll share
your company.
• Be REAL. Showoff your
employees and their
interests.
• Share the content of
others. They’ll return
the favor.

17. What Else Can You Do?
• Follow #trends and use them as a springboard
for discussion.
• Join groups. Become an Expert.
– Quora, Yahoo Answers, Facebook
• “If you take care of your existing customers, they
will take care of your new customers” – Jason
Fried (37Signals)
• Become a Taco Bell.
– Deliver a consistent product and UX.
– Don’t worry about marketing. (optional)

18. You Can Do It!
Questions?

19. Building a Brand in an Industry of
Anonymity
Slideshare.com/jrobinsondebt/
Jon Robinson
jrobinson@debt.org
@jrobinson82
jbrobinson413
Facebook.com/jbrobinson413