Successful Seminar Marketing Through Social Media By Gibran Nicholas
JUNE 2010
OKLAHOMA MORTGAGE PROFESSIONAL MAGAZINE
NationalMortgageProfessional.com
34
One of the best ways to use social media is placed in both the “Local” and “Realtor” to add value to your target audience in a categories. LinkedIn also allows you to filclassy, non-threatening way. Endless status ter your contacts by geographic location. updates about miniscule details of your life or sending out mass invites to non-first- Step 2: Pick a hot topic that is importime homebuyers about your first-time tant to your target audience homebuyer workshops is not classy. In fact, Assume that you want to earn more referit can be annoying. Your rals from financial advisors. social media contacts will Your target referral is somequickly tune you out and one with credit scores over “hide” your status 700 and a 50 percent LTV. updates—effectively cutWhat are the issues that are ting off your ability to comimportant to financial advimunicate important messors right now? What are sages that may be relevant the strategies that are to them. Remember the important to their clients story of the man who cried with credit scores over 700 “wolf” too many times? and a 50 percent LTV on On the other hand, their home mortgage? there are tasteful ways to One hot topic that a lot harness the power of of financial advisors could “Oftentimes, trade social media to market use some help with right associations like your events and services. now is Roth IRA conversion CPA/financial planner groups or Realtor opportunities. You see, Step 1: Establish your there are some unique tax groups have their target audience benefits this year (2010) for own Facebook ‘Fan One of the greatest tools high net worth clients to of social media is the Pages’ or group pages convert a lot of their retireon various social ability to group your conment savings into Roth IRAs media sites.” tacts and friends into cat(the limits on conversions egories. For example, you are lifted in 2010). Most could create groups for your Facebook people aren’t aware of these opportunifriends such as: ties. The exciting thing is that low mortgage rates present a unique opportunity Family for you to team up with financial advisors Friends in order to help their clients use a mort Financial advisors gage today to pay the taxes on the conver Realtors sion. This will save the clients tens of thou Business associates sands of dollars (if not hundreds of thou Local sands of dollars) when compared with not converting and paying hefty taxes later For example, assume you want to con- when they need retirement income. duct a workshop for Realtors. You could For example, assume a client in a 25 send an event invite to your Facebook percent tax bracket has a retirement friends in the “Realtor” category. If you account worth $200,000. This is down want to conduct a client appreciation from a peak of $300,000 when the marevent or networking mixer for all your ket was higher. If they convert these contacts, you could send out an invitation funds into a Roth IRA in 2010, they will to all your “Local” Facebook friends. You be subject to approximately $50,000 in can place your friends in more than one taxes. They can pay half the taxes on category. For example, all the Realtors their 2010 tax returns, and half the who are local to your marketplace can be taxes on their 2011 tax returns. You can
bump up their mortgage by $50,000 in order to pay the tax bill. For example, if their current mortgage is $200,000, you could refinance it into a $250,000 mortgage and pull $50,000 of cash out to pay the taxes. This way, they will have the full $200,000 from the conversion left in their new Roth IRA. When the financial market recovers and the retirement account grows back to $300,000, the clients can withdraw the entire amount without paying a dime’s worth of taxes! In this example, you were able to help the client save literally over $25,000 in taxes, plus the opportunity cost of $50,000 that they were able to reinvest due to your strategy of using a mortgage to pay today’s tax bill on the conversion. The bigger the retirement account, the bigger the savings from the conversion (and the bigger mortgage balance needed to pay the taxes today). In other words, clients with higher balance retirement accounts save the most money. And what types of clients have high balances in their retirement accounts? Clients who are likely to have credit scores over 700 and a 50 percent LTV on their home mortgage! In short, this presents a tremendous opportunity in 2010 to conduct a joint workshop with a financial advisor who is knowledgeable in this area for everyone who has a retirement account. You could invite your social media contacts and the financial advisor could invite their contacts. Step 3: Develop an effective marketing strategy You could consider inviting the media (newspapers, radio, TV) and splitting the costs of the event if you are conducting an event with a referral partner—such as a joint workshop with a financial advisor for people with retirement accounts (as outlined above) or a first-time homebuyer workshop with a Realtor. If you are conducting a workshop for potential referral partners, such as a seminar for financial advisors or a seminar for Realtors, you could collect everyone’s business card at the event and then you could add these individuals as social media contacts. You could also team up with your local trade associations and have them post a link to the event on their Web sites and social media pages. Oftentimes, trade associations like CPA/financial planner groups
or Realtor groups have their own Facebook “Fan Pages” or group pages on various social media sites. It’s a smart idea to tap into these resources when available. A few successful people I know frequently conduct client appreciation events at unique locations across town—such as museums and local hot spots. Part of the event is networking and fun (wine and cheese tasting, for example) and part of the event is a short market update (45 min. discussion or so) on topics of interest to clients and the target audience. You could team up with referral partners such as CPAs, financial advisors and Realtors, and organize events like this to generate some more business for both you and the referral partner. You could also get local establishments to sponsor or support the event (such as a wine distributor supplying the wine for the wine tasting). Your commission on one mortgage origination should more than cover your costs. Step 4: Implement! It’s one thing to read articles like this and say, “Wow that’s a good idea.” It’s another thing to actually take some action and make it happen. If you don’t take any action, you won’t make any money. CMPS certification equips you with unique knowledge, training, tools, PowerPoint slides and marketing resources to help you implement these ideas and more to make your events a smashing success! Gibran Nicholas is the founder and chairman of the CMPS Institute, which administers the Certified Mortgage Planning Specialist (CMPS) designation. The CMPS Institute has enrolled more than 5,500 members since its founding in 2005. Gibran is also the chairman of Published Daily, a customizable online magazine, newsletter and marketing service that helps professionals transform their clients and prospects into a referral-generating sales force. He may be reached at (888) 608-9800, ext. 101 or e-mail gibran@cmpsinstitute.org. Visit author Gibran Nicholas’s blog at http://gibrannicholas.com where he shares his insights on economics, real estate and financial issues, including the current mortgage and credit crises.