New Ideas to Make Your Direct Mail Stand Out By Jean LeBlanc Are you looking to add more features to your direct marketing, to stand out in the mailbox, increase your conversions, or make tracking ROI easier? Here are a few ideas:
PURLs
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loan, the LO simply asks for their PIN Number. The LO is able to pull up all the info you have to-date on this prospect, so that they don’t have to repeat steps getting their address, loan amount, type of loan, etc. It saves time and makes your LO look more professional.
PURLs are “Personal URLs” or landing pages Toll-free built uniquely for each of tracking number your mail recipients. All Many printers will add a of your PURLs in one toll-free tracking number mailer will probably have on your mail piece. Data the same offer, but when gathered from your trackrecipients open their own ing number will capture PURL, it’s unique for their phone number, day them. and time of day they Let’s say you incorpocalled, and other addirate PURLs into your VA “Instead of having a tional data you want IRRRLs mailer. Sgt. Jones Web address to type tracked. Often it will also receives your mailer and is intrigued by his PURL. in, it uses a QR Code record the call for you, so created uniquely for that you and your staff So he visits his PURL, where he’s greeted by each mail recipient.” can go back and listen to calls for training refinename and with personalment purposes. These are particularly ized information on the new loan that he’s seeking. It offers options such as useful if you are testing a couple of “Call Now” or “Fill out the form at right offers before you commit to mailing to for a more accurate rate quote.” You’re your entire list. Let’s say you plan to capturing additional data which can mail an FHA streamline offer to a list of then be fed to your salespeople to help 10,000, but you can’t decide whether to offer a free appraisal or $500 off closing you close more deals. costs (in your market, the cost is about the same). Your printer can create two Personalized QR Codes Personalized QR Codes take PURLs one versions of your mailer, each with a step further: Instead of having a Web unique offer and a toll-free number, address to type in, it uses a QR Code cre- and mail 1,000 to one group and 1,000 ated uniquely for each mail recipient. to a second group of 1,000, and then They simply scan the code and are check your results. Which offer worked taken straight to their unique landing better? page. For your prospects who have Consider these added features, as smartphones, this is infinitely easier. Just remember, though, that not all they not only make your offer more your recipients will have a smartphone, attractive, but tracking results is easier, too! even today.
PIN Numbers You can also incorporate a unique PIN Number in your mailer for each recipient. It’s done automatically during the printing process, in conjunction with your log-in to your leads database. When the mailer recipient calls in to pursue the option of a new or refinance
Jean LeBlanc is director of marketing for Guaranteed Home Mortgage Company. For more marketing tips, download the eBook, 13 Ways to Juice Up Your Marketing in 2013, by going to joinghmc.com and clicking on the eBook offer midway down the page. She may be reached by phone at (914) 696-3400.
Lead Generation Through Organic Search and Search Engine Optimization By Kat Hollowell & Steven Xavier Muldrow wanted to use, we worked As the cost of leads in the with them to create the mortgage space continues “Cost of Not Ranking” which to rise as well as the numshowed a ballpark of the ber of times the leads are leads that we could be genbeing sold, it quickly erating with SEO and what became obvious that the that would look like for our best and most effective way profitability. This document to generate leads would be was provided to us from our through organic search and SEO firm, and I would search engine optimization request the same thing from (SEO). After all, each day, yours. You can also get a few three billion searches occur on Google alone, a 25 per- “As business continues different sample excels when you search “The Cost cent increase over 2010 to move forward on of Not Ranking” on Google. and a 250 percent increase a mobile platform, We used this document to from 2006. We are still social media spending a chunk of our continues to become get the project signed off on as a company objective, it budget on traditional lead a larger part of sources however we have everyday business and was an easy sell. You should understand shifted our focus so that lead generation.” that even when contracting those leads can fill our this project out there is still pipeline “right now” and work to be done within organic search can be built your company to get up out and eventually bring in and running. For example, the majority of our leads. you need to decide on the We have found that the keywords that you want to leads generated through be ranked for, in other our Web site have had a words, what are your conhigher conversion rate sumers searching for? You because those leads are not may also need to do some being contacted by multiwork to update the content ple lenders and are truly on your Web pages so that interested in talking to our you can be found for those company. “To fully benefit keywords. The firm you As we began down the from the use of choose should be able to path of SEO, the first thing to decide on was a budget. Twitter and Facebook, put all these action items companies must together for you and help This has to be thought of concentrate on three you along the way but like any other marketing spend. There is a branding stages: Grow, Engage know you will need to carve and Monetize.” out some time to work element to it, however, you through it. are really engaging in this We have been working with our SEO because you want to convert leads so you are spending money on lead acquisition. company for three months now and we You have to decide if you are going to hire are starting to see the results. We have someone to join your team in-house or go moved from not ranking in most cases for with an outside firm. We knew we would our keywords, to ranking in the top 20 for contract this project out, so we met with a some of them. We aren’t going after easy few firms specializing in SEO. We wanted a terms like “Petaluma Mortgage” either, we company with a proven track record and a are going after strong keywords like large team devoted to different areas of “California Mortgages” or “First-Time the project because there are a lot of mov- Homebuyer” and other competitive keywords so we are extremely excited about ing pieces to SEO. Once we had decided on the firm we the results.