To say it’s been a crazy few months barely scratches the surface . . . but, as Andy Roach, recently let go when Greenpoint Mortgage shut down, stated in an AP interview -
“The mortgage business isn’t dead — there’s just going to be less people in it.”
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Technorati Tags: subprime meltdown, mortgage crisis, mortgage jobs, greenpoint mortgage
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First, allow me to apologize for my lack of posts recently. However, I did want to take a break from my daily grind to share a great resource with you regarding the changing mortgage marketplace.
Here in Mortgage Capital USA (aka Orange County, CA), the Orange County Register has devoted an entire section of their website to the “Subprime Shake-Up.” I find it a quick resource to help me keep on top of the public perception of our industry.
Technorati Tags: subprime, subprime shake-up, mortgage industry, mortgage marketing, orange county register
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I just stumbled across some great programming being offered by Microsoft this week as part of their “Small Business Summit“. Unfortunately, it looks like I’ve missed the first two days but there are still plenty of sessions that I hope to catch over the next three. And by “catch” I mean try to pay attention to in the background as I try and do some “real work”. Take a look, its free and it really looks like there will be some great information being shared! Even if you can’t make it to the live broadcast, the sessions will be available on demand 72 hours after the event as well.
Wednesday, March 21
11:00AM
Get a Higher Profile on the Web – Jennifer Laycock, Editor of Search Engine GuideThursday, March 229:00AM
Visionary Business - Gary Hoover, Serial Entrepreneur and Author, Hoover’s Vision, Original Thinking for Business Success
11:00AM
Building Customer Trust - Joanna Krotz, Author of The Small Business Kit
12:00 PM
Buzz Marketing - Gregg Spiridellis, Co-founder of JibJab Media
Friday, March 23
11:00 AM Pacific Time
Building a Brand as a Startup - Lance Morgan, publisher of Brilliant magazine12:00 PM Pacific Time
Where To Go For Money - Jim Nolen, Financial Advisor and Adjunct Professor, University of Texas12:00 PM Pacific Time
Create a Marketing Plan - Rob Adams, Entrepreneur and Author
1:00PM Pacific
Develop Customers for Life - Joanna Krotz, Author of The Small Business Kit
I try and give advance notice when these great free educational opportunities come up. Sign up for my free mortgage marketing newsletter to receive direct notifications and make sure you don’t miss out on future events!
Technorati Tags: microsoft small business summit, microsoft, continuing education
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I just read a great article by Jake Matthews of 10e20.com detailing why search engine optimization is crucial for your small business. If you are even half interested in making the internet a solid part of your mortgage business, you really should take a look at the article. As someone who considers himself a firm believer in the importance of the interest as it relates to the future of my mortgage business, I found the article to be a great reminder that the internet goes far beyond being a venue for traditional “mortgage marketing.” Jake goes over the following topics in detail:
Technorati Tags: mortgage marketing, search engine optimizatin, mortgage marketing ideas, 10e20
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Over the past few days, I’ve been surfing around viewing probably hundreds of mortgage broker websites and real estate agent/broker websites. I was surprised (not pleasantly) at how many of us seem to think that fancy flash introductions and muzak are adding any real benefit to our online presence.
I think the most annoying thing that can happen to me while I’m careening willy nilly around the internet is have some website start blaring music out of desktop speakers.
Perhaps it’s a control thing and I get upset when my computer does something I didn’t ask it to do. Perhaps I’m a bit peeved that some website decided it was a good idea to start playing elevator music over whatever I may have actually chosen to listen to. Perhaps I just don’t like the white noise / computer hum of my insulated workspace to be violated by uninvited muzak.
Whatever the reason, I immediately begin the process of regaining audible supremacy over my computer. Depending on the location of the mouse cursor on my screen, I typically do one of two things.
1) I quickly strike the “X” located in the top right corner of my browser window.
2) I jab at the little green arrow located at the top left edge of my browser window.
Whichever action I choose to take, the website I was just at has lost a visitor. And, with every lost visitor is a lost opportunity to gain a new client.
So please, if the default setting on your website is set to play music, disable it or at least set the default to off.
