Back in the Dugout! Mortgage Marketing Shouldn’t Result In Failure

People seem to misunderstand the importance of marketing and communication, often replacing what’s important with fear and loathing for marketing.

In speaking with Loan Officers and Real Estate Agents as often as I do, I’m surprised at the level of fear that some of you express over putting effort into communicating with your strongest asset, along with the decisions that are made to deal with that fear when you decide that you “have to do something!” Basically, most people will express how they wish to grow their business, but they want to do it in a way that offers the least amount of rejection, and that will create borrowers out of thin air, and work like magic with little effort and input.

This isn’t going to work for anyone on any level and if it miraculously happens, it’s like lightning striking in the same place twice.

Loan Officers and REAs aren’t very good marketers, and for good reason. You guys are generally good Loan Officers and Agents. If you were good marketers, you’d be in marketing.

With a lack of confidence (Strike 1) and a feeling of desperation — “I need something that works now!” (Strike 2), plus a concern for spending money on something that doesn’t work (Strike 3), you’ve got three solid strikes against you that cause marketing to be something that you just can’t do and you’re back on the bench. The result is you hold your nose while you enter your credit card into a shopping cart for a load of hyped crap that will more often than not yield little to no results and you waste time mistaking activity for achievement. This also results in possible contracts with content providers and social media auto-posters, all drawing from resources that could be used for other things. This is what we call the MAFA syndrome.

Anyone who’s spoken with me knows full well that I’m no fan of phony talk show skits, useless videotaped market reports, fake Twitter posts, and Facebook feeds. The reason is simple: When you take social media and bend it like a pretzel into a marketing scheme, you have few positive results, and you wind up losing more friends that are valuable sphere-of-influence ambassadors for your business than you gain. No one goes to Facebook to find a bargain or hunt down a loan officer; you better already be their friend and if you don’t have a lot of friends, you’re in trouble. Don’t treat your business like a multi-level marketing scheme.

The lack of confidence I’m talking about here isn’t necessarily personal self-confidence, but a lack of trust that marketing will work at all. This is because you need to understand a couple of key points about loans and real estate marketing that should be obvious but are clouded due to ego and fear.
1. You are NOT your customer! If your customer knew what you knew and could do what you do, they would have no reason to use you at all, other than the convenience of having someone else do the heavy lifting. Therefore, they don’t think like you do, ESPECIALLY about the loan process.
2. If you consider the general statistics on how often someone needs to buy, sell or refinance, you can’t send them industry information alone and expect them to stay engaged with you on any real level. Think I’m kidding? Call someone you’ve sent an email to and ask them to recall what you sent them?
3. You’ve got your arms elbow-deep in the “underwear drawer” of their financial history and when the loan or home sale is closed, you send them more info on rates and programs they can’t use, much less have interest in. Their perception of the home loan has changed drastically and they just tune out whatever you send that’s mortgage marketing related. This is because it doesn’t relate to them any longer.

These three points are critical. First of all, marketing does work, and it works very well in both the short and long term. But an expectation of immediate riches, while there’s a lack of focus on who you’re marketing to as well as how, is the death knell of growth. This is directly related to the nature of the loan and real estate product and its buyer’s journey in this industry. You don’t often see someone impulse-purchase a house or a refinance. It’s unrealistic. We impulse-purchase food, electronics, cars, and shiny objects, but a home is something that takes time and research, purpose, and deliberation.

Marketing works! Especially the type or style of marketing promoted by Exodus Marketing. Dump the fear!

Different industries require different marketing approaches and then different messaging within those approaches. These differences are coupled with the different perceptions and world views of the individuals who use them. This is why we offer a free Discovery Call schedule one today!