This week I am reviewing iBuzzPro Voice Broadcast System as a marketing and lead generation tool for mortgage and real estate professionals.
Mortgage professionals face an ever growing challenge to generate new borrower prospects as we head into 2009. Even with the financial market bailout passed by Congress and signed by the President this past week, the home market continues to constrict with what President Bush called “a glut of new homes”. Even with falling interest rates, program guidelines and qualifications have continued to tightened, making loan origination even more challenging. The days of turning down loans because you had too many loan packages on your desk on are gone for the foreseeable, but there are tools that can help your phones keep ringing even during these tough times.
Over the years I have watched organizations invest thousands of dollars and many man hours in what I now call “Old YAMETO Marketing”. This is not Japanese, but “Ya, me to”, which is the copy cat mentality of many people in many industries, including the real estate and mortgage industry. They see an ad in the paper or hear a commercial on the radio by a competitor and figure they need to do the same. When times are good it is a sign of their prosperity, but when times are bad they have no real system to fall back on to keep prospects. I have asked numerousloan originator's and real estate agents about their ads only to have them tell me “that they do it because the competition does it”. With marketing dollars tightening up you need to start getting creative and YAMETO will not work anymore.
I am not saying that a marketing strategy that includes print ads, radio, postcard campaigns, cold calls and call centers cannot yield results. What I am saying is that in this market today you need to tighten the focus of your efforts and target your customers efficiently and effectively. I also think it is critical that you look into tools that will differentiate yourself. Do you really think anybody looks at those letters or post cards that say “want to refinance” or “I just sold a house in your neighborhood, give me a call”.
One product that I evaluated was iBuzzPro Voice Broadcast Software. iBuzzPro is an SaaS product “Software As A Service”, so it is completely web-based. you do not have to download and install any software onto a PC, nor do you have to buy any special hardware (which in the past was necessary with any auto-dialer) systems.
The strategy behind iBuzzPro is combining targeted direct dial marketing with internet integration and control. This allows the marketer (real estate agent or mortgage originator) to target their audience and get their message out in a concise and cost effective way. It also is completely automated so you are only going to hear from people who are interested in your product or service.
There are four key elements to iBuzzPro
· Campaign Set-Up
· Your Target List
· Your Message
· Follow-Up
Setting Up Your Campaign
Once you log into your password protected site you can begin the campaign process. If you have an office you can grant to your team access with their own log-ins and passwords as well as different permission levels, so multiple users can run multiple campaigns. You need to decide who you want to target with the call campaign, when you want to run the campaign (morning, afternoon or evening) how you want to handle callers who wish more information (direct them to a live person or into a voicemail box). This is all easily done with drop down menu’s.
Your Target List
iBuzzPro is not in the list selling business, but they do give you access to millions of consumer and B2B contact phone lists. You can request free lists by state and SIC code and get them in your email the next day usually. They also have links to websites where you can buy opt-in and market related phone lists.
One thing to be aware of…. you cannot use a voice broadcast system that uses a recorded voice message to randomly call residential phones without permission, even if they are not registered on the “Do Not Call Registry. That is prohibited as part of the National Do Not Call Registry Laws and governed by the FCC. iBuzzPro also offers free integration with the National DNC Registry so you can clean any list you have to remove any phone numbers that have been registered on the DNC.
iBuzzPro is great if you want to communicate with past or current borrowers to offer a free mortgage analysis or keep them up to date on changes in the market. It is also an effective tool to stay in touch with lead sources like real estate agents and others who refer business to keep your name up front and them up to date on new programs or market changes that may effect them.
There are many other sources for lists that you can purchase online. These would be opt-in lead lists of people or businesses who registered on a website to get more information about a product or service that you offer. Pricing for these vary and freshness (as in recent inquiry) is important. These lists are a great tool to identify reverse mortgage, refinance and purchase prospects.
Your Message
Your voice message is important as you want to keep it concise and to the point. It should be no longer than 30 to 60 seconds. You should always write it out first and then call in to record the message through iBuzzPro or upload directly to the software. It is a very simple process.
What is a great feature is the ability to let the person you are calling to either press a number to get more information and be sent into a voice mail system or transferred directly to a phone where you can answer the calls in real time. You can also give them the option to press 8 or 9 to be removed from the call list and iBuzzPro will automatically remove them.
iBuzzPro will charge you less than cents for a connected 30 second call and 3.9 cents for a 60 second connected call. If 5,000 people listen to your 30 second message it is going to cost you about $100. That is a lot less than a postage stamp.
Follow-Up
The last step is a strategy for follow up. If you are receiving voice mails you need to call people back in a timely fashion. If you are sending people to a website do you have a way for them to register.
Remember that people who respond to your broadcast for more information are usually doing so on an impulse so you need to make sure you respond to them quickly and with a strategy to gather information from them that will help you identify their needs.
Any marketing effort should take into account investment in time and money and the return on that investment. The cost of the iBuzzPro system was only $550 plus a monthly admin fee of $28.98. Far less than the cost of one small ad in a regional paper and a fraction of the cost of a mailing campaign that could reach out to as many people.
For more information about iBuzzPro or to watch their informational webinar you can Click Here. To learn more about the National Do Not Call Registry, you can Click Here
Posts
