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One of the most costly mortgage marketing mistakes I see mortgage professionals fall prey to is their tendency to myopically focus on acquiring new clients and in doing so they neglect the largest asset they will ever have in their business: their client database.
Think about it. What other market likes you, knows you and trusts you more that your own happy clients? Nobody! They are your raving fans. Did you know that every month that goes by that you ignore these people it is costing you thousands of dollars?
I recently heard a profound statistic that reveals the importance of follow-up. Every month that you do not communicate with your clients or referral partners… you lose 10% of your influence.
That's 10% of your influence lost every month you don't communicate with your clients, prospects or referral partners!
The fact is people hate being ignored and if you are not continuously staying in touch they're likely to get wooed away by your competition. If you want to build a predictable, profitable and salable mortgage business, you can't afford not to develop your monthly client newsletter. Your newsletter can and should become your primary marketing weapon.
So if all this is true, why aren't you investing more time, energy and money to extract value from your client database? Perhaps no one has taught you the importance of it and shown you how to do it - until now.
You're about to discover the ultimate follow-up marketing tool for increasing referrals, and stimulating more repeat business from your client base. I call this tool the "Monthly Client Newsletter."
Your newsletter should be going out to 3 different segments of your database:
1. Prospects
2. Clients
3. Referral Partners
The key to success is consistency. Commit to sending your Monthly Newsletter out to these 3 groups every month until they move, die or tell you to stop.
Here are some of the important benefits you'll receive as a result of sending your newsletter out like clockwork every month:
1. "Top of Mind Consciousness" -- your name will automatically and impulsively come to mind as the only logical choice for mortgage financing
2. Increased credibility and trust
3. Strengthened client loyalty
4. A sense of community - frequent communication makes people feel as though they are "part" of something. This addresses people's inner desire to belong and feel important.
5. More unsolicited referrals
6. Provides you with a ready market - it ensures that you win more repeat sales with renewals, refinancing and repurchases because they know you, like you and trust you.
It should be obvious by now that the return on investment for creating and maintaining a newsletter is tremendous.
3 Steps to Creating Your Monthly Client Newsletter
Step 1 -- Choose the Delivery Method
You basically have two options for the delivery of your newsletter: Email or Direct Mail. Both have their pros and cons. Email is currently free. However, with the raging avalanche of emails pouring into people's inbox on a daily basis you'll be lucky if people even see your email, let alone read it.
Direct mail, on the other hand, requires a larger upfront investment but if done correctly will be read by more people and will ultimately generate more business. After testing both formats, direct mail has invariably proved itself as the top performer in terms of return on investment and total profits generated.
Step 2 -- Create Your Content
Content is the most important ingredient to the success of your newsletter. If your newsletter is even remotely irrelevant, boring or dry it will quickly meet its' fruitless fate in the recycle bins of the world.
Here are 8 tips to protect your newsletter from becoming a resident of "Dullsville":
Tip #1: Use exciting and compelling headlines -- i.e. "Is Your Mortgage Tax Deductible?"
Tip #2: Use questions to draw people in and create curiosity
Tip #3: Share personal information about yourself and your family to build connection
Tip #4: At the end of the articles, include a specific call to action
Tip #5: Write in a personal tone as if you were writing to a friend
Tip #6: Use easy to read, emotionally oriented, conversational style writing
Tip #7: Make it entertaining - i.e. quizzes, recipes, Sudoku, interesting news
Tip #8: Include photos, cartoons and white space to please the eye of your reader
A true direct response newsletter is not, nor will it ever be, "professional". There should be no articles about technical items, written in technical language. If you do talk about something technical, it will usually be a very down to earth explanation, filled in with stories, humor or sentiment.
Step 3 - Continue to Improve Your Newsletter
Make sure that you ask your subscribers for their opinion on how to improve your newsletter. You'll always get some valuable feedback. Subscribe to other newsletters and incorporate what you like from their newsletters into your own. Your newsletter should always be in a state of flux. By that I mean that you should always be looking for new and different ways to make it achieve your objectives.
Conclusion
If implemented correctly your monthly newsletter can become your most profitable marketing weapon. It will get you noticed, get responses, get passed around, and get referrals…both from your past and existing clients, as well as from outside professionals. It can also be used as part of a follow up campaign with respondents from ads, or applications that haven't closed yet. Your newsletter will become the superglue that keeps your clients bonded to you for life.
Want to See a Complete Sample of Doren's NEW Done4U Client Newsletter?
About the Author:
Doren Aldana, the nation's leading Mortgage Marketing Coach, is dedicated to helping mortgage professionals attract more clients with less effort. Aldana is also the author of a Mortgage Marketing Audio Seminar, "21 Secrets of Superstar Mortgage Brokers and Loan Officers!" To get your free copy click here.
To access the proven mortgage marketing resources and profit producing tools discussed in this article visit our webstore or join our mortgage marketing coaching program.
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