Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / Ep #24: How to Get More Customers from Google

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Ep #24: How to Get More Customers from Google · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
0:04
the real estate agents is essential for success.
0:06
However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge.
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Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read.
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Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals.
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0:34
with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business.
0:39
To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy
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of the case study today.
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You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million
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Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today.
1:17
Welcome to Mortgage Marketing Radio.
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And brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute, your number one source for truth
1:24
in mortgage marketing.
1:28
Hey listeners, Jeff Zimfer, your host of Mortgage Marketing Radio.
1:40
Thanks for being here and tuning in for another episode.
1:43
So today my special guest is somebody who I've admired for some time.
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And the reason why I've admired him is because I value authenticity and truth in mortgage
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marketing.
1:57
As you know, that's kind of like my saying, right, it's truth in mortgage marketing.
2:02
And that couldn't be said better for this individual.
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I don't think because Chris Johnstone is somebody who for years has been helping mortgage
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companies, mortgage professionals make sense of the ever changing world of digital marketing.
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So when you, when I say digital marketing, what do you think of it encompasses quite a
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lot, doesn't it?
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And there's always something changing.
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Always the rules are being mixed up and different algorithms or this or that.
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And while that is challenging and frustrating, the digital platforms today, we know we simply
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can't ignore the problem is oftentimes we need somebody to help us navigate and better
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understand how to really maximize the return on our effort and return on our investment
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in those various platforms, which includes things like social media marketing, right?
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Facebook, for example, ads, Google search engine optimization, search marketing, Google
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paid ads and so on and so forth.
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And what Chris does is really simplify everything and give you very specific research and facts
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with real world case studies and examples to support what he's talking about.
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So whether you want customers from your social marketing, you want customers from search,
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from paid traffic, you want to get better at referral targeting and marketing online.
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Chris has got answers and that's why I wanted to invite him here today.
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So he even actually has a special free website analysis that he's going to offer just for
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listing and tuning into this show and we've put a link to that in the show notes down below.
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So I took a ton of notes during this podcast and I encourage you to do the same thing as
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well because Chris will help you better understand how to make a sense of where you should
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put, depending on where you're at in your mortgage career and what your goals are, help you
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make sense of where you should put your focus and your dollars on the various digital marketing
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platforms.
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So he is the founder, CEO of Johnstone Digital Marketing.
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He's been a speaker and trainer at many different mortgage companies.
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I featured a published author in Scottsman's Guide and I think you'll really, really enjoy
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today's session.
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So without further ado, let's transition over to this week's show.
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Chris, welcome to the show.
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Thanks Jeff.
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It's great to be here.
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You know, it's great to have you.
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So I've been following you, watching you, consuming your content for some time and I'm
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really glad and thrilled to share you with our listeners because I think in this space
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of, you know, online digital marketing, things like that, there are, as you know, a lot
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of people that may not have the best intentions and may have some, how can I say it, maybe
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the source of the information is questionable.
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And what I've seen from you is, is that A, you do your research and you're very current
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and very, you know, relevant with what's going on right now.
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But even better than that is you specialize in the mortgage lending industry.
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So before we kind of unpack this whole digital marketing, you know, topic, I wanted if you
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would take a moment and share with our listeners, you know, there's obviously lots of markets
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you could be serving out there in terms of helping them with, with their search engine
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marketing, social marketing.
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How did you come to specialize or choose the lending industry?
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So great question.
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And so it certainly wasn't my background.
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So I'm, I'm a nerd, kind of by nature, it was kind of how I grew up.
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Hey, that sounds like a band from the 80s, nerds by nature.
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That's right.
5:52
That's actually a good band for the future.
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There you go.
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So my background was initially in construction and, you know, working long hours and really
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kind of going through the manual labor process in building what I was doing.
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Long story short, my dad is a mortgage broker.
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So I got injured on the job and had to move back into basically my parents' house during
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that process.
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And I kind of had this epiphany moment that my dad was actually a really smart guy.
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You know, here he was.
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It is nice warm office with fresh coffee and great clients and having fun all day.
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And I was like, man, this is a complete opposite of what I do every day.
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And here he is, you know, living this beautiful life.
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So I thought, well, if he can do it, I can do it.
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And you know, being off the top of my head, it escapes me.
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But I was close to 21, maybe 22 years old when I went through that process.
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And I was like, okay, well, being young and somewhat naive, if he can do it, I can do
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it.
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I'm going to become entrepreneur and hang my shingle and business is just going to
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appear, right?
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Well, after the first two weeks, when my first paycheck didn't show up, I had this
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realization that, oh, man, there's this thing called sales.
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And if I'm going to be able to provide for myself, I'm going to have to vote and sell.
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So that led to months and months, close to years of just agonizing hard work on the
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rate sheets and donuts circuit driving around town, getting laughed at by real estate agents
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and all of the things that go along with that.
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You know, being, I didn't even shave at the time.
