Welcome back to Lending Leadership: The Creative Brief—the podcast where we break down the art and science of mortgage marketing and leadership.

Today, we dove straight into one of the fundamental questions every loan officer and marketing professional faces: what really is marketing, and what is it not? With both of us—Rachael Tresch and Corrine Bibb—on the mics this week, we brought the full energy of our marketing circus to the conversation, painting a vivid picture about how all the moving parts of marketing, from advertising to PR to sales, fit together into a cohesive strategy.

To kick things off, we set the scene with our “circus analogy.” We walk you through the difference between advertising, promotion, publicity, public relations, sales, and how it all rolls up into marketing. Throughout the episode, we explore why so many people stop at just promoting (walking the elephant through town) and overlook the full, strategic process of marketing that can drive real business results.

We dig into why layering is key to a successful marketing plan, examine why consistency and business planning are so crucial, and share ideas for reaching your desired audience without overwhelming them—or yourself. As always, our discussion is filled with practical steps, candid reflections, and a little encouragement to keep things simple and strategic—no need to juggle it all at once.

We round out the episode with a challenge: take a hard look at your own marketing strengths and gaps (SWOT time!), and really define who your target client is. And as always, we invite you to share what you’re learning, what works for you, and where you might be stuck—after all, we’re all in this circus together.

Key takeaways:

1. Marketing Is the Whole Circus, Not Just the Elephant: Marketing isn’t just one action like a flyer or a single event—it’s the strategic plan that brings together advertising, promotion, publicity, public relations, and sales. Only by combining these can you truly create impact.
2. Consistency and Planning Trump “Spray and Pray”: Effective marketing isn’t about doing everything at once or randomly trying tactics. It’s about consistent, strategic actions over time. We encourage planning well ahead—sometimes even pushing a great idea out a month or two—to execute each piece thoughtfully.
3. Know Your Audience and How They Absorb Information: People internalize messages in different ways and at different times. Hitting your audience with consistent messaging across multiple channels—and repeating it often—is essential, as is tailoring your approach for different “learning styles.”
4. Layering Beats Overwhelm: No one expects you to master every aspect of marketing overnight. Start with a plan, then build layers—adding new tactics and tools as you go. Give yourself grace, avoid burnout, and learn which areas you naturally thrive in (and where you shy away).
5. Do a Personal SWOT & Define Your “Who”: Take stock of your own strengths and challenges when it comes to the components of marketing. Analyze your database and customer trends to define your avatar and target audience. The simplest strategies, grounded in clarity about your goals and your audience, are often the best.

We’d love to hear your stories, your ideas, and how you define “marketing” in your own practice—reach out and let us know! Don’t forget to like, comment, and share the show, and remember: we’re all in this circus together, so let’s make our acts the best they can be. See you next time!

Rach & Rinn

Okay. So today, we're gonna talk about what marketing is and what marketing is not. But before we get into it, Rinn, I wanna paint a picture. I wanna tell you a story. I think this will really help, people understand and paint this picture of what marketing is. So follow me on this. So a circus comes into town. Right? They put flyers and posters all over the town.

That is advertising. Now they take it a step further, and they walk a giant elephant into the town, and they put the sign on the elephant. That is promotion. Now say that elephant, just kind of stomps through the mayor's flower bed in town, and the local media picks it up, that is publicity. Now if they can get the mayor to laugh about it and make a funny statement, that is called public relations. In that article, taking it even a step further, in that article, if the circus tells them about all the different booths that they're having, all the fun they're gonna have, all the activities and extra things that people can do. They answer questions about the circus. That is called sales.

And if you planned the entire thing, that is marketing. Rinn, you have a great show for people today.

I love it. I love opening up with the circus because we are in the wild circus of mortgage marketing, people. So let's get started. What else do we have today, Rach? I feel like we wanna get into some planning, some business planning today.

