Marketing in 2012: 2012: Tips Tipsto to Marketing in Maximize your Maximize Your Marketing MarketingDollars Dollars Follow the trends If the big word in the industry is HARP 2.0, don’t try to go against the grain and market for something else. The public is well-aware of the changes in the mortgage industry, and is keeping up on buzzwords like “FHA STREAMLINE” and “HARP.” Find a marketing means that works for you and your budget and get to work. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel When you go to trade shows or speak with colleagues about how great their own campaigns are working, go after the same thing! The marketing is working because the market is accepting it. Anyone who tries to tell you that they are the best marketer because they just know, isn’t worth your time. Find a marketing firm that follows the trends, and then follow them yourself. The market will always show you how to best offer your products. Test, measure, test again Many people begin a new marketing campaign with a new marketing firm and think that they should be setting records right away. This couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, in most cases, the first campaign is only the beginning. Campaign number three or four is where they really start paying off. Talk to others who are successful People who successfully market commit the resources necessary to find a campaign that works for them. This can be exhausting, but once you find your niche, it will pay dividends; and you must exploit it. This is the campaign that gives you the return-oninvestment (ROI) you need while being versatile enough to change as guidelines do. Find a sales approach that works for you Many people have had less than profitable results trying their own marketing at one point or another. Chances are that this is because one of three things has happened:
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1.) Wrong campaign You must find a marketing campaign that works with your own sales ability. 2.) Wrong company There are plenty of quality marketing firms to work with. Don’t try to manage your own marketing. Let the professionals help you. You’ve got loans to close or an office to run. A professional marketing firm can make your year, while managing your marketing and saving you valuable time and resources. 3.) Market the product that your most comfortable with All too often, salespeople want to jump onboard with a marketing campaign just because they talked to a colleague who made it work well. Find a product that you’re an expert on. Credibility is key to all sales and marketing, and if you don’t fully understand what you’re selling, it’s going to be hard to build that credibility. Take the lowhanging fruit first. Tips for 2012 I Direct mail responses are up. If you haven’t tried direct mail in a while, it might be time to give it a try again. I Internet leads work if you work them. Don’t expect to make an easy buck … those days are over. If you must use them, make sure you get exclusive Internet leads, and not those $10 (sold 10 times) ones. I Live transfers are a thing of the past. With as many as 90 percent of the population on the Do-Not-Call List, telemarketing just isn’t what it used to be. I New data files are available specifically for the mortgage industry. You don’t have to get set up with credit bureaus to get qualified data anymore. Mail houses won’t have it, but good marketing firms will. I Trigger leads are still being sold by the credit bureaus. Stay aware of what methods your competitors are using. Whether you are using them or not, it’s a reality that must be dealt with. I FHA is going to be BIG next month, get started early. Chances are, your competition has already got something in the works. I Last, but not least, ride the HARP 2.0 wave! This has been the biggest thing to hit the mortgage industry since 2009! Medford, Ore.-based TagQuest is a full-service marketing firm created specifically for the ever-changing business world. TagQuest assists companies with their direct marketing, advertising and branding needs, and knows what it takes to generate quality customers and, most importantly, how to retain those customers for years to come. TagQuest brings forth a unique opportunity to utilize our experience and expertise in varying consumer sales and marketing environments. For more information, call (888) 717-8980 or visit Tagquest.com.
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RGA and Leading Causes Release White Paper on Paying Appraisers Full Fees
LendingQB and ComplianceEase Form Compliance Partnership
Rick Grant of RGA Public Relations and Jeff Schurman of Leading Causes have released an industry White Paper entitled “The Appraisal Management Company Full-Fee Hypothesis.” This is the first paper in a series the two plan to write in 2012, while also working with a number of mortgage technology thought leaders to produce other papers. “I’m very proud of the work we’ve done on this Paper,” said Grant. “While the conclusions we have reached are bound to stir up controversy, this is an issue the industry needs to start taking very seriously. I hope we are able to help key industry players carefully consider the actions they need to take to move our industry forward.” Grant and Schurman began writing White Papers for industry thought leaders earlier this year and are reaching out to a select group of chief executive officers who may want to publish additional material. “The AMC wholesale, split fee or discounted fee model is 30 years old now,” said Schurman, who previously served as executive director of the Title Appraisal Vendor Management Association (TAVMA). “A lot has changed in the mortgage settlement services industry, particularly in the last five years. What we offer are 20 self-serving benefits to the AMC industry that result from paying full fees and charging a service charge to the lender. We believe the entire industry will be better served if we adopt this standard.” RGA and Leading Causes are making available many methods by which interested industry leaders can share their thoughts. For more information, visit www.rga-pr.com. “The government has created a super-regulator in the CFPB that may or may not hear the real needs of our industry,” said Grant. “Now is the time to show the government that our executives are thought leaders. If we fail to do so, we can expect the government to continue its relentless hostile takeover of our business and we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves.”
LendingQB has announced the completion of an integration with ComplianceEase, where LendingQB integrated ComplianceEase’s ComplianceAnalyzer product with its end-to-end loan origination system (LOS). The solution automatically runs continuous real-time audits throughout the origination lifecycle of the loan to ensure compliance with federal, state, and municipal consumer credit regulations. Using this integration, lenders can conduct compliance audits as early as the point-ofsale (POS), thus catching and addressing compliance issues much sooner in the origination process to save time and money. Most systems initiate compliance audits closer to the loan closing process, rather than at the POS where loan officers work. What’s more, LendingQB and ComplianceEase have enhanced the integration so that audits automatically run behind the scenes in real-time up until the point the loan closes. While most mortgage compliance checks must be initiated manually, this integration is automatic and requires no human intervention. “At LendingQB, we are ultra-focused on making the lending workflow truly seamless to eliminate manual touch points and the need to jump to another application to complete various tasks,” said Binh Dang, president of LendingQB. “We’re very selective about our integration partners; we wanted to take full advantage of the Web services that ComplianceEase developed so we could achieve absolute transparency. With this integration, a user doesn’t need to remember to run checks because ComplianceAnalyzer is always running in the background. We invested significant development resources to achieve this level of integration.” Also unique to the integration is that it’s completely transparent to users working in LendingQB’s Web-based LOS platform. Whether it’s a loan officer, processor, compliance officer or closing agent, employees never have to leave the application they are accustomed to using. As a result, the lending workflow remains seamless and disruptions and manual interventions are eliminated.