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So I would show up at a real estate office and, you know, give my pitch on, you know,
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you can trust your clients with me and basically, you know, come back in 10 years, kid.
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That's great.
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So, so the one thing that I had going for me at that point in my life was that I am
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an incredibly determined individual when I sent myself on something and with the support
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of my dad, I would not give up.
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And I find myself late at night on the computer using Google to research how to build a mortgage
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or real estate business.
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And I discovered an ebook by a guy named Jim Cochrome and changed my life.
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I still owe Jim to this day.
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He's, I recommend him to anybody that I get the opportunity to.
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He's just, he's got an incredible soul.
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He's an incredible man and he's very giving to the people that follow him.
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So I recommend that you look him up.
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What's the ebook, by the way?
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Do you remember the name?
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Oh, it escapes me now, but it was something along the lines of, you know, did you know you
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can sell things to people on Google or something?
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You know, I'm obviously that's not the real title, but it was something along those lines.
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And I downloaded it.
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It was at the very birth of Google AdWords, kind of when that was the Wild West.
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And the ebook was literally, hey, you can run an ad on the front page of Google.
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People will click on it and you pay Google per click.
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And so, well, again, long story short, we learned how to run Google ads, drive people
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to real estate based squeeze pages and basically buyers that were looking to purchase a home
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would input what it is that they were looking for along with all of their contact information
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hit submit.
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And that would be my lead.
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So we turned on our first paper click system and generated over 300 leads in our first
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month.
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And that was my first experience with online marketing.
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So way back then, I was carrying a blackberry, like 8820, one of like the first original
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brick blackberries.
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And by the end of the month, the side of my hip was sore because every time we would get
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a lead, it would buzz.
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And most of the time I was in my car, so I ended up with those little brews on my hip.
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But anyways, that changed my career going from the guy that was getting laughed out of offices
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to the guy that had an on-demand lead generation source that I could leverage for relationships
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and that I could direct market to.
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And I never look back.
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And so that's why I'm still in the mortgage industry and providing services because this
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industry has helped me grow a career.
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And in today, obviously, as I've gone through the evolutions and seasons of life, I have
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a family.
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I have two beautiful young children.
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My son just turned two.
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My daughter Emily is four months, I should say.
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And working together, we found this really nice position that we're in where I'm able
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to use my skill set to go into a mortgage business and solve a problem that most loan officers
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or mortgage professionals have in the fact that internet marketing is daunting.
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It changes really quick and it's hard to keep up with what's going on.
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And I'm lucky enough to have a decade of experience behind me where I can go in and make an impact.
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And they make more revenue than I charge them in fees and it's a win-win-win for everybody
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involved.
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So that's the story of how the evolution got us to this point.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Thank you for sharing that.
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And on that, I'm curious.
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Do you recall what the ads were that you ran on Google, meaning was it refi-focused and
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you recall any of kind of what the call to action there was?
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Oh, yeah.
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So straight purchase leads.
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So our top keywords were area name, home for sale, area name property for sale.
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And then area name, real estate area name property.
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So if we had like four keywords that performed the best out of all of the campaigns that we
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launched and we launched hundreds of them, those were kind of the top four key phrases.
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And the offer was custom list of all homes in your market.
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And then it was like BRBA price.
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I think it said at the end of it was our top performing advertisement.
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And literally people would land on a very ugly squeeze page.
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Just to clarify, BRBA means bedroom bath.
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Yeah, exactly.
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Yeah.
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And so obviously we would shorten them to fit them into these.
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And this is Google AdWords, right?
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Yeah.
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And so to bring everybody up to speed, Google AdWords is a giant in itself.
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The opportunities that we have inside Google AdWords right now in the agency side of the
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business that manages that is dealing with changes on a weekly basis.
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And certainly those funnels don't work today like they used to back then.
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You really do need a fully developed site user experience and content is very important.
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It's not as direct as it used to.
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And the keywords are much more expensive today than they were back then.
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You know, you'd be surprised.
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Google has this thing in the paper click market that gives you a score as an advertiser.
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And that score to put it into a nutshell is essentially calculated based on user experience.
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So as you drive traffic through a funnel, if you can show Google that a large portion
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of people click on your advertisements and you're writing good ads, they're staying on
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the website that you're driving them to and then converting on the offer that you're
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giving them.
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Google sees that as a high quality user experience.
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They enjoyed your advertisement.
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They stuck on the content that you showed them after they clicked on the ad and then ultimately
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converted on your offer, which tells Google that that person found the information that
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they were looking for through the advertisement.
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So when you achieve those things in a paid advertising campaign, Google wants to show
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you a head of other competitors that aren't writing advertisements that are as well performing
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as yours and giving a bad user experience.
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So you can actually get the number one paid spot on AdWords and pay less per click than
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the advertisers that are buying the traffic below you by being a good advertiser and maintaining
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your account properly and getting a good quality score as an advertiser with Google.
