So now that we’ve turned the corner, wrapped up the holidays, and have a whole year ahead of us – It’s time to seriously ponder what the heck we’re going to do in 2012! The market is not static, as we’re faced with an ever increasing variety of options to consider investing our time in.

While there are no guarantee’s, I have assembled a short list of marketing trends that we’ll witness in 2012. Let’s have a look shall we?

Mortgage Marketing Prediction #1 – A database will be more important than ever before

Follow up marketing has always been 1 of the critical components of mortgage marketing. That has never changed. However, as social media and SEO play an ever increasing role in lead generation efforts for loan officers, those who have the fore-sight to capture important data (Email, profile names, etc.) and build their online audience will dominate.

It will become even more difficult for those without a database to compete with those who have created, or are in the process of creating a database. Of course, having a database is not the same as making use of it. This will of course be the determining factor.

Mortgage Marketing Prediction #2 – Google will make it easier to implement SEO with Google+, and more difficult to implement without it.

We’ve already seen some small movement in this area in late 2011. In 2012 I am predicting that Google will continue to place growing importance on your entire online “foot-print” – Which includes Google+. The more information Google has about your website, and who it targets – The easier it is for them to mark you as relevant, or non-relevant.

This is the primary goal of SEO right? Relevancy… If we make that job easier on Google, there is a very good chance that our goal of top rankings will become a bit easier as well. Please note this is speculation at this stage. (Just insulating myself from angry comments demanding proof.)

Mortgage Marketing Prediction #3 – Social media will continue to play a larger role in SEO

This prediction was a no-brainer for me considering that one of the top criteria of search engines these days is “popularity.” The search engines want to see proof that your website is hot, that people care about your content.

Social media is a powerful indicator of how many, and how much people care about what you have to say. If your website is tied in with your social media efforts, you have a distinct advantage over your competition. My prediction here is that we’ll see this happen to an even greater degree in 2012. Google made some very telling aquisitions in 2011 that indicate they are paying very close attention to your social media activity.

My guess is that we won’t have to wait long to see the results of this practice.

Marketing Prediction #4 – Loan officers and Realtors at the top of their game will continue to work together in a wider range of activities

Along with follow up marketing, maintaining a source of regular referrals is one of the quickest, effective, and reliable ways to generate endless leads in this industry. There’s no way around the fact that Realtors continue to control the decisions of more than 61% of all home buyers.

Those who tap into this source will likely find high performance Realtors more willing to join efforts on seemingly more difficult tasks that we all know we need to be engaging in. (Such as social media, SEO, blogging, etc.)

Think of it as “group marketing” or “crowd-sourcing lite” – Sharing in tasks that are mutually beneficial is as old as marketing itself. My prediction is that we’ll see this in action even more in 2012.

Mortgage Marketing Prediction #5 – Loan officers who ignore the marketing trends will find it more difficult to originate

This is one of those “well duh” moments right? The reason I included this in my list of predictions is to illustrate how much marketing and originations have changed in the last 2 – 3 years.

In 2011 we were privy to study after study demonstrating that buyers rely more heavily on the web now more than ever. Even as we shifted our focus to the web, the trend continued as more buyers began to rely on social media, and mobile platforms.

If we don’t market in a way that caters to the way our prospects buy, then we’re only going to fall further behind. Not a great way to kick off 2012! With the surge of sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn,  and other social platforms it has become easier than ever before for your competition to stay in front of large groups of prospects on a regular basis.

If you’re not using these tools yourself, then your competition is being heard far more often than you are… Certainly not a scenario we wish to encourage! My hope is that you’ve already begun to implement your marketing efforts and plan for 2012 – I wish you all the best this year, and I’m certain we’ll chat again soon. Make it a great 2012!

A quick Christmas Eve message from me to you… Happy holidays to all of you!

Wow… I just took a look at the all new Facebook “Timeline” as it has been dubbed, and there certainly are a lot of changes being made this go-round! Before I share my own personal thoughts on these sweeping changes, I decided to share the link with you first to get your thoughts… So what do you think of the new direction Facebook is headed? Yay? Nay? Love it? Hate it? Total uncertain what to think? haha

http://www.facebook.com/about/timeline

The landscape of Google is changing, and there’s no looking back. Back in April of this year I called an emergency webinar meeting with Loan Officer Marketing Lab members to discuss the latest experiments with Google +1, a new tool that functions quite similar to Facebooks “Like”  button, but incorporated into the search engine. The reason for the rushed meeting was to communicate what Googles commitment to incorporating social media into the search function really means to those of us using SEO as a lead generator.

At the time I was suggesting that the implications could be that Google would Read More→