Yes! Data is Relevant Across the Mortgage Industry

Some folks might say that the operational basics of every business are essentially the same, but significant differences can exist. For instance, the manufacturing industry depends upon its performance to gauge its index of quality. Here, quality refers to the processes through which components are assembled and overall quality of these components. However, in the mortgage industry, data is evolving as the most important component. Here, products are the decisions based upon this data.

Understand the Issue: Data Perception among Bankers and Investors

It is generally believed that "Big Data" is beyond the reach of small to medium-level businesses. This notion is driven by the fact that corporations like Google and Facebook have pioneered the cause of being data-driven. Such brands look upon data as their most valuable resource. Many mortgage industry professionals look at cloud-based data and analytics with circumspection. They are not sure whether these data-driven technologies are useful for managing their day-to-day challenges. However, if looked closely, it becomes evident that these technologies are capable enough to find out meaningful processes and facilitate growth.

Is data the cure for all mortgage industry ills?

To be brutally honest, the answer is NO! Typical roadblocks towards using data efficiently are yet to be addressed. For instance, loss of data integrity shows no signs of abating. Many data mistakes might originate from the lender. This is where established dynamics of the industry come to the fore—sales being aggressive and often ignorant of quality or safety standards. To realize the true potential of data, the industry has to think beyond loan and risk performance. They will have to work towards ensuring accuracy of data incorporated into their database.

The Evolving Industry Shift towards Data

Since the economic crisis of 2008, the mortgage marketplace has become more introspective. The industry might not be using data robustly but it is exploring the utility of investing in big data. Investors have traditionally relied on performance of loan-term as the primary benchmark. Data analytics can provide insight beyond this aspect. Data can facilitate access to lesser-recognized factors. This can help industry regulators and investors in better evaluation of securitization or compliance. Data provides useful analytics that helps to achieve better accountability and well-informed decision-making.

The visible progression is towards creating a more comprehensive dataset. This will eventually make governance more effective. However, this is a colossal shift for an industry that has been primarily driven by financial assets. The changing perspective towards looking at data as an asset will take time. However, the change is underway and very palpable. There have been some slow-downs in the way.

 

Several regulations have been introduced that push towards adopting a more data-tolerant attitude. However, a lag is indicated since all organizations cannot jump on to the big data platform immediately. The big change lies in organizations becoming more open towards collaborating data. This is the first step towards creating uniform data that can be used seamlessly across the mortgage industry. This will help to create more effective home-finance regulations.

Social Media and its Potential for Testing Creative Campaigns

Despite the massive popularity of social media, truly creative social media campaigns are hard to find. Many brands still nurture the wrong notion that a little semblance of social media in a campaign is more than enough to get consumer attention. Unfortunately, it isn’t quite so. Social media is evolving rapidly, so if you want your campaign to get the attention it deserves, you will need to evolve as well.

Gone are the days when your YouTube followers would watch every video you uploaded and your Twitter followers would click on every link you posted.  Now it is a battle to create engagement.

Consumers are now being bombarded with numerous social media campaigns. Unless you launch a truly creative campaign, you cannot expect the user to engage with your brand. Interestingly, this isn’t all that difficult. The very nature of social media allows advertisers to be creative.

Creating content for social media takes a great deal of time and effort. What’s more, social media doesn’t allow the marketer to launch a campaign and then take a sabbatical. In order to create engagement, the advertiser needs to work on the campaign constantly.

It is the next big thing in advertising

Social media has caught the attention of big names in advertising and marketing. Businesses too have started realizing the potential of social media. Needless to say, many brands now don’t mind spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on social media campaigns. All of these factors have led to the development of some killer campaigns.

Creative convergence and its potential

Nowadays, we access information through many channels, and interestingly this has led to the convergence of different media platforms. It is now possible to access the same content on multiple platforms, albeit in different forms. This allows advertisers to be creative. 

