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Call it whatever you want. A down market. A soft economy. A bubble-burst. The end of the world as we know it. The bottom line is that the mortgage and title industry have seen better times. And your marketing and advertising budget probably reflects it.
This fact—especially for smaller businesses—generally means you’ll be doing little to no marketing any time soon. Even though you admit that your business needs to have its story told to win business, it’s an easy choice. Do you cut employees, reduce service offerings, limit operations? Or do you cut out the ad campaign the returns from which you’re not entirely sure about? No-brainer.
Most will also acknowledge that, whether they measure their marketing results well or not (a subject I’ll write about soon), they still need that voodoo or soft science of marketing or PR or advertising. It gives them a fighting chance for new sales.
So what do you do when you have little or no budget to get the word out? We’ll skip over the obvious for now (hire a friendly, versatile and low-cost consultant, of course), and move to things you can do yourself to some degree or another…
1. Have a good look at your Web site. You may as well admit it. You or your staff have time on your hands. Short of the sales people answering your phone, your Web site is your front line for new sales. If you had three seconds on an elevator to get a prospect to investigate your product or service, what’s the one thing you’d want him or her to know? Now have someone who knows next to nothing about what you do (maybe your grandmother or the friendly neighbor who knows you’re in some kind of insurance business…) glance at your site. Have them tell you what they know about your business now. If the result is not quite what you hoped for, it’s time to rework the Web site. Keep it simple. Keep it clear.
2. Shore up your relationships—at ALL levels. A lesson most in the industry are familiar with. In hard times, the relationship wins out. Referral marketing is the best marketing of all. But remember that your partners, vendors and even colleagues from other companies have connections, too. Times are rough, to be sure. But don’t take it out on your vendors. You never know which one’s about to be bought out by your next big client. Take some of that spare time, and spend it with clients and colleagues. Let them know how you can help them through the tough times.
3. Investigate simple public relations and social media. NOT a call to write a blog just to blog. But there are things you can do to let folks know your business is still alive, which is a major accomplishment right now. Send a simple release for each new hire you’ve made in the last year. You don’t have to say when they came aboard, although it’s probably not advisable to announce that VP you hired four years ago. Send it to the business or appointments section of the local daily newspaper and relevant trade publications. Keep it simple: name, position, company, job duties. Then, add a bit about his/her past employment and education. And that’s it. Oh, and send a picture if you have one. (head shots, please) Save the pitch about your company for the “boilerplate,” the last paragraph of the release. It will be edited out, but if people see that XYZ Title Company has added people in 4 of the next 7 “Appointments” sections of your local daily newspaper or business publication, they’ll know you’re open for business. And let your colleagues on LinkedIn or Facebook know what you’re doing (within reason). Let the word get out that XYZ Title is surviving the hard times. It’s a strong message in this economy.
4. Be an expert…but be sure to be an expert. You or one of your key executives must be articulate and good at something. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be in business. Give this some thought. Have you been doing unusual types of difficult closings that few can do? Do your colleagues regularly call you for your input on the new RESPA rules? This is NOT a call for you to provide legal advice without a license, but if you have an area of expertise that you see covered in the trade publications alot, or believe will soon be in the trade publications, send an e-mail or make a call to a writer or editor at the pub. You’ll find all the relevant contact information at the publication’s Web site (usually under “Contact Us” or “About Us.” Don’t be arrogant. Don’t take a lot of the writer’s time. Just let him or her know you know something about the topic, and that you would be delighted to discuss if a story is ever written on the subject. You may find yourself being quoted occasionally—again letting the world know you’re open for business. And please, please, be honest with the reporter. He or she will quickly figure you out if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Now, these are not all best practices in PR or marketing, to be sure. This is a ridiculously simple primer. The best campaigns are planned, reviewed, integrated, toned, executed, measured and adjusted. But we’re talking about PR or marketing on no budget. It may be meatball surgery, but you may just find you can, at least, tread water with these tactics. Far better than drifting.