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Build your Customer Persona

Your business success is tied to how well you market yourself. And in order to make your marketing efforts a success, you’ll need to understand your target audience.  You’ll need to focus your efforts on what they do and who they are. The idea being that if you are marketing to people outside of your focus groups, you are wasting your money and time.

The challenge is often not in knowing this, or in putting in the effort, but instead it is often how well you can see to whom it is you’re speaking. Developing the persona of your potential clients will help you to understand who they are, what they want from you, why they want your services, what their concerns are and ultimately, how you will connect with, and sell to them.

What’s a Persona?

Personas (or “personae” as our head of marketing prefers to pluralise it) are an amalgamation of traits assigned to a single character that you create. They represent potential client groups that need your products or services. Personas are constructed to be representative of potential customers and as such, they’re the collective biography of a single created person that represents your major types of customers. There might be 3, 5 or 10 individual personas that help to illustrate the groups of people to whom you need to market.

Build a Persona of your ideal customer

  1. Give each persona a name and title. Make them human and refer to them by their names. Felicity Farmer, Henry Hipster, Goodie Twoshoes. Whatever helps in defining the group they represent. In fact, give each one a picture!
  2. Give them a background: Fill in the basics with age, gender, where they live, their family life, their likes and dislikes, concerns, and dreams. Create their person, and know as much as you can about them.
  3. What is their tech background? Are they online and what do they do on the web? What devices do they have, where do they surf? Do they ask for referrals or do they post on discussion boards? Where do they go online? List 3-5 websites that they might visit for fun, advice or recommendations. Do they like reddit.com or are they a NYT.com type?
  4. Fill in their personal and professional life: where do they work, what’s their job history, what role are they in their company, what are their hobbies, activities, did they get a degree, do they do charitable work?
  5. What are their Goals? What are their goals when looking for your product or service? What do they care about: speed, price, quality, local business, national backing? You need to know their goals if you are going to be the one who sells them a mortgage or house or home improvement.
  6. What do they say about you or your product? Give them a voice, and imagine what they would say about you or your business. Give them opinions and thoughts about your industry. Do they want to do a lot of research before they contact you, or do they want you to tell them about all their options? Are they loyal, impulsive, considered?
  7. I need / I want statements. Understand the difference between what they need and what they want. What they need is the reason they are talking to you, what they want is where you can build great connecting points with them.

By creating personas, you get more in touch with the sensibilities of your potential clients. You start to speak more of their language and mirror more of their traits. And when you have their identities clearly mapped, you can adjust your marketing accordingly. From knowing where to post advertisements, to what kinds of topics to blog about, understanding your clients will get you closer to them.

Not all persona exercises are the same.  One size does not fit all, though many parts of personas for different industries are similar.  You may want to tweak your own list to match your unique needs.

If you want to get to know your archetypal clients better, download our Persona creation template here and get working!

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Tell us how creating a persona has helped you understand your clients better.

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4 Marketing Trends to Notice Now

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Marketing to your potential customers has increasingly become a two-way street. Learning about them is as important as informing them about you. With this new relationship, new tactics and strategies have emerged one after the other, faster and faster.

Getting in synch with your market is about understanding their personas, their needs and wants and also their habits and preferences. Getting in synch with the customers that will drive your sales this year is about virtually meeting them and meeting their expectations with informed content where they need it on the devices they choose.

Here are four marketing trends which started in years past, but are certain to accelerate through 2015. Absolutely the best way to engage with your prospects this year, no matter the channel, will be to follow this advice.

1. When They Find You on A Computer, Be Human

People searching out products and services often go first with people and companies that they know, like and trust. The benefit of social media is that never has it been easier to establish these connection points. Those companies that understand how to be human and authentic will make connections that will drive potential customers to reach out and engage. Making a connection that is human, honest and genuine will precede and supersede the sale. The connection will be the key; the sale will be the result.

2. Mobile Now

It’s not enough to be mobile-friendly. The new norm will be mobile first, mobile now and maybe even mobile always. The trend of including mobile devices into every online session means that you need to adapt every piece of your content to match the needs of mobile devices like phones and tablets. Marketing pieces like your email blasts, your blog updates and your general content all need to be available and mobile friendly (just ask Google, they’ve started indicating mobile friendly content, and will start penalizing content that isn’t.)

The move to mobile is already in full swing, and the majority of your potential customers will be finding you via mobile if they aren’t already. Is your online marketing designed to draw the attention of readers on-the-go?

