In case you are just tuning into this series of articles we have been covering a very important marketing lesson, one that might explain why your current marketing efforts may not be working. We have discussed the market and how important it is for you to know your market. Then we discussed your message and how you need to make sure that it is tailored to your market. You must know your market well enough to know what to say and how to say it.
Now let’s move on to the third and final part of the marketing triangle, the media. Remember we need all three to work perfectly for our marketing message to be effective.
This is the part where many marketing campaigns totally break down. You get your message right and you know your market but your prospects never get to see it because you are using the wrong media. Today we have so many choices that perhaps we actually have too many.
Human nature will push us to use the latest technology like social media sites. When we go there and find out that it’s free we like it even better, but is that where our target market is?
In our case with seniors the answer is maybe. But we know for sure that they are listening to talk radio stations. We also know they are watching RL TV (retirement living channel).
Could we find clients on Facebook and Twitter? Sure. But we know that 99% of the people watching RL TV are our prospect. There are two lessons we want you to take away from this article. The first is that you should never ever do general advertising. Simply put you are wasting your money. Let us give you an example. You are a reverse mortgage specialist so you take out a billboard ad right on the main street in town. The cost is $5,000 per month.
Now to be fair there are 100,000 people who will see this message over the next 30 days, right? Is this great or what? However, let’s dig down a bit deeper. How many of that 100,000 will be in your target market? To us this means they need to be 62 or over, have equity in their home, and want to know more about a reverse mortgage. What is this new number?
That number might be 2,000 to 3,000 of the 100,000 who will see the message. Are you starting to get the point? You are paying for this ad based on the 100,000 people who will see it but only a small fraction of those people are your actual target market.
Let’s look at the other part of choosing the right media and that is the prospect’s intent. When someone is driving down the road they aren’t necessarily looking for a reverse mortgage even if they fit the criteria for the program.
An example of this is advertising on Facebook versus Google. When you buy an ad on Facebook you get to target where your ad appears. That might sound like good news on the surface. However, while these folks may be your market they are not looking for your program.
When you purchase Google traffic you are actually getting traffic from people who typed in reverse mortgages. That means that they are actually looking for information. That means they are motivated.
You must make sure the media you are using is targeted and that your prospect is motivated.
Instead you could spend that 5,000 sending direct mail pieces to people you know are your target market. No waste and much more effective. You could spend your time and money doing seminars where only your targeted prospects are invited. There are numerous other methods you could employ but that is not the point here.
Bottom Line: In order for you to get the best return on your marketing dollars and efforts you must make sure that you have the right message for the right market and that it is being delivered in the right media. Next time you think about your marketing or wonder why your latest marketing efforts aren’t working, pull out this article and check your triangle. All three—message, market and media—must match.
Brian Sacks and Sue Haviland are the co-founders of Reverse Mortgage Success. They have been in the industry for over 25 years and have closed over 5,000 transactions. Sue and Brian originate reverse mortgages each and every day and share their real world experiences with you at