Yeah. All of that. Because I think a lot of times we forget we have got to be strategic. We can't just check one of these boxes and say, oh, I made a post. And then that's marketing. You know? We wonder why events fall short or maybe we don't have as many people attending different things that we're putting a lot of energy into. It's because we're not following the full strategic plan of a marketing plan. We might just be be doing the sales piece or the promotional piece or the PR piece.

But when you put it all together, that's where the magic happens.

I I agree with you, Rachael. I think a lot of times when we have, you know, conversations with our officers, you know, there's some great puzzle pieces happening. There's some masters of certain pieces of the craft, but they're not necessarily pulling together that full fledged strategy. So, you know, as you point out and and illustrated in that that great story, you know, it's it all falls under the umbrella of marketing. But if you don't have a strategy of how you're reaching your real estate agents on a weekly and monthly basis, then you're you know, there's there's there's something left on the table that you're missing. And, you know, there's an opportunity for a greater and larger conversation and discussion, which should drive elevated results for for every loan officer in their business.

Alright. So I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you a question because, you know, you've been doing this marketing game for a long time. Why do you think it is that so many people stop at the the promotion part of things? They stop at the putting the sign on the elephant, and they think that's enough. Why do you think that people stop there and don't continue?

Well, it's like everything else in life. I mean, you know, you put together a great exercise plan, you exercise for a couple days and you're like, okay, where's my results? Well, you gotta keep doing it every single day. You might have to change up your exercise, you can't just run every day, you can't just do yoga every other day, you might have to incorporate weights or some other type of exercise. It really is the same thing as marketing, it's consistency, it's every week, It's reading. It's strategy that needs to be incorporated. And if you're not, you know, it's not necessarily a loan officer's business. Right? Some it might come more naturally to, but I think it's really important that you're looking at some type of a consultant, outsource consultant or even if you're using your loan partner and assistant to just leverage additional results, you wanna make sure you're meeting and having a full fledged plan. Again, it's not just one piece or a second piece, and it's something that's like throwing spaghetti against the wall because as we know, we don't know what's gonna stick.

So, we have to really, you know, look at results on a week to week basis and have it dialed in.

Yeah. And I think people just get you're right. They want the results right away. And sometimes people in this industry, I think any salesperson can relate to this, that we have a tendency to have an idea and wanna do it yesterday. So So it's like, oh, I just wanna hurry up and do it. But sometimes, yeah, there it's a great idea. Push it out a little bit further. Rather than getting an idea and wanting to do it yesterday, have the idea and plan it for two months from now.

And then you can really make sure that you are following the steps, that you're doing everything possible because a lot of times people are spending money to put on an event. You want people there. You want the right people there.

I think it also lends to a couple of pieces of discussion, which we've had maybe in some previous podcast, but pulling it into to this this thought process of the full fledged strategy and consulting is that individuals respond differently. They they, absorb media differently. So, you know, while somebody might have seen that and read that press release about the elephant stomping on the mayor's yard, one person really enjoys reading press releases or has a news outlet that they're engaged with. Another might have just seen the sales promotion in the paper about one activity that's happening at the circus, and they're just going for that activity. Right? It's really no different for loan officers in their business. Maybe somebody is really dialed in paying attention to when rates are dropping because they're looking to buy, where another person is looking to renovate their kitchen, and they're interested in learning more about HELOCs or learning more about renovation lending strategies and buying a second or or home or moving to a different home that has, you know, more options for them. So it's really no different when you're trying to reach a larger audience, identify who that audience is and we need to hit them in different ways. And, again, that helps pull together more of a full fledged strategy and plan that that you're using.

I love that you hit on that because it's so true. I mean, it's something that I I go through different seasons of thinking about it a lot. It's the different love languages of, how you receive information, how you give information, how you give love, receive love, all of that. But, yeah, some people are auditory. Some people are visual. Some people, you know, they they need to meet face to face. Some people most people need to hear things five different times, five different ways, and then it finally sinks in. It's like, oh, yeah.

I've heard about that. I was like, no. Of course, you've heard about it. This is the fifth time I'm telling you. Yes. We're we're all very busy, and we have this conversation all the time. You know? We wear the marketing hat, the sales hat, the mom hat, the wife hat, all all these different hats and running in a million different directions. I I'm missing things left and right if it's just in an email.