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Okay.
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Yeah, so there's a lot involved there and that's some of the work that you do at your company
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to help people do that and figure that out because that sounds a bit complex.
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Yeah, but we always educate our clients on the process as well so that they're learning
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of not just doing.
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Sure.
15:06
Yeah, great.
15:07
All right, so I had a big question for you and I told you this is kind of how I wanted
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to open up the conversation about digital marketing and this comes right off your website,
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which is cwjstone.com.
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And so when, you know, so there's a loan officer listening to this and we've got to put
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ourselves in their shoes as I know you do every single day because those are your clients.
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And so, you know, they, we've got so much time, right, personal bandwidth and money to
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allocate our resources.
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And so of the various digital places online, right, let's talk about kind of the big ones.
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We've got social marketing.
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I've got search engine marketing.
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I've got paid traffic marketing similar to what you just described.
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And then of course there's referral marketing, which is not, you know, could be a little
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bit of a lateral dotted line category, but where in your experience because you're working
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with these companies every day of those choices.
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If I'm a loan officer and it's like, look, man, I need to make some business happen in
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the next 90 days, where can I get my biggest?
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I know there's short-term and long-term focus, but you know, you know, you know where I'm
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heading.
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It's like where would you advise the loan officer to invest their time and money today?
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You know, if they're in the situation that I'm sure you see a lot of loan officers where
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they, hey, I don't have a lot of experience and how to do this be.
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I don't have a lot of time.
16:28
Where do you direct people?
16:30
So all right, great question, Jeff, and that speaks to the market definitely.
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So if it's okay, I'll break that answer down into two parts.
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And you mentioned it, short-term and long-term.
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So if you need deals in 60 days, the structure of that is a paid advertising campaign.
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The quality of lead generation that you are going to produce really does maintain on
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the network and how you're putting your message in front of the marketplace.
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So when you look at ads from social advertising, that is interruption marketing, in my opinion,
17:15
at its finest.
17:16
So Facebook feed, sponsored, type staff, right?
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Exactly.
17:21
You're targeting people demographically and based on the interests that they have, the
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little bit of their browsing history and that kind of stuff, but you have to interrupt
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them while they're on a social network, doing something other than actively thinking about
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buying real estate or getting a loan or getting a refinance or whatever it is.
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So your ad needs to pop that person, interrupt them from what they're doing and be so compelling
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that you move them through your funnel as opposed to them watching, you know, funny social
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videos on a network where you take user experience and shift it over to search on a Google
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search engine.
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If you have somebody that sits down in front of a computer and does a search for loan
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officer in city name, you're not interrupting that person.
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That person is actively seeking for you and your products and services.
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So at that point, what you have to do is elevate yourself above the noise in the marketplace
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to be able to call that person to you.
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So the first part of the answer is if you've only got 60 days and you have to make money
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now, it's a paid advertising campaign.
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My first option would be Google AdWords or AdWords Express ads using your Google My Business
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page and we can talk about that if you'd like and then the secondary option would be social
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media advertising, but I would stay focused mainly on that paid search.
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If you're building a career and you're looking at this as how you're going to feed your
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family and your children and put them through school and, you know, then retire in a lifestyle
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that you deserve, paid is not the first option that you should go at.
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So think of, you know, we've all heard of the marketing funnel in our business.
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I'm very much focused on the maximum amount of results for the minimum amount of effort,
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right?
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Something that I've learned from Tim Ferris.
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So I've done a lot of really hard work in my career and now my main focus is spending
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time with my kids while also achieving my goals in business.
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So this whole, you know, maximum results, minimum effort thing has become very important
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to me.
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So if you look at your business that way, you say, okay, I'm going to go out and I'm going
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to get the most profitable low hanging fruit that I can get and then work my way down
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the funnel until I achieve my income goal.
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And the way that that funnel works at the very top is search marketing.
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So showing up organically on the front page of Google.
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So when that person sits down and searches for area name loan officer, you show up on
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the front page of Google, not with a paid advertisement, but with an organic placement
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that shows up on the front page.
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Now there is a caveat to this, search has changed in the last, well, six to seven months,
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but overall in the last two years because Google has gotten hyper focused on local search
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and showing local businesses and their ratings and reviews to the people that are looking
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for loan officers in that local marketplace.
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So Google My Business is a tool where you can get listed on the map tool on Google.
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Those listings show up on the front page of search when people put search phrases that
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have purchase intent.
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They used to show seven businesses in that map ranking.
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And now in today's marketplace, they only show three businesses that show up in that listing.
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And the ratings and reviews that are on those Google My Business places or pages show
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up in those rankings.
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And if you want the highest quality lead from online marketing with the highest closing
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ratio and the best quality leads as far as their credit score, their ability to get credit
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and close as a customer, that three pack ranking will bring you the most amount of results
21:38
for the minimum amount of effort.
