Real Estate Marketing, Mortgage Marketing,
Lead Generation Training and Consulting
If you’re in business for youself as a Mortgage Broker, Insurance Agent, Investment Advisor or Real Estate Agent here’s a fun & friendly reminder….
Action gets results….conversation gets ideas. But ideas without action is…..not really anything.
So, what’s stopping you? Let’s start taking ACTION!
There are lots of Agents on the social media bandwagon, and there’s lots of buzz that social media is the “new and hot” way to connect with clients and get more business.
Recently, JOLT Marketing’s Director, Ingrid Menninga, was asked to participate in a panel discussion for Inman’s Agent Reboot conference. Hundreds of Agents listened while panel moderator and Social Media Director for InMan, Katie Lance, grilled KW Commercial Agent Benjamin Bach, and our own Ingrid Menninga, on how Agents are making money with social media. The two panelists present 2 very different, yet extremely successful, approaches for using social media to increase sales, and make more money.
Watch this video on the recent Inman Agent Reboot Panel Discussion – How to Make Money with Social Media. Approximately 30 minutes with great pointers on how to find your target market in social media, which sites deliver the best return on investment (ROI), how to use your personal brand to separate yourself from the competition, and how you can find “your” social media hotspots that present you well, and let you shine.
Here’s the link to the video: http://youtu.be/_zCOCB0Im9A
If you’d like to know more about how to turn your social media activities into money in the bank make sure you sign up for the LeadSwell Secrets“Top Ten Ways To Use Social Media To Grow Your Business”
Social media sites such as facebook, youtube, blogs, twitter, and linkedin present an unbelievable opportunity to grow your personal brand (and be remembered easily in your local area!), make yourself a community figure (i.e. get recognition easily) and turn strangers into connections into closed deals.
Click here to sign up for the LeadSwell Secrets “The Top Ten Ways To Use Social Media To Grow Your Business”
Video Courtesy of Benjamin Bach – thanks for sharing Ben!
Video is exploding in popularity among real estate professionals, with more and more sales reps jumping on the amateur promotional video trend. Videos are low in cost, easy to make, provide a lot of useful information in a short period of time and take almost no effort for your audience to watch. Videos also give your audience clues about you, your service and your professionalism that can never be obtained from a postcard, newsletter or other marketing materials.
Read the full article written by JOLT Marketing‘s Ingrid Menninga in REM here
For Immediate Release:
Leader’s Edge Selects JOLT Marketing as Marketing Services Provider
Canada’s premier real estate and mortgage sales training company partners with JOLT Marketing to offer top-tier branding solutions
TORONTO – May 10, 2011 – Leader’s Edge Training, Canada’s premier real estate and mortgage sales training company, has selected JOLT Marketing as the exclusive marketing supplier for participants in their real estate and mortgage sales training courses, replacing their previous partnership with Hobbs Herder. The new arrangement allows Leader’s Edge Training to offer clients and students access to first-rate, complete personal branding solutions for launching their careers and accelerating their business growth.
Chris Leader, president of Leader’s Edge Training, looks forward to the new partnership, “Leader’s Edge Training always looks for the best-in-class products and services to recommend. Not only does JOLT Marketing offer the highest quality personal branding solutions available in the market today, but they bring a fresh perspective and personal approach to their service. JOLT Marketing has extensive experience in the real estate and mortgage marketing category, so they are a perfect fit for our students and clients,” Leader said. “We are pleased to be joining forces with JOLT Marketing and look forward to a long and successful business relationship.”
As part of the new relationship, JOLT Marketing has developed three unique marketing packages available exclusively to Leader’s Edge Training clients. The packages range from basic to total branding solutions and include a mix of print, online and social media components.
Based in Toronto, JOLT Marketing is a real estate and personal finance marketing company that develops fully customized, high quality branding and marketing campaigns proven to drive results.
Find out more about JOLT Marketing at www.joltmarketing.com and Leader’s Edge Training at http://www.leadersedgetraining.com/.
For More Information Please Contact:
Ingrid Menninga, Director of Marketing
ingrid@joltmarketing.com
1-877-620-5658 (JOLT) /416-840-9352 x.211
Real Estate and Mortgage Agents often ask how they can be “that guy” that always seems to score interviews on radio and tv, and articles in the local paper.
There’s some science behind the magic – read on to see how you too, can be a media savvy Real Estate or Mortgage Agent.
1. Read first, pitch second. In social media circles there’s a lot of chatter about listening first and engaging next. The same principle applies to media relations. Scan the publications you think reaches your target market and identify the reporters you think cover your space, then read their articles. A good technique is to bookmark those sites and schedule reading time each week. If you have an RSS reader like NetVibes or Google Reader, many writers have RSS feeds that you can plug into your reader to catch (just) their latest. Regular reading will give you a better sense for the reporter’s style and focus and enable you to write a better pitch. Don’t try to tackle the world at once. Instead, incorporate this into your schedule and find a couple new writers to follow each week.