You know? I I need I need that reminder.

Well, you hit it you hit it too, and it's a different a different way to look at it too. Not only hitting them in different ways because people absorb and consume media differently, but hitting them multiple times. So it's about frequency and making sure we're checking all the boxes of promotion, sales, advertising, public relations. Checking those boxes, developing a strategy there, and then also a way and that we're continuously hitting people and making sure it's a consistent process. So I think there's there's multiple components within the strategy too, and this is why it's so important that you're having those consulting calls and you have a a plan written down or a process that you have built out. It's again not just saying, well, I did this really well this week and I did that really well last week and then I took a shot at that. Sure. You're dipping your toe in the water, but that's not really a full fledged marketing plan or strategy.

Yeah. And for for our loan officers listening or our marketing execs listening, I really want you to to think of situations that you've been in, you know, and really go through that those those steps of advertising, promotion, publicity, PR, sales, and then all, you know, all that all fall under the marketing umbrella. Where do you find yourself spending the most time? Where do you find yourself completely shying away? Like, I don't wanna do the PR thing. It's too much of a pain in the butt, or I don't wanna dabble in that. Or maybe where is the area that you really gravitate towards, you really love? I I want you to think about those things so that you can think about the full picture and and kind of give yourself a little SWOT analysis. Where are you really where are your strengths? Where are you struggling? And then that will help you devise a plan on what you really need to focus on.

I like that a lot. I think it's a really good start, Rachael. You know, and, you know, share ideas with us. We we want this podcast to be interactive. We wanna hear more about your comments, examples, things you're doing, something that resonated that we're talking about so we can give feedback directly to you. I think that that's the best way that we start this kind of collaborating in conversation. Rachael and I are always learning. You know, we're leaders in our department.

We are always learning new things in this space. I just chatted with another leader at another, marketing firm today, had a great conversation, understanding a little bit more about the depth of of what they're doing. So, I think always the name of the game is share ideas, and we get nuggets from each other on how we can stand out more and how we can be more targeted approach.

Yeah. I love I love that collaboration. You know? There's there's so much business out there. There, you know, there's no need to ever get territorial within your own company or with other companies. The more that we can share and level each other up, I mean, that's that's really powerful stuff. I wanna kind of dabble into or or maybe breach the subject of how do you how do you be effective without being overwhelming. And I think this is something that our our marketing friends listening to can relate to because it's you know, we're always trying to be intentional with what we are doing. But how do you do that in a way that's effective where you're not driving people crazy, you're not being overwhelming? What's what's the strategy that you have seen that's worked, Brynn?

Well, I mean, you know, that's a pretty broad question, but I think a starting place or stepping stone for an answer is that, you know, we're we're evaluating and utilizing a lot of tools within our strategy, but we might not be at if if you're looking at, you know, level one being beginner, level 10 being expert expert, We're not at level 10 right out of the gates on anything. We're building stepping stones within all of those tools so that we're covering our basis. We're trying to reach individuals in different ways and on a consistent basis, but we might be adding layers as we go along. Don't feel like, okay. Well, this is an overwhelming conversation because, you know, I only have a couple things dialed in, but I know I need to have a few other, pieces and they're and they're not where I need them to be. Let's try to layer things week to week, and again, that's a part of having a plan first. It doesn't mean that everything's gonna be at level 10 out of the gates. It means you might be at a one, you know, beginning and then you're building from there.

And I think that's a way to make it feel a little less overwhelming when you're starting. I'm probably speaking in broad terms here, but we can dial into actual media and and and talk in in a little bit more specifics too.

Does that make sense right? Yeah. Like, what do you mean? You're not gonna be an expert right out of the gate? I think it can feel overwhelming.

