Electronic marketing means websites, search engine optimization, emails to clients, blogs, Craigslist, ad words, banner ads, and all things web 2.0. The opportunities within electronic marketing are growing exponentially, and have been for quite some time. There's no way to cover everything in the limited space here, as hundreds of books have been written about every possible angle you could think of. We highly suggest you start reading some those books, starting with everything ever written by Seth Godin.
To keep things simple, however, suffice to say that you need to start with a good website. Pay a good designer to do this, as it will be worth every penny. This is the entire face of your company until the point your clients meet you. Make that first impression a good one. As mentioned above, you need to send emails to everyone regularly. Create (or have your designer create one for you) a branded email signature. If they've built your website, they'll easily be able to also create your letterhead, fax cover sheets, business cards, and marketing materials.
Search engine optimization (SEO) will need to be built into your website from the get-go. But there is a lot you can do to boost your search rankings, including regularly posting to a blog (see below), cross-linking with other complimentary websites (such as a local realty blog), writing online articles (like this one), and about a million other things that go way beyond the scope of this article series. Read a book on the subject, or better yet, hire a search engine optimization expert or firm to make sure you come up high in the rankings.
If you're a good writer, start a blog. Perhaps about your local real estate market or about industry news, updates, and changes. Blogs are an incredibly powerful tool for generating new clients, and growing more so every day. If you're not a good writer, then either find someone who is, or subscribe to one of several services that will allow you to post their blog posts on innumerable subjects (pick any relevant one) on your own blog. You may need to involve your website designer in this process, however. Either way, you need a blog. Your blog posts also make a great email newsletter to send out to everyone who wants it. Never send spam, however, so always ask if you can add someone to your list first, and take them off immediately if they request it.
Also pay your designer to help you create an ad that you will regularly post on Craigslist. Remember to delete the old ad and repost again at least every Thursday (so it's fresh for the weekends), and possibly twice a week.
Pay Per Click (PPC) Ad Word Campaigns
Ad words are an absolute must for your loan modification marketing campaign, but only if done well. Once you create your website, complete with an easy and obvious method to capture names, emails, and phone numbers of interested visitors, then start advertising with the Google, Yahoo, Ask.com, and MSN ad word programs. Ad words are the targeted (i.e. relevant) pay-per-click ads that show up at the top and side of the screen when internet users do key word searches on the major search engines.
Clicks can be expensive in the loan mod industry, so be specific, and track the heck out of your ad campaigns
with a good analytics program. Aim for the long tail (i.e. lots of cheaper, low-traffic, specific keyword combinations rather than the few, expensive general keyword phrases). If you’re intimidated by the prospect of managing an ad words campaign, I’d highly suggest paying a company to create and manage your campaigns for you. It can be time consuming and confusing, especially for a novice. Again, I’d also suggest that you read some books on the subject, such as those written by Seth Godin.
Banner Ads
Banner ads are the little colorful advertisements that show up along the very top and sides of your favorite websites. These can be effective, if they are correctly targeted to your ideal clients. Realtor.com and Zillow.com are both good candidates for buying a banner ad space for your loan mod business. Don’t spend too much on this right away, but it can certainly supplement your other efforts at some point. As always, make sure you track the efficacy of any banner ad you buy.
Social Networking and All Things Web 2.0
All things web 2.0…what does this mean? If you have to ask, then you really need to hire someone to manage you online marketing for you. In a nutshell, it’s using the latest internet tools to connect to your clients, to connect them to you, to connect them to each other, and to connect them to the outside world. Plus, it also means getting plugged into the blogosphere, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Squidoo, Del.icio.us, Flicker, Twitter, and other similar networking websites. Start by joining some of these websites personally, and then just play around. See what you enjoy and what seems to work for you. See what your friends are already using. Grow it from there. And employ the help of a marketing expert if you need it.
Buying Leads
One other kind of electronic marketing that bears mentioning is purchasing leads from online lead generators. These are companies that attract potential customers of various industries to a website, gather information about them (the customers are looking for a quote or to have some questions answered), and then sell that information to companies like yours. These can be very profitable, but they can also be a big waste of money, depending on the quality of the leads. The two most important factors are the speed with which you respond to the inquiry and the number of times that information is sold to different consultants like yourself. Most leads come in real time, meaning that you can respond to the client immediately, which is ideal, because if you don’t respond within an hour, you’ll likely never hear back from them again. Also, most leads are sold more than once, sometimes as many as four or even ten times. Try to find leads that are either exclusive or sold just a couple times.
Some people have built very successful businesses from buying leads, still others buy leads to simply supplement the regular referral business. Since purchased leads are inevitably colder than personal referrals, they will never be as good as an introduction from a mutual friend. If you do decide to buy leads, make sure you call or email them the minute you receive them, and make sure you track their ROI. And in the early days of your business
, don’t spend too much money on purchased leads, because they can be expensive ($20 per lead is not uncommon, with a 10% or lower close ratio), so you might want to focus your limited marketing dollars elsewhere, especially at first.