Social media allows you to be crazy

In spite of the popularity of social media, very few advertisers are spending huge amounts of money on their social media campaigns. Most marketers don’t even spend a dime. They somehow create a campaign and then launch it hoping that it would be noticed.

 

For most social media marketers, their only investment is their time. And because of this, marketers are betting on crazy ideas that have the potential to go viral. If it works, everybody behind the campaign attains iconic status. If it doesn’t, well, nobody is going to lose anything. After all, hardly any money had gone into the making of this campaign. This again allows an advertiser to be creative.

You get to try anything and everything

Unlike other advertising channels, social media allows marketers to explore interesting ways to engage customers. Of course, some of these can be crazy, still they are considered acceptable. The goal is to create engagement and this allows marketers to try every trick in the book to create amazingly smart campaigns that have the potential to reach millions of people.

Social media calls for innovation

Social media is an ever-changing dynamic landscape. Existing platforms are constantly being updated and new platforms are being launched almost on a regular basis. Consequently, the user behavior and expectations change constantly. A campaign that does amazingly well on Facebook may not be that popular on Twitter.

 

This dynamic nature of the media itself spurs creative professionals to try out new and interesting ways to engage audience. This also means that advertisers have to constantly test new ideas and campaigns.

How to Promote Your Online Business with Facebook Apps

Many businesses are yet to fully leverage Facebook's potential as a marketing tool. Nowadays almost everybody has an account on Facebook and most of these folks log into their account at least once a day. That means any business that has a presence on Facebook gets an opportunity to reach potential customers on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, many businesses still haven’t launched an effective social media campaign. If you feel that your brand is yet to take advantage of the massive popularity of Facebook, the first thing you need to do is to launch a fan page for your business. The next step is to get people to like your pages. Businesses can consider offering discounts or special prizes to users who like their Facebook page. Post regular status updates. Your updates must be engaging enough for people to interact with them.  So for example, if you run a restaurant, you can post updates featuring the day's menus or specials. Of course, these are the most basic things. Building a commendable presence on Facebook takes a great deal of time and effort. Fortunately for us, plenty of apps are now available to make this job easier.

Why do you need Facebook apps?

Facebook apps can be a great way to create engagement with your fans. Apps can be used to promote online sales, incentives, competitions, and more. Since they create engaging content, they make sure that your users interact with your brand.

Small businesses don't have to create their own apps. Instead, they can choose some of the available apps. A successful app can go a long way in establishing and strengthening your social media presence. While selecting apps for your business, choose the ones that are simple, quick, and user-friendly.

Here is a list of some Facebook apps that you can use to promote your business:

If you run a restaurant, you should use Heyo. This Facebook app comes with mobile widgets that allow your customers to redeem gift coupons on their mobile phones.

North Social is another company that builds apps for Facebook. It offers apps for mobile promotions, contests, coupons, sweepstakes, and more. These apps allow businesses to launch limited-time promotions almost every day.

Woobox is another app popular with local retailers. It allows small stores to create and launch contests. The most popular feature of this app is its photo contest feature which allows users to upload their own photos and let other users vote the best. A clothing store can take advantage of this feature by encouraging its fans to post photos wearing their latest clothes for a discount or a prize.

If you offer a professional service, you can use an app like FaceItPages to improve your social media presence. This app creates ads that will only show up to users who might need a service like that.

Whatever may be your business needs, there are plenty of Facebook apps to make your job easier. Since the number of people who interact with your Facebook page is far more important than the number of people who like it, creating customer engagement should be your goal and apps make it possible.

Using Images to Make Sales on Facebook

If you’re using Facebook for sales promotion, we have a few suggestions regarding how you can increase revenues using graphics on Facebook. A lot of ecommerce brands are following these practices to boost sales online:

Why use images?

According to a study, image posts attract 53% more likes as compared to others, get 104% more comments and generate 120% more engagement.

Offer promotion codes for seasonal sales

Whether you’re offering a Thanksgiving discount, a 15% off discount or a Buy 1, Get 1 Free sale, consider the option of creating an interesting graphic to showcase this. An appealing graphic can draw greater attention than regular text.

