Mortgage Marketing &amp; Lead Generation Blog

by Jackie

By JC Kadii, MortgageVirtualAssistant.com^SM

Generating links is a huge part of any social networking. Whether you use links in your website, blog, or other online media, this Mozilla Firefox add-on is a fantastic time saver.

With this tool, all you have to do to generate a link is:

Select the text,
Right click,
Select “Copy as html link.”

The tool will generate the appropriate “a href” code, which you can post onto your web page, blog, etc.

Here is the link to this Mozilla Firefox add-on Copy as HTML Link 1.1.

For more information on time-saving blogging tips, ask about our course, “Blog – and Have a Life.”

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JC Kadii, Mortgage Virtual Assistant^SM . 770-469-7385. Through http://www.close-more-loans.com/, JC leads a team providing top notch administrative, internet marketing, and technology services to mortgage professionals. Mortgage professionals are encouraged to visit the website and sign up for the More Closings email newsletter to receive the report 6 Steps to More Referrals.

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Spend less time reading web sites, blogs, long emails, etc.

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by Jackie

By JC Kadii, MortgageVirtualAssistant.com^SM

Between running our businesses, marketing, social networking, etc., etc., time is at a premium. Who has time to stay up-to-date with all of the great information that’s available online?

Text2Go.com is a website that offers a tool to help. It simply converts any online text (websites, emails, blogs, etc.) to audio files that you can use in your ipod or mp3 player.

Instead of spending all of that time reading online, you can play the audio while commuting, on your way to appointments, while working out, etc.

How cool is that? And it gets even better – Text2Go offers a free trial so that you can try it before you buy it to see if it works for you.

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Internet Research Interrupted? Don’t Fret.

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by Jackie

Internet Research Interrupted? Don’t Fret.

By JC Kadii, MortgageVirtualAssistant.com^SM

Tested with Mozilla Firefox

Have you ever had your Internet research interrupted? In other words, you are working along on a research project, with multiple tabs open and you have to leave your computer.

Here’s a way to save your spot, so that you can resume your Internet research right where you were.

Click the Bookmarks menu, then Bookmark all tabs (Ctrl + Shift + D).

Firefox will create a bookmark saving all of the tabs you have open in this particular session. Name your bookmark. When you’re ready to get back to work, simply open the bookmark.

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3 of my Favorite Internet Research Tips

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by Jackie

By JC Kadii, MortgageVirtualAssistant.com^SM

I often find myself conducting Internet research for my clients. One of the services I provide as a Mortgage Virtual Assistant^SM .

Here are 3 of my favorite Internet research tips.

To open a link in a new tab, click CTRL + the link.

To open a link in a new window, click SHIFT + the link.

To search within a web site, type in the search terms + the site url in the google search box.

Ex., if you enter “mortgage marketing” site:activerain.com in the google search box, it will bring up everything on Active Rain that contains the terms “mortgage marketing.”

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Affordable, Effective Mortgage Lead Generation – Pt 3 – Email Marketing

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Mortgage Lead Generation Series

by Jackie

Mortgage Lead Generation: Email Marketing Still Works

By JC Kiadii, Virtual Assistance & Internet
Marketing for
Mortgage
Professionals

Part 3
of a 4-part series exploring innovative,
affordable mortgage lead generation tactics that work!

Has this happened to you?
You get a call from someone you never heard of who is the
market for a mortgage. When you ask them where they heard of you, they
say “I’m a friend of _____’s and she always sends me a copy of your
email newsletter. I’ve been reading it for months.”

Welcome to the power of email marketing, and the reason why it is still
one of the most effective and affordable lead generation tools.

Why email marketing still works for mortgage businesses.

It is an
incredibly cost-effective way to reach the most people.

Studies show that “checking email” is still one of the top two online
activities. (The other is search). A prospect who knows nothing of RSS
feeds and would not dream of hanging out on Facebook still has an email
account that he or she checks regularly.