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So it takes an optimization campaign, which includes your website, monthly optimization
21:46
online, and you going out and engaging your past client database and your current customer
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base to leave you those ratings and reviews.
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But in the marketplaces where we have clients that have become not only the top ranked
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option in that three pack, but the top rated option as far as having the most amount
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of ratings and reviews, it is a significant driver of business that changes the
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dynamics of how that loan business operates.
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And if there's one area to go after, that's the one.
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Now what that does is that fills up your funnel with high quality closings, those people
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become customers, that's when your social marketing comes into play.
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So when you look at Facebook marketing specifically, think of that source of leads as a referral
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mechanism and you're using Facebook not to just go cold into the marketplace and try and
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pull people that are interested in loans, but use it as a tool to make sure that you
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don't just get one referral from your past clients, use it as a tool so that you get two,
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three, four referrals from the people that are coming through your funnel.
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So search marketing and paid marketing exist at the top of the funnel to drive the customers
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to closing because that's where you're going to get your highest return on investment.
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After that, your social marketing campaign generates referrals so that the lifetime
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customer value of those customers goes up and becomes more profitable for you.
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And that's how I would structure every campaign.
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If somebody came to me with a clean slate and said, build the whole thing, that's exactly
23:39
how I would roll it out.
23:41
And just a moment while this is on my mind here, in terms of past database marketing, are
23:45
you seeing that as kind of separate in what you're doing over EML and newsletters or whatnot
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or are you somehow tying that into your Facebook strategy?
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So we use Facebook ads specifically to target the database of past clients.
24:03
So Facebook has a tool called Custom Audiences.
24:06
And you can upload a list of names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses to Facebook and show
24:12
ads to just those people.
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So we write advertisements that are reminders of quality service.
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They include customer testimonials and a call to action on, don't forget our business
24:27
that depends on your referrals, don't forget to refer us business.
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So at least once a month, each of your past clients is being reminded when they log into
24:36
Facebook that you're in the business of referrals.
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So let me ask you this, why would one do that versus the traditional picking up the phone
24:47
kind of thing, and doing the more traditional kind of past database marketing, which is usually
24:52
those types of activities, e-mail, phone, that kind of jazz?
24:56
So I'm very big on, there's no one way to do anything, but I do truly believe that the
25:07
more irons you have in the fire, the better result that you will get.
25:11
And the only true way to scale your business is to measure what you're doing.
25:17
So it's my belief that you should call your database at least once a quarter.
25:23
You should have a monthly newsletter that goes out, whether that's print or digital,
25:27
that's kind of up to you.
25:29
And you should have some form of referral mechanism that happens at closing where everybody's
25:37
compliance is going to be different.
25:39
We're talking to people from all over North America here, everybody has different compliance
25:42
guidelines.
25:43
But within your compliance, you should have some type of offer that you can then refer
25:49
to back over time to get every single customer that you close to send you more business.
25:55
You just add the Facebook marketing on top of it because it just brings you back to top
26:00
of mind and helps what you've already done.
26:03
Well, better.
26:04
So a question on the Facebook custom audience is you're uploading a list of your past
26:08
database.
26:09
And Facebook is then able to serve those relevant ads to those specific people.
26:14
Do you advise including people who like those pages of those past database clients of
26:22
yours so that you can get additional exposure to people that already know those people essentially?
26:30
So it doesn't work exactly like that.
26:33
You can do friends of friends, but what I would recommend doing rather than that is I would
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use Facebook as another tool that's called a look-alike audience.
26:46
Yeah.
26:47
So it's good.
26:48
Yeah.
26:49
So you can upload that database and say, okay, Facebook, target the 1% of people on Facebook
26:55
that match who the average user is in this database.
27:01
Now those look-alike audiences, I would use a direct-to-market approach.
27:06
So I would use an actual mortgage-based advertisement to advertise to those people to bring them
27:13
into the business because you technically can't advertise a referral offer to somebody
27:20
that hasn't done it.
27:21
Okay.
27:22
Think of that out loud.
27:23
I was thinking, hey, if I'm already serving these ads up to my past database clients, is there
27:27
any way to serve that ad up to people that they're friends with on Facebook is what I ultimately
27:33
would be the goal?
27:34
Yeah.
27:35
Exactly.
27:36
And that's a great idea.
27:37
All right.
27:38
So let me go back to something you talked about earlier, which is somebody types in Denver
27:43
Loan Officer, Irvine Loan Officer, and the intent is to come up there.
27:48
And I asked you this before, I think, and I'm sure hopefully I'm thinking some of the listeners
27:52
are wondering, well, how many people are actually sitting down in front of a computer typing
27:56
and like Denver Loan Officer, especially knowing that traditionally we're somewhere in
28:03
the middle of that funnel when that prospective home buyer is ready to engage with the Loan
28:10
Officer?
28:12
So forgive me if I don't get these numbers bang on, but there was a study done by Accenture,
28:22
which is the big consulting agency.