Make sure you include a promo code because this will help track revenues generated. While posting the image on your Facebook timeline, make use of a clear action call in the post copy so that fans know the exact procedure for completing their purchase.

Offer rewards to fans who tell others

Craft an engaging graphic telling your fans that a special promo code will get unlocked if your image gets a particular number of shares. Since the updates on your page are seen mostly by people who already engage with it, you may want to get greater engagement using a promoted post. This kind of promotion can help increase organic engagement and you will not be required to pay for the promotion of your next offer!

Along with driving revenues, an additional benefit of such promotions is that there’s an increase in fan engagement and brand awareness is built within friends of fans.

Show off product specifications

“If you have it, flaunt it!” This perfectly applies to the arena of Facebook marketing. A Facebook page is an ideal place to showcase the outstanding features of all your products. Design a graphic that’s sure to capture the attention of your fans and highlight product features not visible at first glance. Posting the image with a direct call to action such as a link to your online store will make purchasing easy.

When it’s a brick-and-mortar store, the sales team can speak about the salient features of a product at length before potential customers. Its different online – state-of-the-art graphics should do all the talking and all the selling!

Offer free gifts with purchases

Though offering free gifts with purchases is one of the oldest promotional mantras, it’s still around because of its effectiveness as a revenue-generating tactic. Design an appealing graphic for offering a free gift relevant to your audience. If your fan base is big, use the various Facebook features to ensure that the correct people  know about your offer. Using the appropriate graphics is likely to make your gift offer stand apart.

Make use of countdown promos

Countdown promos keep fans hyper-engaged over extended periods of time. For example, you could design a graphic that shows a 24-hour sale of various popular products from your online store each day for a week. Excited fans are likely to visit your page every day to see the image of the day and you’ll have a boost in revenues for 7 days straight.

Promote a limited-period offer

A worst case scenario in the arena of Facebook promotions is when a fan says, “Oh, I’ll come back tomorrow." When an image promotes an exciting offer for a limited period, it creates a sense of urgency that’s required for immediate driving of sales.

In conclusion, combining the draw of a discount or sale with the power of image posts can result in a substantial increase in online revenues.

It’s Been Good to Make Small Talk in 2013

Social media climbed to never before levels in 2013. One of the features of successful ventures during the year was shorter viewing time which made direct talk without beating around the bush imperative. I think this was mainly driven by teenagers whose activities and opinions are very important to the advertising and marketing worlds.

Through 2013, you could manage to invoke sufficient interest without content that was 500+ words long and without really thinking about SEO. At least in the pure communications arena, it pays more to say less.

Move over talkative sites – we don’t have time! 

In 2013, concise presentation topped the priority list of many users. Here are some supporting examples.

·         Teens named Twitter as the preferred social media platform. This reduced Facebook to a hobby pursued by earlier generations like grandparents and parents.

·         Vine, Instagram, and Snapchat mesmerized teens in a big way. This paved the way for the Instagram purchase by Facebook.

·         Google absorbing YouTube resulted in pushing the video site away from the limelight.

·         The struggle to be noticed by Google+ resulted in the rolling out of various new functions. 

Twitter is well known for restricting conversation length to 140 characters. This was a bit of a challenge when it launched in 2006. Today it’s the way to go. 

Instagram’s 15 second videos that seemed really short at one time are now the accepted norm. Vine proved its mettle with 6.5 second videos which can loop endlessly. Videos from Snapchat have lengths between these two - about 10 seconds.

So why did teens start loving these sites? The answer is School. Schooling is an almost full time occupation but youngsters can grab a few moments between classes to post a tweet. Photo-sharing sites like Snapchat and Instagram allow posting pictures in a few seconds. Even videos require only a couple of minutes. 

Limitations of compact communications 

Vine, Instagram, and Snapchat feature creatively produced mini-commercials. There are generally from businesses that deal in big market products and services such as food, entertainment, and fashion. Some nonprofit organizations have also posted effective and moving messages on these platforms. 

