“Don’t You Forget About Me”Make marketing matter
By BJ Bounds
Everything we do as business owners isdesigned to keep our company at the fore-front of any potential client’s mind. But aswe spend our time developing the perfectslogan, taking the perfect picture ordesigning the perfect flyer, we often forgetthe most important thing—the client!Remember the song titled above bySimple Minds from the 80s? That’s whatI’m talking about. What may be perfect tous may not resonate the same way withthe clients we seek. We must always keepthe client in our minds as we seek to mar-ket to them. It’s not about us.
Reaching out to your audience andmarketing your business is not complicat-ed, but it starts with developing an overalllook and feel for your business that willattract the clients you seek. Once you havefigured out what you audience wants, thenext step is to begin the marketingprocess. Marketing doesn’t just happen.It’s a process that requires a strategy—even a simple one, and it can encompassany number of methods and tools. Today,we’re just going to talk about those thingsyou can do with your main business tool,your loan origination software (LOS), coor-dinated with an Internet presence, tomake your marketing strategy matter.
Know your audienceMarketing contacts can come to you frommany different sources. A primary source ofcontacts will come from applicants in yourLOS. You LOS enables you to capture manymore personal details in addition to therequired application data. Get to know yourapplicants and build your database withrelevant marketing information. Birthday,children’s names and ages, interests, almamaters, etc. will be significant to you whenyou begin your marketing efforts.
Along with your applicant contacts, youcan and certainly should maintain a data-base of vendor contacts. Your LOS is morethan likely your most secure system andkeeping your contacts here would ensurethe integrity of your database. Keepingyour vendor and referral partners in oneconsolidated database makes targetedmarketing easier and less time-intensive.
Determining your audience’s likes anddislikes, along with developing your over-all marketing objectives, you can begin
marketing to your contacts. Begin by sort-ing your contacts by any number of fieldsto target your messaging. Your LOS allowsyou to export contact information with fil-ters that suit the message you choose.
Tailor your messagesYour LOS is not just a loan processing sys-tem. It is so much more than that. It canserve as your database for marketing con-tacts and store your marketing materials forwhenever you need to produce or sendthem. Because you can categorize your con-tacts in to segments that work best for yourmessages, your marketing materials canbecome the type of targeted communica-tions that mean the most to your audience.
Now that you know who your audienceis, you can more easily develop your mes-saging accordingly. Different from themass marketing techniques of a large cor-poration, with a “one-size-fits-most” mar-keting campaign, your campaign shouldbe targeted to the audience categories youhave created in your database. This tech-nique allows you determine the messagesthat resonate best with your contacts andare more likely to make an impact.
I mentioned before that personal infor-mation is important to capture for yourdatabase contacts. This is where sendingsimple birthday wishes comes into play.Use that opportunity to ask for referrals ormaybe even send refinance rates if itmakes sense. You could also select therealtors in your database and can create amarketing campaign just for them,whether or not you typically do businesswith them. It would be a great way to getreferrals from new sources or solidify therelationships you have with your favorites.
Establish your online presenceFundamental marketing techniquescan establish your business as a truecontender in your space. Turning yourcompany’s vision into a decided lookand feel is the first step in making mar-keting matter for you and your clients.Once you have the overall “brand” foryour company that speaks to yourstrengths, your commitments, andmost importantly—your intended audi-ence, you have the blueprint with which
you can begin drawing yourmarketing plans.
As you develop yourplans to promote yourbrand and company offer-ings, keep in mind two ofyour strongest tools. YourWeb site becomes the“face” of your company andmust reflect your business’strengths and vision. Youcan have the most fun anduse the most creativitywhen choosing the overalllook of your site and thecontent you post.
Your Web content mustbe relevant to your audi-ence, particularly the audi-ence you most want tospeak to. Put yourself intheir shoes … what wouldthey most like to see or what would be themost helpful to them? You want your Website to solidify their decision to look deeper,bookmark your site to return, or even makethe decision to click your “Apply Now” but-ton. Once they apply, they join your othercontacts in the database of leads you havein your LOS with a seamless integrationbetween your site and your LOS.
Freshen up your marketingIf you want to jump on the bandwagon,there is always a tremendous amount ofretail hype surrounding the holidays.Why not take advantage of that andmarket your services to your databasecontacts, past clients or even those“dead” applications that never wentanywhere? Even those contacts could beviable leads. What about having a“Black Friday” event or “President’sDay” extravaganza? You have plenty ofoptions, and you can fit your holidaymessaging to suit your business.
One of the benefits of using yourLOS for your marketing efforts is that itgives you the ability to truly targetyour audience with mail-merge capa-bilities and one-stop storage. If you’relucky, your LOS will work easily withMicrosoft Word to import and exportyour fresh marketing materials. UsingWord to create your documents givesyou hundreds of design options withthe templates you can find within thesoftware and online.
If you are creative, your designs,even modified from a template, are agreat way to transport your messages in
such a way that theyevoke the response thatyou are looking for. That’swhy knowing your con-tacts’ personal informa-tion to the extent possi-ble is crucial. You mighthave to use several tem-plates/designs to accomp-lish this, but it will be worththe additional effort. If youare lacking the informationfor your industry partners,it’s time to up your net-working game so that yourcommunications to themcan be just as targeted.
Make it matterto themThere is absolutely no rea-son why you should spend
an exorbitant amount of money to designyour marketing materials when there areso many templates available. Easy-to-usetemplates can be modified to representyour company’s look and feel as well asyour designated messaging per category.This applies to your Web site as well asyour printed pieces. Further personalizeyour materials with the mail merge optionin your LOS so that each piece becomesmore suited to your intended audience.You’ll find that even your e-mails canbecome a template, and yet still be cus-tomized and meaningful.
Meaningful marketing does matter inyour business—particularly in a downeconomy—it is important to maintain apresence in the marketplace. There areclients who can qualify for mortgages andrefinance loans. You just need to dig a lit-tle to find them and market to them. Usethe tools and ideas that work and onesthat work for you. Today it is not enoughto produce mass marketing materials thattry to speak to everybody but often remainsilent. You must determine what trulyspeaks to your audience and make yourmarketing matter to them.
B.J. Bounds is senior marketing commu-nications specialist for Calyx Software. Inaddition to media relations and copy-writing, BJ is a contributing author tothe Calyx Software blog, CalyxCorner.She has more than 10 years of experiencein sales and corporate marketing with afocus on technology that spans severalindustries. She may be reached by phoneat (800) 362-2599 or visit www.calyxsoft-ware.com.
“What may be perfectto us may not res-
onate the same waywith the clients we
seek. We must alwayskeep the client in ourminds as we seek tomarket to them. It’s
not about us.”
36
FEBR
UARY2012
�NATIONALM
ORT
GAGEPR
OFESS
IONALM
AGAZINE
�Na
tionalMortgageProfessional.com