Marketing research proves that it takes 7 touches to turn an interested
prospect into a client. Let’s assume you have a database of
500 prospects. Communicating with them 7 times will cost you $1,540.
Let’s say you send your mortgage email newsletter twice a month.
Contacting the same list 7 times can cost you as little as
$80. That’s a
savings of almost $1,500!
It doesn’t require as much maintenance
as some social media activities.
If you create a high quality, interesting and engaging email
newsletter, you can maintain your connection with your mortgage
prospects by sending your newsletter twice a month. It would be almost
impossible to maintain your connections with your social media friends
if you only logged into Facebook or twitter a couple of times a month.
It has great viral potential.
Each of us has an estimated 200 people in our sphere of influence. With
a click of a button, your recipients can share your email newsletter
with anyone they wish, and keep a copy for themselves.
Contrast that with direct mail.
It has an impressive return on
investment.
The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) estimates email marketing’s
return on investment at $45.32. That’s not a bad return on investment,
especially in challenging economic times.

Does all email marketing work? Unfortunately not. Focus on sending an
engaging email newsletter to a your targeted, permission-based
list and I guarantee you an increase in mortgage leads.
Stay tuned for the last part of the 4-part mortgage lead generation
series.

Part 1 – Focus
Part 2 – Increase High Quality
Referrals with a
Power Partner (or two)
Part 3 - Email Marketing

Don’t
miss the next post – Subscribe
to this blog
and get updates in your email.

JC
Kiadii, Mortgage Virtual Assistance and
Internet Marketing
Services . 770-469-7385. Are
you reaching out to the 87% of
new buyers who start their search online?
Our team provides results-driven
mortgage Internet marketing services.
Visit our website and sign up
for the More Closings
email newsletter to receive the report 6
Steps to More Referrals.

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Affordable, Effective Mortgage Lead Generation – Pt 2 – Power Partners

Categories:

Mortgage Lead Generation Series

by Jackie

Mortgage Lead Generation: Increase High Quality Referrals with a Power
Partner (or Two)

By JC Kiadii, Virtual Assistance & Internet
Marketing for
Mortgage
Professionals

Part 2
of a 4-part series exploring innovative,
affordable mortgage lead generation tactics that work!

Are you looking for effective ways to market your mortgage business
without spending a fortune? Here’s an idea - get a power
partner (or two).

What is a power partner?

A power partner is someone you meet with consistently
over a defined period of time,
as you work towards accomplishing specific
goals.

I initially started working with power partners as a way of increasing
my productivity. There is something about knowing I have to account for
my progress once a week that puts some pep in my productivity.

I discovered a surprising benefit of working with power partners – in
addition to increasing my productivity, current and former power
partners are a consistent
source of high quality leads and referrals.
As we work together, we get to know each others’ businesses. It helps
us identify and refer high
quality prospects to each other.

Power Partner Guidelines

Make
sure you are equally yoked.
By
“equally yoked,” I mean you should choose a power partner that is just
as committed to their business as you. It is also important to pick
someone you can trust, because you may be sharing information you don’t
want to get in the hands of your competitors.

Keep
your group small.
Since
we only meet for an hour once a week, I’ve found its better when there
are no more than 3 people in a group.

Have
a focus or theme.
I
actually have 3 power partnerships; each with a specific theme. In the
first one, we work on 90 day goals. The second one is all about
exploring ways to generate passive, recurring revenue. My third power
partner and I are working on a specific project, which we will announce
very soon.

Set
a time limit.
Since
I’m a big fan of 90 day goals,
most of my partnerships are for a 90-day time span. Our weekly phone
conferences are no more than 1 hour.

Assign
a scribe, and have an agenda.
One
power partner and I trade note-taking duties. One week I’m the
scribe, the next she is. For another partnership, I am the scribe 100%
of the time. An agenda goes out after each meeting, and before the
next. The agenda clearly states the action items we each have pledged
to completed.

