Marketing
On any given work day, think about how much commercial messaging or marketing you ignore. You might start your morning with a few (dozen) digital ads popping up, unbidden, in your browser as you plow through them enroute to your desired content. You probably delete a few more of the advertising emails that actually made it into your in-box after that; not to mention the dozens that never even graduated to “opened” status, caught in your spam filter. Your drive to work may bring you a few billboards, or a public bus with an ad on the side. Your walk from the parking garage or the street into your office may take you past a few more messages you won’t remember in a few minutes. Heck, you may not even notice the logo on the pen you picked up at that last trade conference, even though you’re using it to make a few notes before starting the day.
How many marketing messages never make it to your consciousness on a daily basis? Dozens…or more. All carefully thought-through—or not—by people who truly believe that their product or service is the ideal solution for your needs, even if you don’t know you have those needs yet.
Now, back to your marketing efforts to real estate agents, brokers and loan officers as mortgage volume slowly stabilizes or even declines. Do you find you’re talking a lot more than listening? Believe it or not, marketing messaging can be a two-way conversation. If you’re using Alanna’s Campaigns ability already, you know that. There’s also another way to get an unsuspecting marketing target’s attention.
Talk about them. Sympathize with their problems. Talk about things that interest them. Don’t lead with your features, especially if the way you’re sharing the message will be arriving at the prospect without having been requested. Be pithy about it, as well. If a real estate professional woke up thinking about anything other than a pressing need to find a better title partner the day your email hits her in-box, odds are she’ll make up her mind to delete your carefully crafted message long before she gets to the second paragraph about why your geographic footprint and choice of underwriters really should matter to her.
By our very nature, human beings tend to be self-oriented. We’re thinking about our to-do list; our problems or our needs 99.9% of the time. We’ve also become more impatient and less inclined to do legwork in this hyper-busy society. So why would a prospect who likely doesn’t need a new title partner at the moment drop what she’s doing and read the 800 words of copy your legal team wrote about the history of your title agency?
Don’t answer that. It never happens. So the next time you’re gearing up a new message in Campaigns or any other marketing medium, start by putting yourself in the potential clients’ shoes? What do they want to talk about today?