3. Content Content Content

People searching for you and your company are finding not only websites, but also content. Useful and timely content is pushing higher and higher in search results. Content that matches their search queries is more and more what they are first noticing.

Are you generating content that is useful to your clients? If you are working in home improvement, are you posting tips for the best seasonal projects, for example? If you are, then potential clients searching for ideas on what projects to undertake will find that content and increase the likelihood that they will reach out to you when they need help. Content builds a connection with your potential clients and helps build a loyal following. Social media, blogs, newsletters, case studies and videos all combine to deliver a cohesive and compelling message based on content. By creating valuable, engaging content you are speaking the language of your customers.

4. Think About Being a Thought Leader

Thought leaders are go-to people. They’re trusted sources who move and inspire people with their content and ideas. They are successful at communicating their own success and lessons learned. The goal of being identified as a thought leader is to provide insight and value. The result of being a thought leader is a core of dedicated followers.

Thought leaders come from every industry and every background, but not everyone can be identified as a thought leader. It takes time, knowledge and dedication to the goal. You need to dedicate to writing content, improving and expanding your LinkedIn connections, reading, connecting and engaging with current thought leaders, and most of all, following through.

These trends should make themselves felt in 2015, and getting a handle on how they work for you is the first step to implementing them in your strategies.

What trends do you see affecting your 2015?

Marketing to Millennials: Front and Center

Millennials are coming into their own, but who are they, and what are they thinking? Their reputation seems to precede them, if you believe what you hear: that they have an inability to make a commitment, a habit of jumping from job to job, a devil may care approach to credit scores and for the most part, an addiction to their cell phones.  If you believe all this, you may think of Millennials as societies’ weakest link…. but is this really what Millennials are?

The millennial generation grew up in a much different world than any other generation and with it comes unique conditions and challenges.  Millennials will spend thousands, if not hundreds of thousands on an education, and they will be entering an unpredictable and rapidly changing job market when they walk off the graduation line.  The pressure to achieve is as high as it has ever been, but the conditions are very different.  Many Millennials will find that matching expectations with the ideals of Boomers and Gen X’ers in terms of housing and career goals will be an entirely different journey. A  changing population demographic along with downward pressure on wages and employment will be constant companions. Despite this, many Millennials tend to keep a positive attitude about the future  and are doing it ‘their way’. In this regard, they are truely displaying a ‘can-do’ attitude.

The fact is, stereotypes floating around about Millennials, like all stereotypes, are simply untrue. Did you know that millennials are actually staying with jobs longer than previous generations? In the late 1980’s around 50% of 20-25-year-olds changed jobs yearly. According to the article, “The median length of job tenure for 25-34 year olds was 3.2 years in 2012, up from 2.7 years in 2002”. Additionally, Millennials will make bigger moves in the workforce, too. It is estimated that by the end of next year they will make up half of the workforce, and by the year 2020, they will make up 75% of the workforce.

Currently, the Millennials’ credit scores are in the average range, but they are expected to improve. It should be noted that education prices have increased significantly over the last ten years aiding to larger debt and lower credit scores among this demographic. Millennials also are rejecting credit cards due to not wanting to accumulate additional unneeded debt. Maybe Gen Xers should take some notes from the Millennials on credit card usage.

Millennials are expected to begin the next housing upswing. In some cases they are even being called the saviors. Zillow has predicted that by the end of 2015, millennials will make up the largest population of homeowners. 42% of millennials say they plan to buy a home in the next five years compared to just 31% of generation X. Many millennials are coming to the age where they feel buying a home is a good move, and in addition to that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have began backing mortgages with down payments of as little as 3% of the home’s price in efforts to aid first-time home buyers.

How To Market To The “Selfie” Generation

breakdancing-511922_1280Marketing to Millennials isn’t hard, it’s just different. Millennials  are driven by passion, diversity, discovering, sharing and a zeal for the pursuit of happiness. In order to market to Millennials, the key is to inspire them, help them envision their dreams and involve them in the process. This generation is very aware of marketing, and they don’t really like it, so reaching them needs to be done on their terms.  This can make reaching out to them more difficult if your marketing is not aimed at their concerns and issues.

Here are three easy ways you can market to millennials without having to change your entire effort:

1. Get on social networks.  Make sure you have a presence that is powerful and engaging on FaceBook, Twitter, and other social-media sites.  The key is to not overdo it.  Millennials will generally see right through ham-handed efforts. Be genuine, show that you are a real person who can be professional, trustworthy, and is approachable.  Keep content focused and helpful while displaying a sense of concern and integrity.

