The Biggest Mistake Originators Make in Their Marketing
Campaigns
If you ask the average mortgage professional what the most
important aspect of a mail piece or advertisement is they would
tell you that it is the headline. And they would be right. The
headline can make or break a marketing campaign. But because of
it's obvious importance, loan officers do tend to spend time
making sure that they have a effective headline.
What they don't spend much time on is ensuring that they have
the best call to action. The main goal in any marketing campaign
is to get the prospect to take some sort of action (going to a
seminar, setting up an appointment for a free consultation,
getting them to request your special report, etc).
Most loan officers just stick a phone number at the bottom of
their marketing piece with a quick little blurb to "call me for
more information." This in itself isn't bad. But it can greatly
improved on.
You see, the goal in your call to action is to make it as easy
as possible to for the prospect to take the action that you
desire. You want to decrease the resistance to act as much as
you can. By just stating "call me for more information" you are
creating a certain level of resistance. There is only one option
you are giving them, and you are asking the prospect to call you
directly.
And you will lose a ton of leads that you really shouldn't. All
the potential prospects who just aren't ready to talk to a loan
officer yet won't respond. They have questions that you can
definitely answer, but they aren't serious enough yet to
overcome the resistance to action that you have established.
But here is the key. In about 3 weeks, they may be serious
enough to take action, but you will be the furthest thing on
their mind. They will read a marketing piece by another loan
officer and then take action.
So your goal is to have the prospect take action at the earliest
stage of the buying process as you can. You want to establish a
relationship with them BEFORE they become serious, but the only
way for this to happen is to have them respond to your marketing
piece early in the game. And you do this by lowering the
resistance to call to action.
One thing that you can do to lower resistance is to give them
more ways to contact you. Give them your mailing address, cell
phone number, email address, etc. Some people are more
comfortable writing letters. Some prefer email or phone calls.
And some like the face to face meeting. If you limit your choice
to just one, you will exclude a large percentage of potential
leads.
Another thing you can do is make it as easy as possible for them
to take the call to action. For example, you send out a direct
mail campaign to your former customer base. Your call to action
in this campaign is for them to fill out a survey and mail it
back to you. How do you make it easy for them? You provide them
with a preaddressed envelope. You put a stamp on the return
envelope. You make the survey a multiple choice form where they
only have to circle the appropriate action. You perform all the
steps that you can so that they are basically required to just
circle a few answers on a form, and place it in the mail.
Also, give the prospect a little incentive to performing the
desired call to action. In the example above, you can offer a
gift certificate to everyone who completes and returns the
survey. That will definitely increase your responses. Another
idea is to give them a coupon (ie. $150 off closing costs) if
they perform your call to action.
I believe that after the headline, the call to action is the
most critical part of any marketing campaign. Be sure to
remember that you want to get your prospect to raise his or her
hand as early in the process as possible, and the only way to do
that is by making the resistance to taking the call to action
minimal. Give incentives. Give choices. Make it easy.