2. Engage. Engagement can come in several forms. First, if you enjoy an article a reporter you follow has written and have something of value to contribute to the conversation, post a comment. Caution: avoid commenting merely for comment’s sake. Second, if you’re on social media channels, like Twitter, follow those reporters and add them to a list. Watch and read what they Tweet. Tweet links to articles you find interesting and be sure to include the reporter’s Twitter handle in your post. Finally, if you find an article especially compelling, send them a note and tell them why. Most people enjoy positive feedback, especially from their readers, so if you enjoyed a piece of work, let them know. No pitch, no pressure, just conversation.
3. Pitch a story, not a product. Reporters are after a story, something that is useful and compelling for their readers. Rather than pitching about how great your service is, tell them how it solved a problem. An old textbook I have lying around defines “news” as something that defies expectations. What is it about your story that defies expectations?
4. Short and relevant. Of the vast volume of pitches reporters receive; most of them come by email. Since that makes for a cluttered inbox, relevancy and brevity go a long way. When I reach out to a new reporter – someone I haven’t contacted before – I generally like to include a reference to something they’ve written. For example, my first sentence might read, “Mike: I saw you wrote about the mortgage trends and local housing affordability and thought you might be interested in some analysis we conducted on that demonstrates our area is still affordable for young families.” It demonstrates that I know what “Mike” writes about and have a pitch that’s related to his beat.
5. Consider other story angles. The story angle refers to the perspective from which a story might be explained. Take Apple’s iPad for example, which was covered from a range of angles – from the business impact on Apple and the competition, to gift guides and product reviews. There’s even a human interest angle as which iPad apps help austistic kids development demonstrates. The story angle can often be driven by timing, for example, as Valentine’s Day approaches many publications are putting together their gift guides, so this news peg is more appropriate right now, than it would be on February 15th.
6. Try another channel. You’ve pitched a great story to a reporter you just absolutely positively know would be interested, but there was no response. If you’re that sure, try reaching out to them the old fashioned way: snail mail. You could go for a simple letter, which would has the advantage of cutting through the clutter of email, or send them a sample of you product. Pick five reporters you have really gotten to understand through reading, write them a pithy personal note that explains why you think it’s would be of their readers’ interest.
7. The phone still works. Just like snail mail can help you cut through the clutter, so too does the phone. If you’ve done your research, know what the reporter covers, don’t be afraid to pick up the phone can call a reporter. Be sure to have the key point you’d like to get across in mind before dialing. Since deadlines tend to loom in the afternoon, I tend to make calls in the morning, and just like any other call, extend the reporter the same courtesy: “Hi, I’m Frank, I’m with Company Name and I’ve got a story in which I think you might be interested. Do you have a minute to talk?”
8. Focus on a relationship. By relationship, I mean a professional relationship: one built on trust, relevancy and courtesy. Understand that reporters are paid to accomplish a task: inform their audience with accurate and timely information. Reporters keep notes on their sources, and likewise, you should keep notes on your conversations with reporters. Keep track of what you talked about, when and any ideas that you might have in mind for contacting them in the future. Above all, there are three simple guidelines: be honest, be helpful and be responsive. Don’t make a reporter wait. They won’t.
9. Tools that can help. It often helps to include videos, high quality images or other supporting documents/images that add “beef” to your story. Another great tool – a 3rd party quote that supports the point of your story. Thid party validation will make a huge difference in getting your story picked up.
10. Be persistent. If you know you’ve got a good story, don’t shy from being persistent. I’m not suggesting you call them three times a day or email – that’s stalking and perhaps, a little weird. However, if you have something new going on in your business, it’s a good reason to reach out to them again.
In closing, don’t take it personally if you don’t hear back – reporters are busy! Keep in mind that no response doesn’t mean you’re idea isn’t good. Good pitches and good contacts tend to get saved in folders for future reference. PR in generally tends to ebb and flow, a little momentum often carries you a long way. Hang in there!
These 10 points on how to get picked up by the press is courtesy of the PR Web blog.
In the Real Estate and Mortgage industry there is a huge potential to get lots of free press coverage, ie FREE MARKETING, in your local media.
One of the ways to get your name in the newspaper without paying for advertising is to create valuable articles related to your business for the local media to cover.
Here are the top 5 Things you Need To Consider When Writing Articles:
1. What You Will Write About? Make sure your article covers news on a local level, that is relevant/valuable and timely for the community, and will appeal to your target market.
2. Why would the local news care? Your article will only get picked up if the local news thinks it’s newsworthy. For every idea you think of writing about, ask yourself…why will the press care? When you answer this question you must think from the presses and readers perspective. If your article is just about you, the truth is the press and community will probably not care. But, if your article is about giving back to the community, your analysis of the local economy and industries that is something the press is more likely to care about.
If you want to figure out what the press cares about make sure you chose 3 or 5 select local media outlets and study what they include in the media as “news”. If your topic never gets covered, it’s probably because the press doesn’t care, so tweak your story a bit so it includes an angle the press is interested in, whether it’s on a new neighbourhood, charitable acts, demographics in the area or any other topic that gets picked up.
