Broker channel ups its marketing game

TV commercials and bus stop bench signs haven’t gone the way of the dinosaur, but social media is proving to be a much richer vein to mine for brokers and lenders looking to promote the business

TV commercials and bus stop bench signs haven’t gone the way of the dinosaur, but social media is proving to be a much richer vein to mine for brokers and lenders looking to promote the business.

“We’ve taken the best features of social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook and infused it into our campaign ideas to help the industry get to know us better and see what makes us tick,” says Karen Fogel, vice president of marketing for the Pacific Mortgage Group (Mortgage Architects and Radius Financial). “Our campaign is fun and personal.”

Stressing the personal touch in an industry that has built itself on personal relationships is key to online campaigns, with companies in the mortgage channel launching such initiatives as Dominion Lending Centres’s broker blogging and Mortgage Architects “Get to know our people.”

Treating social media on an equal footing with other advertising vehicles is crucial, says Ext. Marketing Communications Manager Andrew Broadhead.

“The biggest mistake that companies make when social marketing is they treat it as a side project,” he says. “They don’t have a team in the marketing department that is focused solely on social marketing.”

Jason Hulott, the director of internet marketing specialist company SpeedieConsulting, agrees that along with search engine optimization and the proper utilization of pay per click and online advertising, understanding social media and how to use it is crucial to building and growing a successful business.

“Working on social media is about engagement and interacting,” Hulott told MBN. “Done correctly, you can take people off these groups (social media platforms) and get them into your direct marketing funnel.”