28:26
And in 2015, they found that 23%, I think it was, I'm within a couple of percent of
28:35
you.
28:36
I'm reading your article on Scotsman's Guide that you just published, which is a nice
28:39
tie-in here, rank high to be found online.
28:42
That's exactly what it says, published just a few days ago on Scotsman.
28:46
So yeah, you're right.
28:47
23%.
28:48
Go ahead.
28:49
Okay.
28:50
Awesome.
28:51
Thank you.
28:52
So 23% of U.S. consumers who applied for a mortgage in the previous year, so 2014, did
28:58
so through the internet.
29:00
So if you look at any given marketplace, I mean, that has a population base of over
29:09
100,000 people, over 20% probably closer to 30% now, because that studies over a year
29:18
old, of those loans are happening online, almost 100% digitally.
29:24
They're going online to do all of their research.
29:26
They're finding the professional that they're going to use through that research.
29:30
And statistically speaking, over 80% of those people are going to choose who they're
29:36
going to give the first shot at that business, but by reading online ratings and reviews.
29:44
So look at, and just a very quick way to determine that, just Google how many homes were sold
29:53
in your marketplace in the last year, figure out what 23% of that total is, and that will
30:01
give you a rough estimate of how much volume you have to take a shot at by being on the
30:06
front page of Google with more ratings and reviews than your competitors.
30:10
It's a staggering number.
30:11
Right.
30:12
So I've been doing a little test while we're walking through this, and I've noticed some
30:17
different results come up, for instance, so I'm in Southern California here, and it's
30:22
it may be a matter of just semantics and using the right words.
30:27
For instance, if I type in Irvine loan officer, I pretty much get the usual stuff, meaning
30:35
loan officer jobs.
30:37
Actually, there is a yellow link here to best loan officers in Irvine, so I don't know
30:41
if that's relevant.
30:42
But then I change it, and I type in Irvine home loans, and then I'm getting some more
30:48
specific kind of like what you talked about earlier, showing actual companies with the
30:54
Google map, et cetera.
30:56
Any comments on that?
30:57
Oh, yeah, so this is amazing, and I mentioned that there's been some pretty significant
31:03
changes in the last six to seven months.
31:05
So the way that the Google search engine works right now is unbelievable, and hopefully
31:10
this is new information for your listeners, because in my experience, a lot of people
31:14
don't know this, but Google has started using artificial intelligence to return search
31:21
results to people.
31:23
And through all of the data that they've been able to capture over the years, and watching
31:28
that data flow convert on websites, Google is now able to figure out what purchase intent
31:37
is.
31:38
And what I mean by that is they can tell when somebody is looking for news, and they
31:46
can tell when somebody is looking to get a loan today.
31:50
So if you take the example, so Irvine loan officer, that may be somebody that's looking
31:57
for a job as a loan officer in that city, right?
32:02
So Google is going to take information that would be relevant to that specific person,
32:08
and try and show as many search results to give that person what they want.
32:12
Now when you do a search that has actual purchase intent, where Google has statistically
32:20
seen that those are leading to leads and leading to purchase, they'll show the map to that
32:27
person that's doing searches with the ratings and reviews and testimonials from those people
32:33
that are in the local marketplace.
32:35
So if you think about that from our perspective, it's made online marketing so much easier
32:43
because this artificial intelligence robot is essentially out there picking through the
32:49
customers for you.
32:51
All you've got to do is show Google that you're the top professional in your marketplace
32:57
that deserves that business.
33:00
And they'll literally weed through the pool of online searchers and bring the highest
33:06
quality leads and people that are ready to convert right now to your funnel and get
33:12
them to call you.
33:14
It's an incredible advancement.
33:18
They've done a phenomenal job with it and the results that we're seeing by putting loan
33:22
officers in front of that traffic is just tremendous.
33:25
I mean, and please excuse me, I get excited about this stuff.
33:29
I've got, I got a mortgage broker in in Burlington, Ontario here.
33:34
He was ranked in the top 50 mortgage brokers in the country before we started working
33:40
with him and we helped him drive almost 100 mortgage transactions in a year through this
33:48
specific funnel.
33:51
So it's it's equating to volume and we know that.
33:56
Yeah.
33:57
It's interesting.
33:58
I'm playing around with the terms a little bit.
33:59
Home loans and Irvine.
34:00
What's interesting is that I'm definitely seeing the intent that Google is recognizing and
34:06
showing this map when my words that I type in is more clearly the intent is me obtaining
34:13
a home loan versus what appears to be loan officer in Irvine.
34:19
They're perceiving that as more of a job hunt, like you said.
34:23
Now what's interesting is with my little experiment that I'm doing here, the same three companies
34:28
with the maps, you know, have always come up out of like the last three or four searches
34:33
that I've done.
34:34
So somehow they're dominating, you know, showing up there.
34:37
Yes.
34:38
Yeah, absolutely.
