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Case Study
FNC, Inc.FNC makes real estate collateral simple—for loan origination, servicing, and secondary markets. Located in Oxford, Mississippi, the company provides large and mid-sized financial institutions with software and analytics to make the analysis and decisions on real estate collateral simple, compliant, and less risky.
The Problem
Years ago, the marketing department was not a strategic entity within the organization—more a design and copy shop. The marketing team at FNC was little more than reactive sales support, and marketing was not considered to be a board room subject. As a result, the company was not well differentiated, the value proposition was obscure, and product decisions were made that compromised the value of the brand.
New products were sold by the sales team—BEFORE the market was sized or validated. Product names, pricing, and value propositions were decided upon in an ad hoc manner, quickly resulting in redundancies and no coherent product strategy. Members of the executive, marketing and sales teams became confused about what products the company had, what they were called, what they cost and what purpose they served.
The Solution
Assets
In 2005, Michael Graber and Jocelyn Atkinson were hired—Graber as Director of Marketing and Atkinson the Manager of Innovation. Upon their hiring, the two began studying the market and vetting new product ideas to create a well defined marketing strategy. Marketing and innovation became a primary driver of the corporate strategy and an area of focus in the boardroom.
Graber’s team began a brand overhaul, creating a Brand Story Workbook including audience profiles, all stakeholder responsibilities, and in-depth research of the company’s competitors, industry, and customers. With this study, FNC was able to eliminate struggling products from the line, assign branches for products, and appoint product managers as a marketing discipline to realize better results for each product. Different brands were established (such as Collateral DNA for the data and analytic products); all brand lines were communicated in new, measurable ways.
Marketing efforts at FNC were 30 percent internally focused, in order to create a culture of innovation, sensible processes, and teamwork. By creating brand ambassadors within the company, all sang the company’s message from the same songbook inspiring to clients and prospects.
Meanwhile, Atkinson created an Innovation Hive for FNC—a team focused on market validation, business plans, and rapid software prototypes of new product concepts. After market validation, the Hive created Flash-based prototypes, conducted field tests and even launched “pre-marketing” tactics to gauge demand for new product introductions. In combination with Graber’s branding overarching efforts, the two were able to transform the company from a transactional sales-based organization into a disciplined marketing driven organization.
The Results
By late 2007, FNC saw revenue double—in as little as two years. Now, the long-term results are in, and revenue is triple what it once was prior to the arrival of Graber and Atkinson. FNC has become a household name in the state of Mississippi, lauded as one of the state’s great technology start-up success stories. Likewise, FNC is an established player in the financial institution software market, counting most of the top ten banks as clients.
Product development continues to flourish today thanks to the process and groundwork established by the team that now leads the Southern Growth Studio.
Moral of the story? Strategy, branding, process, and methodical discipline make a positive difference in top-line results.
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Case Studies
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