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Title: The 3 Steps To Marketing Like The Big Dogs From Home As An
Independent Loan Officer
Author: Joy Gendusa
Article:
You're an independent loan officer that works from home, but you
still want to sell like you're backed up by the Big Dogs. That
is not so hard when you know how to market. Sure, if you could
market with XYZ's big-time budget, then you could get more leads
and close more loans. But, what if you don't have that kind of
marketing budget? There is still a way to get those leads; you
just have to get smart about it - like the Big Dogs.
It all comes down to RESEARCH. The hardest part is figuring out
what to sell to whom. A one-man band with 30 different products
to sell needs to know HOW to promote, WHAT to promote and WHO to
promote to.
1) Research which product you need to market.
When you start researching, you cannot go off of assumptions
because you know what they say about a-s-s-u-m-e (makes an ass
out of 'u' and 'me'). What you have to do is go through your
client list and tabulate what product you sell the most of.
First calculate what product you sell the most of and then
calculate what product you make the most money on. Those are the
two products that you start with. However, if what you sell the
most of is what you make the most amount of money on, then that
is pretty fantastic - but not likely. You'll probably find two
products. Usually, you really have to do a sincere survey. You
are looking to market the product that makes you the most income
the quickest FIRST. "Thinking" it is a particular product rather
than "doing" an empirical study is not marketing smart - because
you may be wrong - believe it or not. When you are working from
home, you need to be twice as smart when it comes to your
marketing.
How you do it?
Make a spreadsheet and go through all of your past closes over
the last few years. List them out: Product A, B, C, D - get
every close you made over the past few years and mark down what
the product was and what you earned off of it.
Example:
Product A earned 1% Product B earned $900 Product C earned ½%
Product D earned 1500.00
You will be able to "see" exactly what product you are selling
the most of and what product you are making the most money on.
Then you can start marketing to your bread and butter first.
Once you have consistently marketed that product for a while,
then you can supplement your marketing strategy and market the
other product, the one paying the biggest commission - while
keeping the campaign continuing on your bread and butter.
Marketing smart means marketing first what you sell the most of,
the fastest. That is an important datum - it sums it all up.
Now that you know which product to start with, you have to know
who is going to buy it, which comes to our next step.
2) Research to find who the audience is that you are going to
sell to.
Not all audiences are the same. Take for example the Will and
Grace Show. Not everyone would want to watch that. Just like
there is a totally different target audience for The Lawrence
Welk Show. (If you never heard of these, then more than likely
you aren't their audience.) Case in point: you have to determine
who your audience is, which is called a "market". A "market" is
a type of audience, a type of user. So, figure out everything
you can about that particular market that buys your
bread-and-butter product. And you already have access to all
their data - age ranges, credit scores, credit rating, income,
etc. Tip: do another spread sheet.
Once you have the demographics of the people that buy your
"easiest-to-sell" product, then get a list of that particular
type of audience. You can go to a list company that you feel
good about and have gotten recommendations for, and buy a list
of people within that criteria.
The reason you want to do such a thorough job of finding out who
you are selling to is that 40% of your marketing campaign's
success (success meaning whether or not you get a good response)
is dependent on your list. Besides, it is your list and the
postage that are going to be the most expensive parts of your
direct mail campaign. I cannot stress enough the importance of a
good list - it makes all the difference between marketing smart
and...well, if you are not targeting your public, you aren't
really marketing at all.
After you research out who your target market is,
3) Figure out what to say to them.
The thing about people in a certain profession or a certain
industry is that they have been in their industry for so long
and know so much about their profession that they start to think
that people know as much as they do - or should know as much as
they do. Most people are not educated in your particular
product. Most people do not know there are all types of rates
and products that are available to them depending on their
credit, income, etc. And these people are not necessarily
illiterate hicks from Country-Bumpkinville! They are educated
people, but they have lots of other things they deal with
everyday that take up all their time, e.g., picking up the kids
from school, dealing with the boss at work, etc. Not everyone is
watching Alan Greenspan every day!
