Is your marketing strategy getting the results you desire?

Mailing postcards, handing out flyers, giving out your business card, and referring real estate agents to your website are forms of marketing activity, but does that mean it's effective?

Being effective first means understanding how marketing to real estate agents works. Otherwise, you're practicing the definition of insanity - Doing the same thing repeatedly, each time expecting a different result.

Let me share a powerful illustration of marketing:

"If the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign saying, "Circus is coming to Fairgrounds Sunday," that's Advertising. If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk him through town, that's a Promotion. If the elephant walks through the Mayor's flowerbed, that's Publicity. If you can get the Mayor to laugh about it, that's Public Relations. And, if you planned the whole thing, that's Marketing!" - Author Unknown

Crafting a Bulletproof Marketing Plan

Do you enjoy rendering service, helping people live the American dream and adding income to an Agent's bank account? I suppose two out of three isn't bad, is it? If you're passionate about helping others, crafting a marketing plan is possible when you learn and understand the key components, which I call the 4 P's.

Planning

Planning is the foundation from which you build your marketing. The process helps yield decisions on how you can compete best. By taking the time to properly plan you can avoid many of the common mistakes loan officers make in creating an overall marketing strategy.

Creating a marketing plan is a formal process of describing the type of relationships you want to attract, how many you want to attract and how you will attract them. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know what you have to concentrate on to do it. You also know what is merely a distraction.

Positioning

A position is a place in your prospect's mind. You use positioning as a communication tool to reach targeted Agents in an information-overloaded marketplace. By narrowing your focus you can build a position as a specialist or expert in their mind. This increases the chances of your marketing message cutting through the noise.

Instead of competing with every loan officer in your town, you've created a niche specialty in which you can become recognized as an expert over time. Positioning is your competitive strategy for getting noticed.

One of the most profound statements made on the subject of positioning comes from Louis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland. When Alice asks the Cheshire Cat which path to take, he responds, "If you don't care where you're going, it doesn't make a difference which path you take."

Give your marketing plan better focus, or else your service will be perceived as coming from a multi-headed creature -speaking from many mouths, saying nothing and going nowhere.

Packaging

Often, it's your materials that Agents come across and gives them their first impression. Perceptions are formed from the quality of your materials that promote your services. Packaging is your opportunity to build a personal brand identity with Agents that they'll trust.

Packaging that has been professionally designed conveys that you're established, especially important if you're new in the industry. You can shape an Agent's perception to increase credibility, give a sense of stability and most importantly - to make your brand more memorable.

Promoting

Promoting your services is what gives your brand identity visibility and credibility. To attract quality relationships you desire, Agents must become familiar, comfortable and feel that you're trustworthy. If you're invisible, nobody is thinking of you.

Promoting is your opportunity to repeat yourself visually. A Grammy winner never won the award from their fans hearing the song one time. They won because their fans heard their song repeatedly.

Once you've determined a position within a niche specialty, your goal is to promote it through every medium that reaches your targeted audience.

Become an Agent Magnet

In it's simplest terms, it's about knowing which problems that you can solve for Agents and then targeting the Agents who have those problems. The more painstaking the problem you can solve, the better magnetism you have in your marketing.

If you chase Agents, they'll always feel they have the upper hand. By incorporating the 4 P's into your marketing and way of thinking, soon you'll have Agents hunting for your services.

Jeff Nelson helps mortgage companies and individual loan officers increase loan originations by developing customized relationship-building strategies that secure quality relationships with real estate agents.

Click here to get a free copy of the Marketing Planning Guide, a 20-page workbook designed to help you outline the 4 P's into your marketing strategy.

Visit us at http://www.loan-officer-marketing.com.