Keep
your word, and make the partnership a priority.
Always
be on time for your meetings, and be consistent about achieving your
action items. The more you are able to prove to your partner that you
are “on the ball,” the higher the likelihood they will recommend you to
their sphere of influence.

Use
technology, where appropriate.
There
are a ton of no-cost project management tools online, where you can
keep track of milestones, tasks, emails, documents and much more. If
you and your partner are tech-savvy, consider exploring and using these
tools.

Give
more than you take.
Hold
your partner accountable for accomplishing his or her goals. Actively
seek ways to help your partner grow his or her business.

Rinse
and Repeat.
You
can repeat the cycle with the same partner, or start one with another.

Imagine this – you work with 4 power
partners over the next year. At the end, you will not only have
accomplished more than you dreamed possible, your mortgage lead
generation will be on auto-pilot with at
least 4 referral sources
who are in the position to send you high quality prospects
from their spheres of influence.

Stay tuned for issue 3 of this series.

Part 1 – Focus
Part
2 – Increase High Quality Referrals with a Power Partner (or two)

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miss the next post – Subscribe
to this blog
and get updates in your email.

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Affordable, Effective Mortgage Lead Generation – Pt 1 – Focus

Categories:

by Jackie

By JC
Kiadii, Virtual Assistance & Internet
Marketing for Mortgage
Professionals

Part 1
of a 4-part series exploring innovative,
affordable mortgage lead generation tactics that work!

Mortgage professionals (especially independent brokers) are in somewhat
of a pickle.

Increasingly stringent guidelines have
narrowed the field of
potential borrowers.
Seemingly
capricious stips make can make it difficult to get the clients you have
to closing. In days gone by, a
well organized mortgage professional could anticipate underwriting
conditions and prepare files accordingly. Nowadays, even the
most prepared originator is dealing with stips that seem to
come out of left field.
Fewer
closings mean a smaller mortgage marketing budget,
yet stopping your lead generation is the absolute
worst thing
you can do. Fact: The marketing you do today will determine your
closings 2-6 months from now. If you take a marketing hiatus,
it is going to take twice as long to get back on track.

With the mortgage market the way it is, it’s more important than ever
to make every marketing cent count.

In this 4-part series, I’ll share 4 of the over 30 (and counting)
innovative, effective and affordable mortgage lead generation tactics
in my arsenal.

Part 1 – You have to start with
a focus.

We’ve already established the fact that marketing funds are tight. This
is why it is critical that you have a focus for your mortgage
marketing, so that you are not pulled in many different directions,
wasting precious funds.

When I say focus and plan, people cringe. They think of hours spent
slogging over some voluminous marketing plan document document; nothing
could be further from the truth.

All I mean is that you, at a minimum, should know the type of business
(or client) that you are trying to attract.

The easiest way to determine
this is to think of your favorite client(s).

How did they find you?
What was their mortgage program (FHA,
VA, Conventional, etc)?
What was their market type (first-time
homebuyer, second property, investment, jumbo)?
What is their demographic profile
(2-income family, single female, recent college graduate)?
What did you like so much about
working with this client?
Where do they hang out (off and
online)?

Answering these
questions will help you focus on a particular niche.

Does focusing mean you will turn away other business?
Absolutely not! But without a
focus, you are doomed to run helter skelter in many directions.

I hope you continue to follow this series – Affordable, Effective
Mortgage Lead Generation.

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miss the next post – Subscribe
to this blog
and get updates in your email.

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Outlook 2007 – Use Templates to Increase your Efficiency

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by Jackie

By JC
Kiadii, Virtual Assistance & Online
Marketing for Mortgage Professionals

One of
my clients has a series of 3 follow-up emails he sends to new clients.
You could put the emails in an autoresponder, but I find it simpler to
use Outlook 2007′s Quick Parts to create templates that I can edit and
use over and over again.