Another thing you need to know, before you decide what it is you
need to say in your message, is that it is very hard to educate
people - they don't want to be educated necessarily. You need to
find out what the "button" is that people will respond to, that
will get them to come to you for loans or refinancing or
what-have-you. A "button" is a word, phrase, picture, etc. that
elicits emotional response. People may not understand "No PMI",
but they understand "fast cash". What is it about them that
would make your message mean something?
It is all analysis. To figure out what you want to say, you have
to figure out what people will respond to. You don't really want
to say, "I'm the best broker ever that can match up any product
with any customer!" although that may seem like a good idea.
First of all, a lot of people don't even know what a mortgage
broker does!! So don't say that. You have to market differently
to different types of people.
People have different agreements and fixed ideas and
experiences. For example: Someone that has bought several homes
has more experience on that line than someone who has never
bought a home. If you found the product you sold the most of was
to first-time home buyers , then you know they have little or no
experience with mortgages. But everybody wants to own their own
home; so what you want to say to them is "You CAN own your own
home - it's EASY!", or something of the sort. Look at it from a
different angle. One person, who is really into boats and is
reading Nova Online - Speed Machines, would understand a jet
hydroplane with a lightweight composite hull and a jet engine
that could deliver 5,500 horsepower with the afterburner lit.
But another guy, who has never owned a boat before, may just
think it is just another fast boat and all he's looking to buy
is a fast boat - without all the engineering details. You have
to get your message across to your target market that is going
to communicate to them. In other words, they are going to
understand it and RESPOND.
Working out of your home, you don't have access to the Big
Mortgage Bank's Marketing Department. When you don't have a
marketing expert telling you what to do, you may still need that
expert's help. So here again, do research to get that help or
assistance. Go on the internet to find the biggest lenders web
sites. Get on their mailing list. Look at their marketing
materials so you can see what they send you - not "you" as
broker, but "you" as a potential customer. Not only are you
researching how you are making the most money, but also research
how the Big Dogs are bringing in the clients. What are the
materials they are sending to the end-user? There is no need to
reinvent the wheel. Find out what is working and do that. A lot
of those Big Dogs are doing postcards.
Here's your assignment:
Now that you know, 1) which product you sell the most of, 2)
which product you make the most money on and 3) what the
successful big lenders are doing; start by mailing postcards
(repetitively) to the first audience that buys "Product (1)".
And you will start generating the kind of leads that buy the
product that sells the easiest. Then, while still marketing
"Product (1)", start mailing postcards (repetitively) for
"Product (2)" and you will start getting leads that will buy the
product that will pay you the highest commission. You will first
get leads from the most-volume product and then while you are
still getting those and closing them fast, you will get leads
that pay the highest commission. Make sense?
To recap:
* Research
* Pick your marketing media - I recommend postcards. You will
get a lot of "bang for your buck" with that type of media.
* Find a resource for mailing lists.
* Get inside that public's mind and BE them and figure out what
they would want to know. This, by the way, is a trade secret. If
you can get inside your public's head and look at it from their
viewpoint, then you can be a genius in your message. It is
actually BEING them and looking at things from their viewpoint.
Take Joe Blow who has never refinanced. Someone with average
credit would probably be interested in a low cost equity line of
credit so he can get money out of his house. "Getting money"
communicates to people.
* Send out postcards repeatedly getting a specific message
across to your target audience that communicates their button.
If you want to sell like the Big Dogs, then learn some
marketing; get yourself educated. Actually, this will make you
stand out instead of running with the pack of inexperienced,
uneducated marketers (you're competition). Good Luck!
About the author:
Joy Gendusa founded PostcardMania in 1998, her only assets a
computer and a phone. By 2005 the company did over $12 million
in sales, employed over 100 people and made Inc. Magazine's
prestigious Inc 500 List as the one of the 500 fastest growing
companies in the nation. Visit http://www.postcardmania.com for
more free marketing advice.
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