I’m referring to visual style videos. You can see an example of a loan officer marketing video here.  The reason I prefer visual videos as opposed to the old fashioned way of talking into the camera is because visual videos are more appealing to the senses.  They are able to grab and hold the average person’s attention significantly more than traditional videos.

Here are two numbers that you should be aware of:

6 & 57

The first number is the number of MINUTES someone spends on a site with video.  The second number is the number of SECONDS someone spends on a site without video.

Why should loan officers use video marketing?

Have you ever encountered a first time home buyers that is educated and knowledgeable on the home buying process? Probably not.   So what if you could get to them first and educate them in a visually appealing way?  Or what if they had a choice to read some boring text on the web  or watch an entertaining video with the same content but in a much more engaging way? Do you think they would be grateful and possibly reciprocate by giving you their business?  What if you could provide videos to them on:

1.  5 Factors That Influence Rate

2.  Insider Secrets To Credit Scoring

3.  How To Choose A Neighborhood

4.  The Home Buying Process

5.  USDA Loans

6.  and many more

Here are some powerful  ways to use videos marketing to engage your prospects and clients:

1.       Create a lead generation page using videos as a lead magnet.

2.       Email a link to prospects as an educational tool.

3.       Send it to your database to announce your library of home buying content and ask them to forward it to people they know who may be looking.

4.       Post it on your blog or website.

5.       Create a You Tube channel of home buying videos and have them optimized for the web.

6.       Create a Craigslist ad and send them to your video content or lead capture page.

So what goes in to create a visual video such as the example you saw above?  Well, it takes a lot of planning, script writing, image selection, creative design, production, recording, music selection and editing. One video from inception to end can easily take a day’s worth of time.

Well, what if you had access to a gallery of videos that you could use in your marketing arsenal to be able to fully engage your prospects and clients all at your fingertips and not have to worry about producing them all from scratch?

You can do just that through the Loan Officer Marketing Video gallery. You can get started by downloading your own loan officer marketing video as shown in the example all for free. Use it as you wish. No catches – no gimmicks. Just go to Loan officer Marketing Videos to Download Your FREE Video.

There are hundreds of tips and techniques for driving traffic to your website. Using SEO, employing retargeting to encourage users to return to your site, and using aggressive marketing strategies to get your name out there are all useful tools to increase your site views, but there’s a growing segment of the internet population who uses smart phones to access the web and the same rules simply do not apply. So how do you make your mortgage website a smart phone friendly site without sacrificing functionality or appearance? Here are three few helpful tips to get you started:

1. Check your phone numbers. In order to be compatible with smart phone automatic dialing, any phone number on your website must be entered as text, not an image. Mouse over the phone numbers on your site. If you can highlight one number at a time, you’re in good shape. Otherwise, consider revising your phone numbers into text to accommodate users who use their smart phones and want to be able to dial at a touch of the finger. Convenience plays a huge role here, and you want to make it as easy as possible for all your users to get in touch with you.

2. Rethink Flash. Handheld devices including the iPhone can’t handle Flash software, nor can the iPad. Flash is popular on real estate sites because it’s an elegant, high impact way of conveying media other than text, but smart phone users will simply see a dead zone where Flash files are. If your website menu is in Flash, this can be particularly problematic for some users. Consider replacing the Flash items on your site or simply keep them confined to nonessential information and use the program sparingly.

3. Navigate Lower on the Page. If your navigation is at the very top of the page, smart phone users will have to toggle down to view the page which, while seemingly minor, can create a huge annoyance. Make it easy on your users to browse your page and consider putting the navigation lower in order to make the navigation process as easy as possible for all users.

Projections indicate that the number of mobile web users will surpass the number of computer based web users in less than five years. By simplifying your webpage and making a few simple, inexpensive, structural changes, you can ensure that smart phone users and computer users alike can not only access your page, but have an easy and stress free time navigating it, which can give you a huge lead over smart phone non compliant competitors.