34:40
And that is that is what I call local search optimization.
34:46
So in Google's advancement, they are trying to figure out who the most reputable businesses
34:54
are in each local marketplace.
34:56
And if you think about it, it's a herculean task because they're doing this for every
35:02
single industry.
35:03
It's not just the loan industry.
35:05
It's people that are buying every single product under the sun.
35:09
Now what's interesting is, so me as just a consumer, putting my consumer hat on.
35:15
So I see these guys, they're towards the top of the page, and they've got the map there,
35:20
which is cool, and it gives a nice visual experience.
35:23
And then further down, there's well, there's Zillow on there, but there's a couple others.
35:29
There's a Yelp.
35:30
There's like a monster-loan Pacific homeless.
35:32
But what I'm getting at is I feel more inclined to naturally pick those that are a little
35:37
bit more higher up on the page, but the fact about that showing that local map for me,
35:42
it just makes me feel more compelled to just focus there versus anywhere else.
35:46
I'm assuming you find that to be true.
35:49
Oh, absolutely.
35:50
And the ratings and reviews are what are going to catch somebody's eye.
35:55
So Google will also feature other online review sites like Zillow, for example.
36:01
But that person has to go to a secondary network to go read ratings and reviews, and let's
36:09
face it.
36:10
They're crunched for time, and the majority of them are going to take those reviews that
36:17
are showing up already on the front page of Google, call those companies first.
36:21
If they don't like the user experience, they go back to the search and keep working
36:26
down the list.
36:28
So again, it's like taking that low-hanging fruit or cherry picking, as long as you have
36:33
your systems in place, and you're able to effectively manage the volume that comes
36:38
from it, it's Google's done a great job.
36:43
So speaking of ratings and reviews, how can we, let's talk about, I know those are important
36:48
to you.
36:49
A couple of questions in that.
36:50
Number one is, how do we get those ratings and reviews to show up in that Google local
36:55
search ranking that we just kind of talked about, right, Google my business?
37:01
And then secondly, are there any particular platforms you like when it comes to social
37:09
reviews and rankings?
37:12
So more great questions.
37:15
Thank you.
37:16
Well, thank you, Jeff.
37:21
So you need to Google my business page, and you go to business.google.com.
37:25
You can sign up.
37:26
It's a free tool.
37:27
And that's what shows up on that map listing, and that's where you get the ratings and
37:32
reviews.
37:33
So once you get your profile, they'll either verify your location via postcard or over
37:38
the phone.
37:40
For some accounts, you register it, optimize it by making sure that you got your photos
37:46
on there, and they give you a little bar that shows you when you get to 100% when it's
37:50
optimized properly.
37:52
And then you drive people to that specific page in order to leave you a rating and review.
37:58
One thing that all of our listeners should know is that people need a Google account, so
38:04
they need a Gmail account in order to be able to leave a rating and review on that platform.
38:10
So there are people out there that think that it's difficult to get Google my business reviews
38:16
because people need a Gmail account.
38:18
But I can tell you, even if only 10% of your happy customers make it to that channel to leave
38:25
you an online rating and review, it is certainly worth the time and the effort because it's
38:30
a long-term business asset that you're building that just continues to work for you once you've
38:36
got it set up.
38:37
So that's the process behind it.
38:38
Now, as far as systems and software and that sort of thing, I still like hard work.
38:50
I believe that you should do that.
38:51
There's that construction background.
38:54
Right?
38:55
So you need to call people, follow up with them, make sure that they do leave you that
39:01
rating and review.
39:02
One thing that I've seen some people in our done for you package do is work it in at
39:07
the very beginning of the loan process.
39:09
So when you're sitting down with them and saying, here's what I'm going to do for you and setting
39:13
the expectation of the transaction, they're saying, I'm agreeing that I'm going to get
39:18
you the best rate, the best terms, I'm going to be professional, you're going to know
39:21
what's going on the entire time.
39:23
And can you agree that if I do all of those things and we provide a successful transaction
39:28
for you that at the end of the process, you'll go on my Google My Business page and leave
39:31
me a five-star review?
39:33
Making them make the commitment to you up front that they'll do something in the future,
39:38
we have seen pretty much every time that we've launched that, that the actual compliance
39:45
at the end, there's a lot more people that will leave those reviews because they've already
39:49
committed to doing it at the beginning of the process.
39:52
Now I have seen one piece of software out there, it's called Social Survey and they are
39:59
doing a great job of integrating with databases.
40:05
So when a loan closes, they automatically send out a survey and if the survey results
40:11
are positive, then they send the follow-up to the client to leave the five-star rating
40:17
and review on that service.
40:19
So I really like the workflow the company has been fantastic to work with.
40:26
So all good things.
40:29
But again, if you get into the nitty-gritty of Google's terms and conditions, they state
40:37
that you are not allowed to actively promote getting ratings and reviews on your profile.
40:44
So the Social Survey works great.