Additional tips are provided in my Webinar – Cleaning
Inbox Clutter.

Other
great uses for Quick Parts are standard emails such as:

directions to your office,
what to bring to the closing table,
thanks for the referral,
answers to frequently asked questions,
etc.

Step 1 – Create
and Save your QuickParts Message.

Start a new email message.
Type the text you want to use (ex.,
directions to your office).
Click the Insert tab, and then Click
Quick Parts.
Select Save Selection to Quick Part
Gallery.

Step 2 – Use
your Quick Parts Message

Start the email you want to type.
Click Quick Parts under the Insert Tab.
The Quick Parts you’ve saved will be
on a list. Select the first
one you want to use.
Repeat the process until you’ve
selected all the QuickParts you
want to use in your email.
Address and send your message.

For Outlook 2003 Instructions,
click here.

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miss the next post – Subscribe
to this blog and get updates in
your email.

JC
Kadii, Mortgage Virtual Assistance and
Online Marketing Services .
770-469-7385. Are you reaching
out to the 87% of new buyers who start their search online?
Our team provides results-driven
mortgage Internet marketing services.
Visit our website and sign up for the More Closings
email newsletter to receive the report 6
Steps to More Referrals.

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Mortgage Marketing Tip: Answering this 1 Question will Keep your Marketing Consistent

Categories:

by Jackie

Mortgage
Marketing Tip: Answering this 1 Question will Keep your Marketing
Consistent.

By JC Kadii, Virtual Assistance & Online
Marketing for Mortgage Professionals

Marketing consistently is a
challenge we all face. Jay
Conrad Levinson, the Godfather
of Guerrilla Marketing, said
that the #1 marketing mistake is lack of consistency.

Being inconsistent in your marketing can have catastrophic results in
your business. On average, when
you take a hiatus from marketing, it takes twice as much time to get
back up to speed. So, let’s say you do no marketing for 2
months. For those 2 months, everything is fine while you reap the
rewards of your previous marketing efforts. As the 2 months come to an
end, however, you see that the number of prospects in your pipeline has
dwindled to near zero. Now you find yourself in the unenviable position
of having to somehow generate enough business to stay afloat for the
next 4 months while you regain your marketing momentum.

In a previous blog post, Mortgage
Marketing Tip: Removing Marketing Roadblocks,
I shared strategies for increasing your marketing consistency.

Here’s another strategy: ask
the question “Why?”
When you make a list of your marketing activities, include a
line that explains why you chose this particular strategy. Whenever you
feel the temptation to not go through with a particular marketing task,
this question and answer will help
you stay on track.

Here are a few real life examples (names changed).

Ann is a loan originator in Huntsville, AL. She decides to launch an
email newsletter to promote her mortgage business. After deciding to
take the plunge, Ann makes this list to answer the question “Why?”

Email marketing
is a low cost way to stay in contact with her sphere of influence.
She can track
clicks and open rates and use them to fine tune her marketing messages,
or target offers to specific groups.
She can at least
double the ROI on her direct mail marketing methods. Since everyone is
getting her email newsletter, she can save on her postage costs by
sending direct mail to a smaller group consisting of referral sources
and previous clients.

David,
an Atlanta based mortgage broker, volunteers to chair a new committee
for a community based group. Here’s his list of reasons:

He enjoys
participating in this group, and chairing a committee means he’s made a
commitment to get more involved.
Chairing a
committee increases his exposure to an emerging market, one that he
believes will experience a lot of growth in 2010.

So,
when you make a list of marketing activities, make sure to list the
answer to the question “Why?”
Don’t miss the next post – Subscribe
to this blog and get updates in
your email.

JC Kadii, Mortgage Virtual Assistance and
Online Marketing Services .
770-469-7385. Are you reaching
out to the 70% of new buyers who start their search online?
Our team provides results-driven
mortgage Internet
marketing services. Visit our
website and sign up for the More Closings
email newsletter to receive the report 6
Steps to More Referrals.