Robert Stretch is a mortgage/RE blogger for VAMortgageCenter.com, a leading VA-lender.

Blogging about your mortgage service on a consistent basis will help improve your overall web presence.  Mortgage blogging will help increase your exposure to your community and expand your sphere of audience.

Thinking about what to write about can be challenging. It can be pretty intimidating and stressful having to come up with mortgage blogging ideas.

So here are some tips and tools to help you get started on writing topics for your blog:

1.  Keyword Tool

Using a keyword tool to help you identify phrases and keywords that your audience is searching for is a great way to help identify some topics.  Google adword keyword tool is one free program that Google provides to help you.  There are others keyword search tools out there that are more advanced that are fee based.

2.  How To’s and Sequential Steps:

How to’s and numbered steps are a very easy way to create content.   People are always looking for ways to educate and learn how to do things, especially when it comes to home buying.  How to or sequential step articles on topics such as “10 steps to home buying”, “how to improve your credit score” and “5 things to getting your home ready for sale” are example topics.

3.  Answering the most common questions:

Taking some common questions and turning them into an article post.

4.  Special clients story:

If there is a special circumstance of a client you helped, you can describe how and what you did.  You can describe what was so unique and how you overcame any challenges.

5.  Community News:

You don’t always have to write about mortgage related articles.  You can write about your community.  Are there events taking place, special stories that happened?  By writing about your community, you’ll come up in the search engines when people are searching for certain stories about your community.

Google created an ad that appeared during the superbowl. The ad was called The ‘

So, I decided to create my own viral video which is a parody of Google’s. There are a number of ways I plan to use this:

1. Place it on my blog
2. Place it on my facebook fan and personal page
3. Place it on YouTube
4. Email the link to friends
5. Place the link in my email signature page
6. Optimize it for SEO
7. Use it in marketing to drive traffic to my site
8. I can include certain services and places of business and send it to them so they can distribute it to their clients and friends and promote it as well in their marketing.

If you are interested in having your very own customized parody of Google’s ad for only $397, simply use the check out with the “buy now” button below.

The parameters will be:

• Up to eight individual searches
• Approximate length will be 60 to 90 seconds

Within 24 hours of completion, I will send you a questionnaire for searches you desire, website information and results of searches to be highlighted as well as your contact information.

1. Sign up for Facebook first.

• Create a Facebok Fan page by clicking this link. http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php Click on the drop down box under “local” and select “Banking and financial service.”
• Enter the name of your fan page.  Once you name a page, you cant change it.
• Check the box “I am authorized to create this page” and click the button “Create Page.”
• Customize your fan page:

A)   Upload a picture for your image.  Do this by clicking the “edit page”

B)   Under the “info” tab you can put in detailed information such as the URL to your website and blog site.

C)   Set up an RSS tab for your Facebook page:  go to the search box and type “social RSS” and allow the application to have access to your page and select your fan page to be accessed by the Social RSS app.

D)   Go to your fan page and click ”edit page” and go to “edit” under the application tab.  Scroll down to “feed settings” and enter your blog feed URL under the “URL” column.

If you’re not a member of Become A Mortgage Blogger, then be sure to sign up today and start feeding content into your Facebook Fan page.

There is a big difference between content marketing and other marketing you receive.  The other marketing is what I consider spam marketing.  It’s the garbage you get in the mail or see in the newspaper or TV.

Good marketing today makes people stop, read and behave differently than the spam advertising spam that companies try and ram down our throats.  

According to Custom Publishing Council, 80% of business decision makers prefer to get company information in a series of articles versus an advertisement.  70% say content marketing makes them feel closer to the sponsoring company, while 60% say that content marketing helps them make better informative decisions.

Content marketing is far from advertising spam.  Content marketing is being used more and more by companies.  The ones using ot now will have a big advantage over the ones who get into the game later.  They will have built up a database of consumers that will be loyal to them.