40:49
Oh, Google, still trying to control the world.
40:54
I know, right?
40:55
That Facebook does it too and it's a known, I mean, come on, we're business builders, right?
41:01
There's always a half-medium.
41:03
Yeah, it's interesting.
41:04
So speaking of Social Survey, I had them on the podcast several weeks back and yeah,
41:09
so no Craig, no Scott over there.
41:11
So if anybody missed that episode, you want to check it out.
41:14
It's mortgagemarketinginstitute.com forward slash 16, that was episode 16.
41:19
So that's it, it was a great talk we had with Scott and Craig over there about Social
41:24
Survey.
41:25
So very interesting.
41:27
Okay, so we're getting a little bit close to the end of our time.
41:30
I want to make sure that I take a moment to talk about referral marketing.
41:36
When I say referral marketing, I mean to, you know, how can I capture more real estate
41:39
agents?
41:40
And so let me set this up.
41:42
What I mean by that is I, what are your thoughts or do you have any experience on how a
41:49
loan officer could would or should use Facebook to target and perhaps create a funnel for
41:56
realtors, right?
41:57
To be able to begin those referral relationships to add value, build trust, all that kind
42:00
of stuff.
42:01
Anything you see there?
42:03
So from a referral marketing perspective, again, Facebook ads give you an incredible
42:08
opportunity to put the right message in front of the right market at the right time.
42:14
So you can run a Facebook ad and in the settings, when it says interest and you're plugging
42:23
those in, you just type in real estate and a number of different options under real estate
42:30
will come up and one of them will say jobs or something along those lines.
42:37
And when you select that category, you are advertising only to people that have listed
42:43
that their job is real estate inside Facebook.
42:47
So you can run a campaign that just shows advertisements to real estate professionals and
42:54
show an advertisement that talks about your standards of service, your happy past customers,
43:01
and your ability to answer their questions quickly easily when they're in a crunch.
43:05
So we normally cycle four or five different advertisements through a campaign like that
43:10
that talk about four or five different unique value propositions that you bring to the
43:16
marketplace.
43:18
And what it allows you to do is build this very big brand presence with a very small targeted
43:27
campaign on Facebook.
43:28
Yeah.
43:29
In your local geo, whatever you set in the face, yeah, so Irvine, for example, if I wanted
43:34
to target all the real estate agents in Irvine, I could do that and start generating some
43:40
campaigns where I'm sharing content, maybe reports, videos, right, all that stuff to kind
43:45
of build my platform.
43:47
Exactly.
43:48
And one thing that we've seen gain really good traction is sponsoring content or advertising
43:55
content that the real estate professional can then share out to their community of clients.
44:01
So if you kind of put your hat on and think, okay, if I was the content director for a
44:05
real estate company, what would a real estate agent really want to share?
44:10
So great news about what's happening in the marketplace, statistics, stuff that has
44:15
recency, this happened in the last couple of days, you'll end up positioning yourself
44:22
as the expert that they can then use further on down the road because it helps you open
44:28
up that relationship.
44:29
Yeah, that's interesting because now, if you're talking about, let's say, an educational
44:33
video, for example, or even an e-book or checklist, just tips, right, that again, in the context
44:39
of shareable for the agent that they would want to share with their sphere of influence
44:42
of buyers and sellers, now you get that kind of, you know, pay it forward viral type
44:47
marketing, right?
44:48
Because if they share that across their followers, you're going to get that additional
44:53
exposure.
44:54
Exactly.
44:55
So there could be links back to you, to your page or site or whatever, just that you
44:58
have to have, let's be smart about it, right, put kind of a subtle call to action in
45:04
there.
45:05
This isn't where it's the time to be salesy and over the head, right?
45:08
This is the time to be all about giving value and building that presence and the attracting
45:14
people to you instead of chasing them.
45:17
Well said, yeah.
45:18
Well, you know, I've been there, I've been there done that, very interesting.
45:24
So what else just in the last few minutes we've got?
45:26
Anything else really stand out for you that, you know, if there were parting words that
45:29
you'd want to share with listeners, we dug in a lot on search here, which is great, obviously
45:34
on social as well.
45:36
This is a topic we can talk about for a long time.
45:39
We're going to tell listeners how to contact you before we wrap up, but, you know, any
45:42
last words of advice?
45:45
Certainly, I think the theme of the most amount of results for the least amount of effort.
45:54
And there are so few people, even with how advanced and powerful it is, there are so few
46:00
companies in the local space doing a good job of being top ranked and top rated.
46:08
And with the changes that have happened, it is, in my opinion, the number one opportunity
46:14
that the loan officer community that we have to go to our marketplace and make a significant
46:20
impact in volume.
46:22
So we've talked about a lot of really interesting topics.
46:27
And I know just as much as the next person who runs and operates a business, it's easy
46:32
to get distracted with all of the shiny objects.