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Is Outsourcing your Mortgage Blogging Cheating?

Categories:

by Jackie

By JC Kadii, Virtual Assistance & Online Marketing for Mortgage Professionals

There is always a lot of
debate about this question on Active Rain – should you outsource your
blogging?

The Purists

For those who say “Absolutely not!” it’s a matter of integrity.
They feel as if your blog should affect your authentic voice.

The Realists

For those who say “Why not?” it’s a matter of expediency.
They say “I’m a mortgage broker, not a blogger!” They feel
that just because they don’t have the time to blog, they
shouldn’t be shut out of experiencing the benefits of blogging.

I say, “It
doesn’t have to be an either/or proposition.” It is possible
to outsource some blog tasks and maintain your authenticity.
Here are a 7 specific ways a
virtual assistant can help you keep your mortgage blog content fresh.

A virtual assistant can help you:

Flesh out your
ideas.
So, you have a great idea for a blog topic. You write it in your blog
idea notebook, and there it sits and withers for months and months. One
day you log into Active Rain and not only has someone else written a
similar topic – it’s featured! Dont’ let this happen to you.
Write your blog ideas, include a few outline points, and hand it over
to your virtual assistant. Let him (or her) flesh out your ideas and
give it back to you for review.

Get search
engine love.
Search engine love helps bring clients to you. Your virtual assistant
can take your blog post and optimize the title and content for your
keywords, include links to your other web sites, and much more.

Make sure your
slip isn’t showing.
Proofreading your own work is tough. Have you had an occasion where you
read and re-read a blog post, only to find a glaring error after
publishing it? The way I’ve found to prevent this from
happening is to read the post out loud, word by word, finger (or mouse
pointer) over each word. But what if you don’t have the time? Simply
outsource this task to a virtual assistant. I submit my clients’
articles to a great editor who has a Master’s degree in
English so that she can take one last look before it goes live.
Get your post
the highest visibility in the Active Rain community.
I am not sure how many groups and channels are on AR at this point, but
I know there are a ton. Navigating them can take time. If you are in
the habit of posting to the same old groups, you may be missing
opportunities for exposure to other audiences. Your virtual assistant
can assign your post to the approrpriate groups and channels.

Research Topics.
There’s a lot going on in the mortgage industry. It seems as if not a
month passes that you don’t hear of yet another bright idea piece of
legislation that is supposed to help the consumer. Your VA can help
research trends, and provide well-sourced research that you can use to
write your blog posts.

Add some bling.
Okay, I’m guilty. I don’t put pictures in my blog because I don’t have
the time. My focus is on goal #1, to get something posted. If I have
time to add pictures, great! If I don’t, it just doesn’t happen. You
can have your VA add fonts, pictures, and other
bling-a-bling-bling to your blog posts to engage the interests of your
readers.

Suggest Content.
Your VA, especially if he or she specializes in the mortgage industry,
comes across information all of the time about industry trends or
topics that may be of interest to your clients. By providing you this
information, they help keep your content fresh and relevant.

I would caution you about this: no matter how good they are, never
let
your virtual assistant pull the trigger on your blog posts. Your
VA can
put the finishing touches on your blog posts and save them as drafts.
All you have to do is login, make one final review, and change the
status from Draft to Public, Associates or Members Only and you’re done!

I hope these 7 ideas demonstrate my
point – that getting help with your blogging doesn’t have to involve
dishonesty. Use 1 or all of them, and let me know how they work.

How do you outsource your blogging
and maintain authencity?

Don’t miss the next post – Subscribe to this blog and get updates in your email.

JC Kadii, Mortgage Virtual Assistance and Online Marketing Services . 770-469-7385. Are you reaching out to the 70% of new buyers who start their search online? Our team provides results-driven mortgage internet marketing services. Visit our website and sign up for the More Closings email newsletter to receive the report 6 Steps to More Referrals.

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