And, if you don’t believe me, just type in “music on websites” in any search engine and read the comments out there. Music does have it’s place online, but in most cases, it will take away from the professional image that you are trying to project as a mortgage professional.
Technorati Tags: mortgage markeing ideas, music on websites, mortgage broker websites, real estate websites
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As social networking continues to gain momentum, I thought I’d take a moment to feature some of the top mortgage/real estate based on-line communities…
Active Rain - Giant Blog for Real Estate Industry. Earn points to be the “featured” agent/broker/company in your city/county/state. I recently joined this forum and have to say that, at the moment, it’s my favorite destination. I really like it because it provides direct access to real estate agents across the country. If you are willing to participate in the discussion, this is by far the best place I have found to build a network of realtor referrals. Join ActiveRain Here
Broker Outpost - The Big Daddy of Mortgage communities. The Outpost is simple and efficient. There are only 4 public message boards with the main one simply titled ” The Outpost recently passed 30,000 members, so, there’s good chance that if you’ve found this blog, you’re already familiar with the Outpost. if you become a “Premium Member” for $10 a month, you will receive access to a private forum along with the ability to participate in an collaborate marketing effort. There are lo’s and brokers there who rely almost solely on this system to generate their leads. Also, premium members frequently give away leads that they aren’t licensed to handle.Broker Universe’s “Mortgage Grapevine” - In all honesty, I haven’t really spent any time at all on this site. It’s a bit too chaotic for my tastes but I know a number of people who visit it frequently and find it to be a great resource.
Wanna Network - I just signed up for this one today. So far, I’d classify it as the MySpace for Real Estate, within moments of joining you’ll have people asking you to join their networks. They have a discussion forum as well as member profiles. I glanced over them and they seem to have some good information.
It can be very easy to get lost in the wealth of information contained in these forums and on these networks. But the best feature by far is the ability to connect with others. If you really want to get the most of any of these communities, you need to be prepared to be a participating member. “Lurking” can be quite informative but those who participate are the ones that reap the true rewards.
I’m working to put together a piece on using more mainstream social networks (Friendster, MySpace, YouTube) to grow your business. Other than watching the occasional video or checking out a MySpace profile here and there, I really don’t use/visit these sites all that often. But, from my initial research, there are quite a few real estate and mortgage professionals that have had some great success via these platforms.
I’d love to hear from people who are currently using these sites as marketing tools. Leave a comment or join my mortgage marketing newsletter list and shoot me an email if you have had success generating business via on-line social marketing!
Now get out there and network! Just be sure you make time to get offline now and then and do some actual work!
Technorati Tags: mortgage marketing, social networking, active rain, activerain, youtube, broker outpost, mortgage grapevine, mortgage marketing ideas, realtor referrals
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Just received the following from Novastar, the last email makes a bit more sense now . . .
Loans priced in NovaStarIS and NovaQual will automatically retain their lock status on pricing for 30 days.
As a one time adjustment, loan rates locked prior to Tuesday, March 6th will adjust unless closed by Wednesday, March 14th.
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Just got this from Novastar. I’m not thinking the pricing on the day docs are drawn thing is going work . . .
Due to fast moving shifts in the secondary market beyond our control, we can no longer honor pricing approvals in NovaStarIS for an extended period of time.
To avoid pricing adjustments on loans already approved in NovaStarIS but not yet funded, docs must be sent out by the end of the day on Wednesday, March 14th.
Beginning Thursday, March 15th, loans will be priced based on the current rate sheet when the docs are drawn.
Technorati Tags: novastar, subprime, subprime meltdown
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Over the past few years, online article marketing has become one of the quickest and most affordable ways to build one way backlinks to your website.
The concept of article marketing is simple; you write an original article and then submit it to free article directories. You include a “resource box” in the article that briefly touches on your services and that includes a link back to your website.
These articles don’t have to be long at all, in fact, the recommended length is 450-700 words per article. You will want to make sure that the article is genuinely informative and that it is not a self promotion piece. Your chance to promote your services or website is at the end of the article in the resource box.
I wrote my first mortgage article back in December of 2004. As a result of that article, I have received more than 450 requests for more information and I continue to receive between 2-5 new contacts per week. Additionally, the linking power of that article has helped me maintain a top 10 ranking in Google for a keyword related to a very popular mortgage program. At the time, I hand submitted my site to about 50 directory websites which ranks up with the most boring things I’ve ever done (the good news is there are services that can do that for you now. I’ll list a couple in a second.)