2. Get creative. When your marketing is creative, it can very quickly gain momentum. While this may be hard for you to do as a full time commitment, you can share relevant information and content.  YouTube, Instagram, and Vine are all interesting channels to share content. Keeping content fresh and creative will have Millennials sharing and distributing information about you and your business before you know it.

3. Pay attention and keep up. Millennials, some might say, are self-centered.  Agree or not, if you want to reach this market, you need to be aware, be available and be awesome at follow up. This generation wants attention and action.  Marketing online, particularly on mobile is key to getting your message in front of their eyes on the device of their choice.

Millennials are in the early stages of taking the reins in our society. The challenges to reaching them will be daunting for those that are resistant to change and entrenched in traditional methods.  This generation is all about change, and keeping up will be a challenge.

How are you changing your marketing strategies to reach out to Millennials?

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A Google Reasons to Get Mobile Friendly

Mobile web marketing is set to take off in 2015 for a couple of reasons (read more here). The main reason, as it usually is, is because ad dollars are flocking to mobile. The global spend on mobile advertising rose from 31.45 billion dollars in 2014 to a projected 45.85 billion this year. With that kind of growth, paying attention to how you are interacting with mobile and more importantly, how mobile is interacting with you is important.

The latter point is where Google comes into play. In November of last year, Google announced that they will identify “Mobile Friendly” sites with tags in the search results (when searching with Google on a mobile device). These mobile friendly tags will allow users to see which sites are optimised for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets and will help the people searching for your services connect to you on the device of their choice.

The way Google deals with search is changing to favor mobile friendly

Mobile Friendly tag in google search results

As mentioned in the article linked above, mobile is increasingly influencing the way Americans search for information. 65% of all searches start from a mobile device. 90% use multiple screens sequentially to accomplish their search objectives over time (meaning that first group will move from their mobile with the info they gathered and act on their findings on a PC or tablet).

Google knows that the people who find you online are most likely, at some point in their search, using a mobile phone, and in a way they want to reward you with a tag!

But we find another way of looking at it in a press release from Google which states, “To improve the search experience for smartphone users and address their pain points, we plan to roll out several ranking changes in the near future that address sites that are misconfigured for smartphone users.”

Put succinctly, the wrath of Google shall fall upon those who resist mobile friendly layout and content. Issues such as pushing mobile visitors to a single landing page when using a mobile device instead of the equivalent mobile friendly page will sadden Google. Google will also be sad if a page you have in your site on a PC shows up as an error page on mobile. Google will also pay attention to video. Video that plays on a PC but not on mobile devices (say “goodbye”, Flash) will most certainly make Google sad. The takeaway from Google’s mobile friendly push: don’t make Google sad, make your website mobile friendly.

Is your website mobile device friendly? Check here.
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Is Your Marketing Mobile Friendly Yet?

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The mobile future is unfolding now and it’s coming to your company phones. Since what seems like forever, the mobile marketing revolution has been promised ‘this year’ again and again. However, there are plenty of indications that 2015 is the year that mobile marketing takes its rightful place in the discussion — meaning front and center. How mobile-friendly marketing affects your desktop phone is an important consideration for your marketing success.

Mobile is increasing its footprint, and in many ways imposing it, on the way Americans search for information. A recent Google report indicates that a full 65% of all searches start from a mobile device. And overall, a full 90% use multiple screens sequentially to accomplish their search objectives over time. That means that the people who find you online are most likely, at some point in their journey to you, using a mobile phone. It’s now imperative to create a seamless, cohesive customer journey, because when effective mobile access is part of the overall experience, all channels become more effective.

But creating the journey means telling the whole story, too. The interaction that will increase most from effective mobile is, perhaps unsurprisingly, phone calls. People are using their mobile phones to *gasp* make calls. Google stats say that 73% of mobile searches result in some form of an action such as a visit, a purchase or most likely, a phone call. And while mobile searches are becoming the prevalent starting point for searching, most searches started from mobile will convert offline, witnessed by the fact that 75% of customers who find info online using their mobile view a direct phone call as the best way to connect. 70% will make that call directly from the search page. (source)

In industries like Real Estate, Loan Origination, Home Improvement and the like, inbound calls are increasing because they are high consideration products and services. Tapping the phone to talk directly to a person is a logical step for potential clients. Search, Click, Call. But with this great opportuntiy comes great responsibility. Your inbound calls need to be handled by staff that are fully prepared to handle the calls in a manner that will continue the positive user experience, either by correctly directing the calls or effectively handling them upfront.