3. Who Will Back Up Your Story? Any good article has 3rd party validation – a quote from somebody that is not the story author, who can back up the story with a solid quote. Chose your “back up” person carefully. There is a chance the local news will call your contact, and ask for more information. Make sure you have chosen a good source, and that the person takes their press quote seriously. If you ask a random person for a statement and then the news calls on them to corraborate, and your contact doesn’t remember saying his quote, or can’t explain it, or says that you just told him to say it, you will not only not get press coverage, you will probably never get any press coverage from that new source again.
4. When did your event/insight/analysis happen? Content that is timely is very important to the press, so make sure your article pitch has relevance NOW – whether it’s something that’s launching soon, or just passed. If you wait a week or more after an event to send it to the press you are probably too late. They want new, fresh, content. Not “old news”!
5. Where does your article have the most relevance geographically? Local news cares about what’s happening locally. If you are thinking of re-using your companies national press release you need to add a local context to increase your chances of getting picked up. For example, if the new housing stats have just been released and you want to turn this into an article, you need to add a few paragraphs explaining how this news is relevant or different from what’s happening in your local area. Add some analysis, a quote from yourself, a supporting statement from another person (your “back up” source) and you’ve already added a local context and made your companies national housing information into local news!
Another thing to keep in mind is that an article is NOT a sales pitch. If you want to talk about yourself and how great your sales were, this is not the place. Your local press is looking for “news”. All the content in your article, and your title need to indicate that your story is actual news.
Some example of good article topics are:
After you’ve carefully considered the what, when, why, where, who of your article write out a first draft, edit it carefully, and have another person proof it. You want to make sure that your article sounds good, reads well, will interest your target market, and represents you well. You also want to make sure that you are taking the necessary precautions and spending the time it takes to make a great article to pitch to the media. You can count on about 10 hours to brainstorm, write, proof and edit.
That may seem like a long time….but you will get your name in the paper, i.e. FREE ADVERTISING, in return for your time.
What are your thoughts – have you tried to pitch your articles to the press? How did it turn out? Did your story ever get picked up?
If you’re worried that the press won’t pick up your story, don’t worry – that’s our next blog post!
Recently Oriana Financial, a boutique Mortgage Brokerage with approximately 50 Mortgage Agents, concluded a hugely successful lead generation marketing campaign that was developed and executed by JOLT Marketing.
The mortgage marketing campaign called “Insurance Olympics” included events, sales brochures, a lead generation contest, an internal sales contest and full campaign management by JOLT Marketing.
According to Mike Hall, President of Oriana Financial, “With this campaign everyone won. Sales results were spectacular, company morale increased, our clients were rewarded and new recruits easily understood the level of support that Oriana provides for them”.
“Throughout the campaign we would receive updates, insight and information that helped us realize the value of working with JOLT Marketing, a professional company that specializes in running campaigns such as this”, says Hall.
The campaign was so successful it was picked up as a case study in the Winter Edition of the Independent Mortgage Brokers Association’s Journal “Broker Biz“. You can read the full article in the Broker Biz Magazine on page 23 here
Are you looking to run a Lead Generation Marketing Campaign in your office? Consider these points.
– any campaign should have a very clearly defined target market…not just ” more clients”
– to run a successful campaign you must use a marketing mix – online, offline and social media components that will drive the best results.
– the duration of your contest is critical to it’s success. it cannot be too short, or too long.
– plan to spend a minimum of 15 hours per week on the campaign, unless you outsource your contest, which is highly recommended.
– for best results, hire a marketing company such as JOLT Marketing to create, and execute your contest. Experience counts and we have a history of running mega-successful real estate and mortgage lead generation campaigns.
For a quote on a lead generation contest call Ingrid, Director of Marketing directly at 416-840-9352.
Former Royal LePage Canada marketing manager Ingrid Menninga recently launched Jolt Marketing, a full service marketing company specializing in helping Realtors and mortgage brokers.
REM magazine discusses what this means for the Real Estate Market on their website here. Some of the philosophies of the company may surprise you, read the article to find out why.
The REALTORS® Association of Grey Bruce Owen Sound is once again organizing its Annual General meeting in conjunction with a Technology & Trade Show on Tuesday, October 19th, 2010.
Come meet JOLT Marketing – we’ll have a trade booth where you can learn about new marketing trends, pick up a great case study on how a mortgage company increased sales 300% with a JOLT Marketing campaign, and meet the JOLT Marketing founder, Ingrid Menninga.
It will be held at the Harry Lumley Bayshore Community Centre, 1900 3rd Ave. East in Owen Sound from 8:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. approx.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
This month JOLT Marketing is in REM on page 57. Here’s the link to a virtual copy of the magazine so you can see what REM has to say about us – including information on the Business Booster Marketing Program, a client testimonial and the JOLT Marketing philosophy on how to serve clients well.
