9 Unusual Ways to Use Postcards in Your Mortgage Business

Postcards can be more than an inexpensive way to "stay in touch" with your mortgage customers and prospects. This tiny billboard is actually a powerhouse of a marketing tool with almost unlimited uses.

Traditionally, we use postcards in our mortgage business to pass along holiday greetings, reminders, and general information that helps keep your name in front of your customers and prospects.

Let's think outside of the box, harness this little dynamo, and you'll find a surge of new mortgage marketing opportunities.

Here are a few unusual ways you can use postcards in your mortgage business:

1. Use them as hand-outs: You can use postcards as a hand-out at seminars, meetings, or networking events. Consider it your over-size business card with lots of room to promote your mortgage services and company.

2. Use them as coupons: You can use postcards to entice a visit to your office location. When customers come in to your office, they can bring the postcard offer with them to receive a discount or reduction in appraisal fees or whatever.

3. Use them as reminders: You can use postcards as a reminder to your customers that it's time to come in for their free annual mortgage check-up. This is a great opportunity to review details about their mortgage they probably have forgotten. This is your chance to be their hero.

4. Use them for free offers: You can use postcards to offer free reports and information if your prospect contacts you. It may be mortgage market information and changes, or it may be a free report about refinancing, home improvement, or credit.

5. Use them as invitations: You can use postcards as an invitation to your seminar, your office open house, your presentation about a new mortgage service/loan program, or to point them in the direction of your website.

6. Use them for feedback: You can use postcards as a quick survey of your mortgage services. Your recipients can check a couple of boxes and fax them back to you. It's likely you'll get a good response with such an easy-to-complete format.

7. Use them as a referral tool: Offer all of your customers an incentive for referring new leads and business. Be careful about your offer as not to violate RESPA guidelines. A general statement that "you never forget the source of your mortgage leads" may be all you need. Just letting people know that referrals are an important part of your mortgage business can sometimes generate immediate referrals.

8. Use them to gather and then publish customer testimonials: You can use postcards to solicit testimonials from your existing mortgage customers. Then, publish excerpts from your good testimonials and distribute them via postcards to your mortgage prospects. Testimonials can be a powerful sales tool and are very much under-utilized by mortgage professionals. You can use postcards to make it happen.

9. Use them as a newsletter: You can use postcards as a mini-newsletter. We all know that a mortgage newsletter delivered over a period of time is a great marketing tool. Unfortunately, most of us don't invest the time and money to generate a good newsletter. The mini-newsletter in postcard form is the answer. It's short, sweet, and inexpensive to put together. What's more important, you are providing valuable information to your customers/prospects using your name and company.

So, the next time you look at using postcards in your mortgage business, think outside of the box and you'll find that by doing so, your mortgage pipeline will also improve.