Twitter possibly purchased Vine to safeguard against the total elimination of the written word but I don’t think that blogging or Facebook will go away totally. They are likely to continue as important social media tools. Learning something often requires more than 10 to 15 seconds, whether it’s watching a short video, reading a well-written post, or putting up a query on Facebook. 

Snapchat, which refused Facebook’s $3 billion offer to buyout, acknowledged that time is sometimes a friend. It recently announced Snapchat Stories, a tool that allows creations of narratives with a lifecycle of 24-hours. 

Can Facebook regain popularity? With the Instagram purchase, there’s a probability that the app will now offer more. Apparently, Vine is viewed more a distraction which can be easily fitted into its world, rather than a competitor. 

In 2014, I think B2B professionals and companies should look for sites that serve their needs and those of their customers. Though video sites provide entertaining distractions, they might not serve purposes other than product pitches, public service messages or short testimonials like those presently seen on Twitter.

10 Effective Ways to Generate Leads

You can't build a successful online business without leads. If there are no leads, how are you going to make any sales?

 

Here are 10 cost effective ways to create leads. However, before you start generating leads, you should know the basic rules.

Rule 1: Create value

If you are really serious about your business, you should create a great value machine. This could be your blog, your YouTube channel, or something else where you post content on a regular basis. It is not easy, but it is the most effective way to create a loyal following.

Write a 100% useful post every day. This strategy takes a while to generate results, but it is highly effective.

Rule 2: Attract leads that will turn into buyers

If you are building an email list, your objective should be attracting buyers, not leads.  There is no point in building a list of freebie seekers. So generate leads that will ultimately turn into buyers.

Building a list full of people who want free stuff is relatively easy, but that is hardly worth your time.

Rule 3: Encourage people to act fast and don't wait until you have built a relationship

Building a relationship with your potential buyers is good, but this might take a while. If you can't wait that long, encourage people to buy faster.  If you are in business for selling, make no excuses about it. Just sell.

So, here are the most effective ways for generating leads:

1. Post viral videos

Create a video that has the potential to go viral and post it your own blog and YouTube. If you post it on your blog, it may generate lots of incoming links. You can promote the video by buying PPC adverts on Facebook. Make sure that your video is entertaining because that is what people like.

2. Be active on social media

It is not exactly clear whether social media is good at generating sales, but when it comes to creating awareness, it is quite effective. Encourage your leads to spread the word for you. Put a Facebook 'Share' button on your 'thank-you page'.

3. Start selling right away

Put an offer in front of your leads. You will get to know how many of them are willing to buy.

4. Don't ignore the easy stuff

Don't overlook cheap and free ways to generate leads. For example, you can include your offer in the email signature.

5. Give away free stuff but make it useful

It is no longer possible to attract people by offering them free junk. This strategy used to work in the past, but now nobody will subscribe to your list just because they will get some free stuff.

So, if you are giving away free stuff, make sure that it is useful.

6. Promote your products as if they were a rare commodity

Everybody wants things they cannot have easily. So when you promote your products, present them as something they can't have easily. If you keep your funnel open all the time, people will have no reason to buy today and not four or five years later.

7. Think big

Many lead generation techniques do not produce the desired results. So instead of putting all your time and money on one lead generation campaign, launch ten. Try every trick in the book. Write good sales copies, great articles, and press releases. Launch banner and PPC ads. If you want to win, you should give yourself plenty of chances to win.

8. Fully leverage all opportunities

Whenever you find an opportunity, think about creative ways to fully leverage it.

9. Link bait

Link bait still works and you don't have to publish sensational or scandalous stories to encourage people to link to you. Instead, publish content that is truly valuable.

10. Don't forget the basics

Success will be yours if you execute the basics well. There are three steps to generating leads. You must have a great offer. You must make it visible to the right people. You should give them a reason to act now.