46:35
But if you haven't nailed down a search campaign and a process in your business to make sure
46:41
that you're top ranked and top rated, that should be your primary focus until you achieve
46:47
that goal.
46:48
And then you move further down the funnel with the other marketing campaigns that are going
46:52
to provide you additional results on top of doing that.
46:57
And yeah.
46:58
A quick question, because I know some people listening to this are thinking, you know,
47:03
well, I can't do search because it's too expensive.
47:06
What would you say to them?
47:09
So it's very important to calculate return on investment.
47:13
So I consult with a lot of companies that have an advertising budget and that have volume
47:18
targets and they look at how much they're spending and how much they're bringing in as
47:22
long as the stuff coming in is more than what they're spending on advertising.
47:27
They're happy.
47:29
Normally in instances where I go into an organization like that, I'm able to break down the marketing
47:33
and say, okay, you're doing these seven things, which of them are actually working and what's
47:39
your return on investment per focus?
47:43
And normally it's the 80-20 rule where 80% of the results are coming from 20% of the effort.
47:51
And when you look at search marketing, it's almost always in that category where you see
47:58
the highest return on investment for what you put into the campaign to what you get out
48:03
at the end.
48:05
Because, and again, I won't take too much time, but the beautiful thing about a search
48:08
campaign, especially with the ratings and reviews, is once you do the optimization to
48:14
the website and you do the monthly optimization and content creation in the marketplace and
48:20
you get to the front page, you're not paying per click, you're not paying per lead, you've
48:26
done the hard work up front, and then that big boulder is already running down the hill.
48:31
It's got momentum, you're very hard to catch, you're very hard to knock out of that position
48:36
once you achieve it.
48:37
So all of the leads that come through that system provide a very high return on investment
48:42
once you actually get the company ranked on the page.
48:46
So if you're disciplined enough to calculate return on investment by lead source, search
48:51
marketing becomes almost something that you did you can't ignore.
48:57
Well, yeah, unless you've got some source for study flow of business from elsewhere,
49:03
you know, you definitely got to be in the mix, especially if you're looking to generate
49:06
purchase business.
49:08
Okay, cool.
49:09
So I know there's a lot of different things and services you do from, you know, monthly
49:14
masterminds done for your social media, help people get local search rankings.
49:19
Where do you want to direct listeners to learn more about your company?
49:22
So go to connectionincorporated.com, that's all one word, connectionincorporated.com.
49:30
And then I've put up a special link, it's forward slash analysis.
49:35
And what we're offering is a free analysis of your website and your online marketing campaign.
49:43
So one of my technicians in the agency will actually be ahead of the call, sit down and
49:48
look at your website, look at the code and look at how essentially the search engines
49:54
view your website and give you a list of all the things that are broken and how to fix
49:58
them.
49:59
And then we'll get on the phone with you for free for half an hour to map out, okay,
50:04
who are the competitors in your space?
50:06
How are they ranked?
50:07
How many backlinks do they have?
50:10
How long is it going to take to catch them and how many online reviews do they have?
50:15
And when you capture that space on average, how much traffic is available in your marketplace
50:21
so that you can roughly calculate out what the results from a search marketing campaign
50:26
will be.
50:27
And then at the end, if you decide to ask about engaging with our services, we have a service
50:32
where we'll do it all for you.
50:35
Overhaul the website, do the monthly optimization and help you put a process in place in the
50:40
business to get ratings and reviews.
50:41
But you have to ask us for information where our team is there to help you on that 30-minute
50:48
call.
50:49
And it's my gift.
50:50
You know, we appreciate that a lot and I can definitely tell you are coming from the
50:53
right place, right from the heart.
50:55
And you're a, I always like to reference my, my friend Bob Berg, you're a go-giver, not
50:59
a go-taker.
51:00
Nice.
51:01
And that shows up in all you do.
51:04
So thank you for that.
51:05
By the way, the link to that will be in the show notes, the connectionincorporated.com
51:09
forward slash analysis.
51:11
So everybody will be able to go there directly and take advantage of it.
51:14
Well, hey, listen, Chris, I can't thank you enough.
51:17
I've learned a ton.
51:18
Took a bunch of notes here and I'm actually, well, you know, it's funny.
51:21
I know for me to go through that analysis will be kind of a painful process, but the
51:27
no pain, no gain, right?
51:28
All right, that's it.
51:30
Absolutely.
51:31
Exactly.
51:32
Because we all know there's things about our site we can improve.
51:34
So anyway, thanks again for chiming in today and helping us out with our digital marketing
51:40
strategy.
51:41
And for those that are listening, if you haven't yet subscribed, please do so.
51:45
Leave us a ranking and make sure you check the show notes for some of those resources.
51:49
And once again, I appreciate you and we'll look forward to seeing you on the next one.
51:54
Bye for now.
51:55
Thanks for listening to mortgage marketing radio.
51:58
One more truth in mortgage marketing, get more free training and resources at mortgagemarketinginstitute.com.
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