In today’s mortgage world there are several challenges faced by everyone in the profession. First there is client acquisition and conversion. The mortgage industry is very competitive. Acquiring new clients is one of the greatest challenges faced by both new and experienced brokers.
The next challenge is making it personal. The mortgage business involves a high degree of personal relationships to ensure loyalty, customer retention and references.
Finally there is the online revolution. Many people start their search for mortgage rates and other information online.
Resolve to overcome these hurdles by reaching out to potential clients with e-mail marketing. It offers a practical, cost-effective and results-driven solution, particularly one that includes features that help mortgage professionals better target their e-mail marketing campaigns.
Also known as segmenting, targeted lists can be filtered by any type of information collected, including price range, credit score and whether the buyer is looking for a chic condo in the heart of the city or a quaint lakeside retreat.
Using segmented lists for e-mail programs is also a great tool to stay engaged with the homebuyer throughout the purchasing cycle. Send different e-mails based on location, family size and home search criteria. Send one e-mail to those who opened your last piece and a different type of e-mail to those who ignored it. Any way you slice it, e-mail marketing has incredibly powerful targeting capabilities.
To make an even bigger impact, consider adding social media into your marketing. Social media is a great way to extend your reach. Facebook has 500 million users and continues to grow, and on Twitter, over 10 billion tweets have been broadcasted since 2006.
Here are several ideas on how to incorporate these tools into your e-mail marketing program:
• If you don’t have one already, add a fan page for your business on Facebook. Repackage what’s already been sent out in your e-mails on the page. Share the link with your e-mail subscribers and suggest they share it with their friends. Maybe even motivate them with a discount you’ve worked out with a local business if they promote your updates on their pages. The result: you have a new audience to read your news and potentially add their names to your e-mail contact list to receive additional information, new listings and promotions in their inbox.
• When you add your fan page, be sure to include a sign-up form that hooks into your e-mail marketing service. Use the data collected to segment your e-mail list. Keep the engagement going by sending personalized e-mails that may be more social in nature or have ties to relevant conversation on the fan page. You can also use the segmented list by the date of sign up to resurrect e-mail campaigns that have already been sent to other segmented lists earlier in the year.
• Both Facebook and Twitter offer a fresh channel to republish e-newsletter content and promotions. The catch is that you only have 140 characters for each “tweet” message you publish for your Twitter followers. The upside: it provides a direct way to interact with real estate shoppers who may not yet be aware of what you’re selling. Mortgage brokers can tweet special deals and opportunities about new sales and refinancing. It’s a great place for recommendations for partners you have relationships with and local retailers and service providers who may, in turn, pass your contact information along. Just make sure you include an easy way to link to the reference and opt in to receive your e-mails.
• Use hyperlinks to make sure your customers and prospects can find you through your newsletters and your website. Create a “link cycle” by doing the same on your blog, website, Facebook and Twitter pages. If your e-mail marketing service includes reporting on who clicks on these links, use the most popular on Facebook and Twitter. If the report shows it is a big draw, let the world know. Mark the comment or tweet as what’s hot this week or good news about the housing market.
Recently, Campaigner, an e-mail marketing service provider, has added new features that offer mortgage brokers a deeper level of analysis for their e-mail marketing campaigns. Together, these tools make it easier to review the performance of each e-mail campaign sent and see which recipients took action on which message or offer. The result: increased effectiveness for each campaign and a greater connection with recipients. A few of the new features include:
• Resend this campaign, which if chosen by users will automatically duplicate their campaign of choice and prompt them to select appropriate recipients for the campaign. This means less time spent determining how to resend a successful campaign to specific recipients, such as welcome messages to new subscribers, reminders, or other limited time offers.
• Contact view lets users analyze how each subscriber interacts with every campaign, including what campaigns each contact received, whether they opened the campaign, and any further actions (i.e., what links they clicked on in the campaign, etc.). This unparalleled level of detail for each contact can help small businesses determine how best to segment their mailing lists to better target who is interested in what and cater e-mail sends to those preferences.
Resolve to build a smart e-mail marketing program this time around. Get creative and social. It will prove to have a great pay-off in the future.
Melanie Attia is the product marketing manager for Campaigner. She can be reached at