Additionally, completely separate from the real estate / mortgage industry, I wrote four articles for a friend of mine who has a company that provides a specific type of legal service. As a result of those articles, we moved him from deep in the search results (and in the case of Google, not ranked at all for his top keyword) to the top page of the three big search engines for not one, not two but three of his targeted keyword phrases.
While the submissions for the mortgage related website example I used were done just over two years ago, the non mortgage related example was done August and September of last year. I only mention that to demonstrate that article marketing can begin to produce noticeable results in a relatively short period of time as well as provide your website with long term exposure.
If you’ve read anything about online marketing and search engine optimization (SEO), you will have no doubt come across the term “duplicate content”. What this refers to is the existence of the same piece of content in two separate places. Google in particular is known for picking only version of an article to return in its results. This really makes sense as otherwise you’d be seeing the same article hundreds of times. While each and every website that your article is published at may not rank for your article’s keywords, you will still be receiving benefit from the backlinks associated with those articles.
I won’t get into the raging debate over duplicate content here, but if you want to be sure that your site steers completely clear of any duplicate content issues, you can take two simple steps to bullet proof your article submission strategy along with your web site when it comes to duplicate content.
While not necessary, try and accomplish two things when it comes to keyword selection and your resource box.
First, try to vary your keywords from article to article. Over time, it would seem funny if every single link that pointed to your website said the same thing.
Second, give the reader a reason to click on your links and move past the article and to your websites. You need a call to action to entice them to point that arrow and push that mouse button where you want them to. Many writers use free reports or newsletters to draw visitors. If you can’t think of anything creative at the moment to use as a call to action, don’t let that stop you from writing and submitting your articles.
Ok, now that you have an article all written and ready to put out there to start building your links and, as bonus, hopefully drive some very qualified traffic to your website, the next step is submission.
(Check out this list of free article directories.)
Submitting articles by hand is really out of the questions as it would take hours and hours if not days to submit your article to even a fraction of the directories out there. This being the case, there are a number of services that have popped up and that will distribute your articles for you to hundreds of free directories for a fee.
Two of the more popular ones that I use are:
There are also a number of software programs out there that you can use to submit your articles. It’s been a while since I have used any of these so I won’t go into any detail or make any recommendations. If I do have the time to try some of these out, I’ll be sure to post the results.
For the purpose of estimation, lets say you watn to write and distribute four mortgage articles. On the time side, it will probaly take you about an hour to write each artilce and about 5 minute to submit each artilce once you have accoutns set up with the two article distribution services I mentioned above. So, total time, four and half hours. On the cost side, your only expense is the distribution services. You can just try it out by uisng iSnare for about $2 an artilce. I think the minum distrubuiton packacke they sell is $10, so we’ll use that figure. If you want to get even more bang for your article and you decide to sign up for Article Marketer as well, the lowest you can get in the door with them is $80 for a quarterly (unlimited submissions for 3 months) subscription. So, cost side, low end $10 high end $80.
Once you get a couple of distribution accounts set up and get in the groove of article writing, the time and cost per article drops dramatically.
I just jumped over to both Article Marketer and iSnare and noticed that they both offer a free trial distribution. So, in reality, all you need to do is write one original article and you can test this out for absolutely no cost!
If anyone is considering tyring this out, don’t let the fact that you are not doing it “perfectly” stop you. If you write an article and submit it, the worst that that can happen is that it doesn’t help your website or drive any prospects. On the other side, you just might hit a home run with your first article and land a prospect that turns into a funded loan!
I’m working on a big project relating to article distribution. The space in this project will be limited, especially on the mortgage side, and I’m going to give my subscribers a first shot at joining up. So, if you haven’t done so already, sign up for my free Mortgage Marketing Newsletter. Sign up today and receive a free link in our Find A Mortgage match directory to help promote your website along with weekly (or so) mortgage marketing tips and blog recaps delivered directly to your email.
Technorati Tags: mortgage article marketing, mortgage article submission, mortgage marketing ideas, article marketer, isnare
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