When your mobile marketing directly connects you with your potential clients, you have a higher chance to close, and it all starts with making your website mobile friendly. If searchers can’t find your mobile friendly content, they won’t be making that call.

6 Ways to Increase Blog Traffic

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Is your blog worth the effort? Are you spending hours every week researching and writing, yet getting no comments or feedback on your blogs? Rest assured that even with no obvious tracton your blog is bringing in results. Companies that blog average around 55% more website views, and 97% more inbound links. Writing a blog aids in building SEO, keeps your mind fresh with relevant and new industry news, helps generate more leads, and demonstrates thought leadership. But if you really want to increase blog traffic, just writing is probably not enough. Here are few ways you can increase your blog customer loyalty in order to boost your company’s online presence, and increase traffic.

  1. Link Your posts

    This is one of the easiest ways to offer your readers additional information on your site. Throughout your blog post or at the end you can link relatable past blog links so they can continue to read and learn more about a specific topic.

  2. Promote Your Best

    Readers will want to view your most popular blog and posts, so keep them front and center. Have specific areas on your page designated for articles that your visitor should read next. Consider using widgets in your sidebar or at the top of your blog.

  3. Design for Humans

    Not many viewers want to search a long time to find things on your blog, especially subscribing, so keep it user friendly. Have an invitation displayed in your RSS feed to make subscribing simple and this will help drive viewer loyalty.

  4. Interact with Visitors

    Whether it is a first time reader or a frequent visitor, be sure to interact with them in some way to gain feedback. Interviewing them is a great way of putting them in the spotlight while also gaining feedback. Be sure to keep them in a positive light so they will feel the need to be more up-front and honest with you.

  5. Link Your Social-Media Sites

    You may be great with blogging and have tons of followers, but how is your social-media faring? Be sure to have all of your social-media linked to your blog or you will risk losing followers on other platforms. [cwrcta id=’social-photo-template-blog’]
     

  6. It’s All about Content

    You must be able to produce great quality content that entices your viewers to stick around and see what will come next. Be creative and think about what your viewers are going to think before you post. Post often as well, the more you post the more opportunity you have to show your viewers what you have to offer.

Want to learn more about building a successful blog? Read our Quick Tips to Create A Successful Blog.

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Richard Cordray and The CFPB Want You to Shop Better

Americans love to shop for the best deal. People will go 5 miles out of their way to save a dime on a dozen eggs (at least my mom will). So what is the big disconnect with the extraordinary effort to shop for savings on daily purchases like groceries, and the distinct lack of shopping on what is likely the biggest purchase a person will make in their entire lifetime?

RIchard CordrayIn a just released report, The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) takes a deep look at the shopping habits of Americans when it comes to mortgages. Some surprising results turn up. In prepared remarks prior to his address to the Brookings Institute on Tuesday,  Richard Cordray, the Director of the CFPB, said “Consumers put great thought into the choice of a home, but the mortgage process continues to be intimidating,” Intimidating enough, that the report reveals nearly half the people getting a mortgage (just over 47%) don’t consult multiple lenders, raising questions about whether or not they are interested in searching out the best deal, or if they’re just searching for the quickest end to the process. For first-time home buyers, the number was even lower.

Mr. Cordray was critical of the lack of comparative shopping in the mortgage process. “Almost nobody looks only at one house and decides to stop right there…. Consumers spend considerable time looking at different neighborhoods and at different homes for sale. The same should be true of choosing among possible mortgage loans.”

As an example, Cordray highlighted one of the commonly heard objections to shopping for mortgages, that shopping around for a mortgage can have an adverse affect on your credit score. Again, Cordray pointedly replied saying “You can shop around and even submit multiple applications to obtain multiple initial estimates…The effect on your credit will be the same no matter how many lenders you consult.”

(On a side note, President Obama announced on Monday that Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase and Ally Financial will start providing the FICO scores they have to their clients for free.)

In his address to the Brookings Institute, Cordray said “by not shopping around consumers are often throwing good money down the drain. An important and interesting finding from our survey — I want to emphasize this — was that consumers with more confidence in their knowledge about the mortgage process were more likely to shop. This was especially true for those who said they were familiar with the available interest rates. [They] were almost twice as likely to shop as those unfamiliar.”