It’s not enough to provide any content though. It has to be informative, educational or entertaining.  You’ll have people coming back, subscribing to your content opting in for your information if you are able to deliver any of the three kinds of content described above.  In addition, you also have a chance for your content to go viral by having them forwarding it to others through email, twitter, digg, facebook or other social media.

Growing your database and audience this year and beyond will be a key to your success in the mortgage industry.  There are multiple ways to do this and one of the easiest and best ways to do this is through your Facebook (FB) fan page.

If you have a FB fan page, great! If not, you can start one easily and the best part is it’s free. The goal of a FB fan page is to build your very own community of followers.

Having followers as fans will enable you to communicate with them and build a loyal following.

However, this can only be accomplished by giving them good content!  People will perceive you as the expert and will trust you as long as you provide them with good solid content.  Trust will lead to future business.

So how can you provide good solid content?  Your blog is one form.  You can have a blog tab on your FB fan page that automatically populates as you update your blog.  You can also provide some blog content on your wall.  You don’t necessarily want to duplicate it but you can comment on the blog post and have a link that goes to your blog.

This is also a great way to get more visitors and traffic to your blog.  You can check out my FB fan page here.

If you want a done for you blog that automatically populates with good blog content, then check out my blog membership.  You can also use this for your FB fan page.

Remember the old saying “Give and you shall receive?”

Well, to get more clients, you need to give them something first.  That something is information, education, it’s content.

It’s about giving them power.  The power comes from the knowledge they gain with your content.  When people feel empowered, they feel good about themselves.  If you can make people feel good about themselves, they like you and liking leads to trusting and trusting leads to doing business.

Your audience is looking for someone they can trust and they want to work with the best.  Working with the best or having the best of something makes them feel good.

Building content is building trust.  Your content should be about solving their problems, showing them the correct methods, educating them on the industry. Helping them make better decisions.

So giving them something for nothing at first may seem illogical and contrary to what you always did but it’s the easiest way to receive something you want…their business.  Just take a look at the study done on reciprocation.

Blogging and social media is a growing trend that will only get bigger.  Most businesses have yet to realize this and are not embracing this opportunity.  History tells us that people are slow to adapt to change.  The ones that are pioneers are the ones that are most successful.  

Study after study shows thousands of savvy companies are benefiting from social media marketing. Social media marketing and is here to stay.

Here are four reasons as to why to be art of the blogging social media market:

1.  Your competition isn’t using it yet.  Get a jump-start on them and differentiate yourself.  Provide something that they don’t, which is content.

2.  Your clients are doing research on the web.  They’re reading blogs and gathering information on what to do, how to do it and whom they should use.  Web users and blog readership is growing daily.  The question is…Are you the user or are you providing it?

3.  Old school marketing is less effective.  The marketing you do about how great you are just isn’t working.  People’s buying behavior has changed. They want information, content and education.  In return, they will know you, trust you and do business with you.

4.  It’s cost effective.  It doesn’t cost thousands or even hundreds of dollars.  You can be part of the blogging and social media revolution for almost nothing.  Having content provided for you for your blogs costs less than a regular coffee a day.

Just imagine if you got in at the beginning of TV, direct mail and radio advertising.  You would have had a big jump on your competition.

Having a mortgage blog is important in today’s quickly changing ways we market ourselves.  People’s mindset of how they do business is rapidly shifting from how they receive marketing information.  They are getting tired of the “Do business with me because I am marketing to you” message and shifting more to an “I want to do business with you because of the content and information you’ve provided me.”  

This content and information is becoming more and more the common method with all the free information on the Internet.   People are becoming accustomed to searching and getting content for their services or products they need online now and it’s the marketers who are providing valuable educational content that are winning their trust and business.

By doing so, you are forging a deeper and more trusted relationship with your audience and future clients.  You’re building awareness for your service.  Today, people want and expect more information more than ever.  They’ve become to expect this with the Internet, especially the younger generation. This is a segment of the population you can’t ignore because it’s only going to grow.