How To Set Up A Totally Free Direct Mail Program For Your Mortgage Business

Glad to see that this article caught your attention. You're going to love this amazing little direct mail mortgage marketing strategy.

This super simple idea will actually allow you to mail 500 or 1,000 or 10,000 or even more...postcards and/or fliers each week for free...all of this without you having to pay one single cent for postage. In fact, this idea is so profitable, that a number of mortgage professionals notified me that they replicated the idea multiple times and created their own lucrative direct mail companies outside of their mortgage businesses. Now that's powerful!

Forgive me for jumping ahead here. Let's start back at the very beginning and explore the details of this idea.

The most expensive part of a direct mail campaign is your postage. For that reason alone, you may not currently be using direct mail in your mortgage business. Your next most expensive item will be your list. The postcard might cost you a few cents apiece to print depending on your quantity. So that's almost nothing.

What all of this boils down to is that it's pretty tough to get a mailing out these days for less than 55 cents each or maybe 65 cents apiece. So that makes direct mail pretty darn pricey. So here's what you do to avoid paying postage, list rental, printing, and even make a profit using this idea.

First, you find out how many people live in your marketing area. What you want is the number of residences in your area. The post office will show you how to do a "Dear Resident" mailing. The post office will deliver your "Dear Resident" postcard very cheap if you are trying to hit every household in a certain zip code or set of zip codes.

If you'd like to personalize the carrier envelope, just look under the Yellow Pages under the category labeled "Mailing Lists," and you'll find a list of local companies that can help you. However, personalization is not a requirement. In fact, most loan officers that use direct mail address their offers to "Dear Resident." You'll also find this reduces costs substantially.

Second, let's say you find out that there are some 12,275 residences in the targeted area you want to reach. What you now do is approach other businesses that would also be interested in reaching these same people with a postcard advertisement. Ask these businesses if they would like to spend, say, 20 or 25 cents instead of 55 or 65 cents to reach a potential customer in their target market.

As a reminder, only approach businesses with this idea that are not competing with you and your mortgage business. There are tons of businesses willing to participate and a good letter promoting the concept will keep your waiting list constantly filled.

All of this sounds pretty simple, doesn't it?

Well, it is. In fact, the odds are good you already receive a mailing like this. There are a number of companies out there that will provide this service for you at a cost. They are called "card deck mailings." Just type "card deck mailing" into Google, and you'll see all kinds of companies come up in the listing that will do your card deck mailing for you. Better yet, when you receive your next mailing...call and check out their pricing. Your card will be ganged in with all the other merchants.

But here's the simple truth. You can save a lot of money my doing these mailings yourself. They are really very easy to do. There is something to be said for that old adage "If you want it done right, do you it yourself." You'll have total control of the process. And especially total control of who is getting your mailing. Very often, the "card deck" mailing companies hit to big a geographical area and include too many folks outside your marketing area. So, do it yourself so you can be certain you're only paying to reach those people you want to reach.

Also, you can gang together more than just postcards in an envelope. You can also gang fliers, letters and other advertising materials. Although I have seen some "card deck" mailings arrive in clear shrink wrap, plain old envelopes work just great.

But whether you do it yourself, or use a company that specializes in card deck mailings, this is a very cost effective way to advertise your business in your local marketing area.

But there is one key you need to be mindful of to make this kind of a mailing work for you. You need to make sure your mortgage message stands out from the other messages in your mailing package. Again, don't offer this opportunity to your competitors...only to those businesses that want to reach the same people in your marketing area.

Here's a great opportunity to actually make money in two businesses.

You'll make money in your mortgage business by promoting your company via your mailing...that is, with your own postcard or flier. And, you can make lots of money selling your direct mail program to your co-op mailing partners. Just mark-up the cost. A 15% mark-up or so to compensate you for your work and initiative is certainly reasonable, and you'll still be under pricing the big national "card deck" mailing services. When you get all your prices together, you may find that you can demand an even larger mark-up.

Start mailing your co-op mailings once a month, and then increase the frequency as you get your systems and procedures in place. I'm sure you can see that there is some great money to be made doing this. If you've got some guts and ambition, you can work this system to a point where you are mailing countless card decks and other co-op mailings per week with very little if any cash outlay. Your co-op mailing partners are funding the entire process and even paying in advance for the privilege of working with you.

I'll let you do the math here on what you could make with this idea if you just mark-up the cost a minimum of 15% to your co-op mailing partners. You may need to consider a part-time assistant early on to make this work for you. Of course, nothing will work if you don't work the plan. To get this system up and running will take a little initiative and some oomph on your part.

