One Park Financial offers alternative financing to companies seeking small business loans or those with a history of poor credit. The Florida-headquartered company works with businesses across the United States in need of financial assistance that do not easily qualify for traditional business loans through banking institutions. The organization connects small and mid-sized businesses with up to 20 funders in an expedited process for obtaining capital.

When the COVID-19 pandemic started impacting companies, One Park Financial faced a major challenge and opportunity: cut marketing spend to $0 while still generating loans and credit for businesses. The company turned to Galvin Technologies and Pardot for help.

The Challenge

Prior to the pandemic, One Park Financial focused most of their marketing spend on paid television and print advertising, text messaging, and social media. The marketing team also was working with Galvin Technologies to leverage Pardot for engagement campaigns that were starting to deliver results. When closures and shelter-in-place orders began, One Park Financial eliminated its marketing budget and reduced staff to preserve funds needed for weathering COVID-19’s business interruptions. This move left the company with a powerful marketing automation tool in Pardot, but a lack of trained staff to use it. Galvin got to work helping the remaining One Park Financial team become Pardot pros quickly.

The Solution

Through the help of Galvin Technologies, Pardot became One Park Financial’s primary marketing platform. Galvin provided Pardot training documents, workbooks with practical exercises, and one-on-one virtual training sessions to get One Park Financial’s vice president of marketing up to speed. 

Next Galvin helped the company build a series of re-engagement campaigns to attract customers with no additional marketing dollars needed. One Park Financial identified target publics using existing data in Salesforce. The campaigns focused on businesses that: 1) had started the loan application previously but had not proceeded through to funding, or 2) had gained financial assistance successfully and might need additional capital due to COVID-19. The campaigns supplied the sales pipeline with enough leads to keep staff working and loans flowing to companies in need. 

The Results

Pardot transformed One Park Financial’s marketing model both before and during the COVID-19 crisis. No longer was the company pushing out advertising with difficult to measure ROI. Pardot’s targeted approach to specific audiences generated high-quality leads without high price tags when COVID-19 made every dollar count. 

Business Continuity – The re-engagement campaigns kept One Park Financial’s sales team busy with valuable opportunities. Email links made communication and loan applications easy for prospects. Deals quickly flowed to underwriting for funding without the delays other traditional financial institutions experienced due to COVID-19.

Return on Investment – One Park Financial tracked campaign performance to assess ROI. Using real-time Pardot analytics, the marketing team monitored messaging generating the most leads and modified emails to increase performance. Pardot’s integration with Salesforce provided easy tracking of deals won compared to email responses. Both the sales and marketing teams tracked prospects through the entire sales opportunity flow while working remotely without letting any lead fall through the cracks. 

Staff Efficiency – With employees doing more with less during the pandemic, Pardot streamlined the marketing workload. Galvin’s multi-pronged approach to training allowed One Park Financial to launch their Pardot campaigns quickly with only one staff member. Galvin’s resource materials allowed for on-demand learning and easily assisted new staff members on the system as they came on board.