So what does this mean to Loan Officers?

It means educated shoppers are out there searching for you.  It also means your efforts to engage socially need to be top notch. Knowing that only half of potential home buyers are searching for the best mortgage option makes how well you are represented online even more crucial than anyone could have imagined. Key to being well represented online is keeping up a dynamic social presence. To get the attention of savvy consumers, you need to be seen as an expert and you need to drive traffic to your web pages. A solid social presence with continually updated content is a winning combination that will differentiate you from your competition.

When they do find you, you want to understand the issues that are of the most concern and deal with them upfront. From increasing your education efforts to ensuring that the information you provide has real transparency and clarity, you will be recognized as a best option for people taking the time to research their mortgage options.

What’s your reaction to Mr. Cordray’s address?

You can watch Mr. Cordray’s entire address to the Brookings Institute below.

Richard Cordray addresses the Brookings Institute. January 13, 2015

(Cool fact: Richard Cordray is a 5 time Jeopardy champion from the 1980’s. What is ‘cool’? Ha!)

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Mortgage, Disrupted

Where do you get your ice, and why is the answer an insight to the future of the mortgage industry? Your ice has a back story filled with lessons on the nature of disruptive technology, and it may be more similar to the mortgage industry than it appears on the surface.

What Disruptive Technology is on the way?

If you consider the conditions in the mortgage industry, things seem pretty stable. ‘Tech’ doesn’t really kick up too much of a ruckus in these parts. There are some bells and whistles here and there, but for the most part, things are calm. So why should you worry about disruptive technology affecting the mortgage industry, and more specifically, the role of the loan officer? The simple answer is: because it’s already starting to do so.

Startups and emerging technologies don’t appear out of nowhere, there is usually some signal early on in the process. Tech magazines and websites like techcrunch broadcast and celebrate emerging technologies every day. The problem is often the reaction, or lack thereof, to the disruption. Think about Kodak. We all know that Kodak was crushed by the digital camera, but what you might not know is that Kodak engineer Steve Sasson invented the digital camera in 1975. He presented it to management a full 10 years before it started to destroy the company. “Management’s reaction was, ‘That’s cute — but don’t tell anyone about it.'”  Management’s inability to react sent the company on a journey to bankruptcy.

(On a side note, Kodak is in comeback mode, just one year after that bankruptcy)

So what meteor should a Mortgage-saurus look out for?

Below are a few companies and technologies that might be making a deep impact on Loan Officers in the near future.

  • Loan Retention Software – (LRS) – LRS introduces an automated process that operates in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) environment on the Web. LRS along with the HarmonyLoan feature reconstitutes the way the lending process reacts to changing interest rates. (http://ratereset.com)
  • Lenda – Lenda is a startup that wants to change the way Americans think about and interact with mortgage lending. The company offers consumers a way to approach the refinance mortgage market by providing a platform that allows borrowers to complete the home loan process completely online and without the use of a loan officer. Lenda is aiming to be the “Turbo Tax for mortgage”. (www.lenda.com)
  • Lendinghome – Their tag line speaks volumes: what if Silicon Valley built a mortgage bank from the ground up, the right way? They’re a P2P platform that is based on the premise that real-estate lending is a complex, inefficient, non-transparent process that should be made simple and accessible for borrowers and investors alike. (https://www.lendinghome.com)
  • AssetAvenue – Another P2P loan facilitator, AssetAvenue wants to transform real-estate lending and investing markets. They closed $13.28 million of deals in the week leading up to Christmas. AssetAvenue partners with lenders and borrowers to source loan investments up to $20 million. (https://www.assetavenue.com)
  • And a wildcard disruptive technology: Trulia + Uber. Really. Uber is now featured on Trulia’s mobile app. When you find a house or apartment on Trulia, you’ll find a “Visit with Uber” button. The button calls a car, fills in the address, and away you go. How long until there’s a button saying: “Get your mortgage on the way” with a mobile application process? Hmm?

About that ice talk up there at the top, quite a few years ago, Guy Kawasaki delivered a commencement speech. One portion of this speech focused on the evolution of ice production. Ice harvesters were dominant until ice factories came along. Then ice factories got replaced when refrigerators came along. The key takeaway is that none, not one, of the ice harvesting companies got into the new technology of ice factories. And you guessed it, not one of the ice factories got into the refrigerator business. Both were displaced, and both went extinct. The speech is great, read it here.

So, what potentially disruptive technology are you keeping your eye on?

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