At the very least, use this little trick to conduct direct mail marketing campaigns for your mortgage business at no cost to you. It's not at all hard to find six or eight or ten or more businesses that will be more than happy to sign-up for the program and participate with you.

This is a great idea...drop me an email or give me a call...I would love to hear of your success with this program.

Tom Domin is the author of "101 Ways to Originate Mortgages" and publisher of "Tom's Mortgage Tips" a twice monthly Mortgage Newsletter geared for Mortgage Professionals. Put your mortgage career on the fast track and sign-up for FREE at http://www.MortgageMarketingToolKit.com/

Internet Dental Marketing Takes a Hit

I recently looked into some of the top cosmetic dental groups in my immediate area. As a direct response marketer I couldn't help but notice how clueless some of them were when it comes to online marketing. One common problem that was obvious to me was the fact that many of these Dental web sites had come from the phone company.

These sites in particular offered many new challenges and several interesting problems. First, they were almost impossible to manipulate for the search engines. The HTML included in these sites are pretty basic and they were very limited when it came down to the nitty gritty.

Whats The Deal With Meta Keywords?
Are meta data keywords important? A lot of people in the know say they are not that important. I have seen negative articles written about this topic in tech publications such as, "Web Designer" magazine. We have tested the arrangement of this type of material in my studio and found some rather interesting points of interest. If you do not arrange them in a certain order you will botch up the description of your web page on the SERPS, (Google search engine result pages).

The search engine spiders will jump down and grab a hold of the first bit of text it can. If that bit of text happens to be, "Closed on Sundays" then your web site page will look rather unspectacular online. It will read something like, "Welcome to Smith Cosmetic Dentistry - Closed on Sundays". There is very little chance that your page listing is going to get clicked on anytime soon. There would be the missed opportunity to truly sell your services.

Example: "Welcome To Smith Family Dentistry - Cosmetic Dental Surgery Is Here and Brings Relief to S.E. Michigan".

I can list two sentences inside the description and this is my chance to REALLY sell the dental company. Sadly, a lot of dental practices do not do this because they lack the basic knowledge to do so. I honestly believe that the description section is the absolute best place to sell your services. In fact, it is important to treat this area like you would treat direct mail. This serves a double purpose. On one hand it is there to really deliver a preview to your online prospect. It should entice them enough to click on the above blue link, (Title of web page) and open your page.

You want your web page to get opened just like you want your direct mail to get opened. The whole purpose of being out there online is to get seen before your competition just like in direct mail. I do not see this to be any different because the objection is the same.

As Internet presence you need to exhibit some sense of control. And it is hard to get a grasp on Internet dental marketing when your formatting is limited. I actually prefer to either get a template to work out of that I purchase from a web company that I can upload myself to a blank hosting account. I want to be able to manipulate the HTML to have it speak directly to search engine spiders. I also would be open to manipulate the entire HTML pages from scratch if I had a choice. Buying a pre-fabricated solution from a phone company would seriously be my last choice in the world of Internet marketing. I would demand that I have this level of sophistication and control from my web site for one very simple reason.

Search Engine Spiders Travel Through Hyperlinks
To put things bluntly search engine spiders travel through hyperlinks looking for very specific keywords and conditions. I prefer to think of them as ticks hopping from one infected dog to another looking for a new host. This is the true nature of the search engines. There is a cohesive process involved that in dental organizations fail to recognize it. But that is their loss. Your customers are fickle and are looking for very specific things and do not necessarily want to do business with you. Your prospects are really in search for information.

I have come to the conclusion that nobody really goes online to buy stuff. We have become an information hording civilization and this is nowhere more true than the Internet. The sites that offer the least amount of information stand to lose on two levels. One, the search engines will give you a low page rank and not take you very seriously. Two, your customers will get bored with your online offerings and choose to find another online dental presence that will answer their questions.

In the end, nobody really cares that much about your staff or that you love people. I have found that your online prospects are really self serving characters after all. They want to know the big burning question and that is, "What's In It For Me?".

There are certain stop words that search engine spiders see and that spells out bad news for your web site. If you do not have the right structure in your site then it is not going to be able to be crawled through very effectively. In addition if you have to wrong long tailed keywords in your site you can pretty much forget about attracting traffic.

This stuff is so touchy.

But that is the what you need to know when you do Internet Dental Marketing.

Ted Cantu helps dentists get online and create a steady flow of online visibility. Cantu runs i-Cantu Media LTD which is a Web 2.0 Video studio located in Farmington Hills, Michigan. You can get the real scoop on Internet Dental Marketing here