There's a lot of marketing tools and platforms for loan officers. There's a lot of different ways to connect. We've got social media, videos, events, technology, different ways to to to reach individuals, past customers and partners through your CRM. How do you have it all dialed in if you don't have that consultant full time? And I think it's a lot of time saying, okay. First comes the plan, which we talked about in the beginning, and then let's talk about being consistent. How can I be consistent and how can I start putting layers and pieces in the plan?

Yeah. That I think that's that's that's the recipe for success. And when I'm talking about all these different things, you know, advertising and promotion and PR, I'm not saying to do all of those on day one at the same time. That's the layered approach where you you do one thing, and then you move to the next, and then you move to the next. But having that plan in place to to say, okay. I'm gonna hit all of these different things at different times, but not not taking it all on at once. That's way too much, and you're setting yourself up for I don't wanna say for failure, but you're you're setting yourself up for some stress. So I hope that doesn't sound contradictory in any way.

But, yeah, I want you to to give yourself some grace, give yourself some time, create the plan, and and enroll with it and see what's working, see what's not working. I think grace needs to come into this equation.

Oh, absolutely. And if, you know, you turning to your marketing team to to help provide you resources, help provide you platforms, help provide you conversations that you may need to get where you wanna go, yes, that should absolutely be expected. But, you know, this is also a part of process of of learning from other loan officers, learning from other partners in the field, seeing something that, you know, a a real estate agent or partner of yours is doing and maybe it applies really great to your business too. You know, I have gotten some really great creative ideas just this week that I've been pumping around to colleagues of mine. So it never stops. It's always evolving. It's always breathing. You know, we're all in it together.

So, you know, I think that the the starting place, which is where Rachael started is illustrating the word marketing, how broad that word really is, and then just kinda stepping back for a second and looking at the pieces and components of it and how they're really defined. So we can fill in holes maybe where we need to and be more consistent in our approach.

Yeah. And putting that strategy over, can I say it, the the spray and pray and just like blah, here's all the information and here's everything? And and one thing we do talk about often is is the who, you know, and the why. Who who do you wanna reach? I mean, I maybe we need to talk about that more, really going after your your key who is your key avatar? Who is your who is your demographic? Who who is your perfect client? And defining that and then going after it. If you don't have that locked in and defined, well, then how are you gonna reach them?

Yeah. I agree. That is a really important exercise that you should be going through with any consultant that you're working with, sitting down and looking at your past database, your past customer database, and analyzing everything. Is there any trend from an age demographic? Is there any trend from a first time home buyer or somebody who's looking individuals that are looking at investment properties? Is there any specifics or nuances in the actual geographic location that you're in that you wanna make note of? New construction versus people doing, renovation lending. So, take a look at your database. What is the trend within your own demographic? And then a lot of times your answers are really sitting there. Sometimes your answers are a lot closer to you than you realize they are. You think it's this this broader broader, more large, complex answer, and it's actually something simplistic that's really just sitting right in front of you.

So, look at your database. That's a really good starting place and and should be definitely a part of the conversation when audience comes into play. Isn't that funny?

The the KISS method. Keep it simple, stupid. The simplest, easiest strategy is always the best. Always the best.

I've never heard that, Rachael. I like that one. Absolutely. No. There's another another little ringer for me, the KISS method. I like that.

KISS method. Keep it simple, stupid. Maybe there's a better word for stupid. I don't know. So, yeah, guys, the the idea here is that marketing is the strategy, not just the one thing that you do. Marketing is the full plan, the full strategy. So don't just post plan and really have that intentional strategic thought process, I think, is gonna help you in the long run and think beyond the moment and really ask, who am I doing this for? What am I doing this for? We'd love to hear. What step of the the process do you really thrive in? Where do you get stuck? I'd love to hear that from everybody.

I agree. We would love that. Hey. Listen. This was a great one. Please comment. Please like and share. We want to hear your stories.

We wanna hear what your definition of marketing has been. And if you just wanna let us know how you think about the elephant analogy and the circus, remember, we're all in the circus together. It's been a good one, guys.

Catch you next time.

We're all in the circus together. Thank you. All this together. I don't know. That might have been a little fluffy one. I don't know how it's gonna be. I don't know. Whatever.