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Tips:
Tips for more effective communication in mortgage origination marketing
General communication management
Encoding your message
Dealing with Noise
Sending your message
Selecting media channels
Soliciting Feedback
About the author |
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| With an understanding of how the Communication Cycle works, here are some tips on controlling the communication cycle for more effective personal and professional relationships. | | Related links:
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General communication management
- Understand the communication cycle so you can control, monitor, and adjust your communication for more effective personal and professional relationships.
- Know that you and your company cannot not communicate. Everything your company does, and doesn’t do, can send a powerful message. Try to analyze all customer touch points from an objective perspective to determine what each might be communicating about you or your company. Be especially sensitive to insights from new employees and customers who are considerate enough to offer complaints or comments, and be flexible enough to realign your communication messages to your target needs.
- Open and maintain a constant communication cycle with your customers. For example, once a deal is closed your relationship should just be starting. Build a lucrative and lasting relationship by sending monthly newsletters with quarterly phone follow-up and occasional post cards that announce special programs or events.
- Build a feedback loop into all marketing communication so you can monitor and measure effectiveness of your communication strategies and foster opportunities to enhance customer relationships.
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Encoding your message
- Align your communications strategy with your target’s needs, demographics, and behaviors.
- Package your messages in digestible chunks that can cut through the competitive clutter and make it easy for your target to understand how the message affects him or her.
- Minimize communication overload. Your targets are hit with hundreds of competing communication messages each day. Pile on with the complexities of mortgage messages and you can quickly overwhelm your target. Be selective in the amount of information you send to your prospects and customers.
- Use appropriately difficult language. Some might think that using difficult language makes them look like an expert, when actually it poses a serious barrier to communication. Most of the industry jargon used by mortgage professionals might as well be Martian for most consumers. When you have to use jargon, make sure you explain what it means. In most cases, practicing the KISS principle will be a best practice for mortgage origination marketers. In other words: Keep It Short and Simple.
- Build appropriate brand messages into every customer touch point your marketing mix. For example, what do your customer touch points communicate about your Price (high or low), Product (good or bad), Place (convenient and professional or inconvenient and shoddy), and Promotion (credible and relevant or implausible and irrelevant)?
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Dealing with Noise
- Control the communications environment to foster improved communication. Turn off the music, close the door, remove as many distractions as possible so you can focus on the task at hand: discovering and meeting the needs of your customer.
- Reduce physical barriers by arranging your space in a manner conducive to improved communication. The way communicating parties sit in relations to one another impacts their interaction. For example, sitting a customer in an uncomfortable chair looking across an ornate desk with a loan officer sitting high in a leather throne places the loan officer in a power position that can be intimidating to the customer. While a loan officer might think the power position is necessary for establishing authority and credibility, it can detract from effective communication. Sometimes it might be preferable to arrange seats in a corner-to-corner or side-by-side manner. This can put the customer on a more equal footing that fosters more effective two-way communication.
- Time messages carefully to help assure your message is received when it won’t be competing with other communications and when it will be considered most relevant to the receiver. For example, if a company sends a “Refinance Now” postcard to a customer who closed a refinance last week the ill-timed message might seem irrelevant to the customer and potentially damaging to their perception of your brand.
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Sending your message
- Use proper verbal and nonverbal feedback; especially be aware of how different cultures might interpret your nonverbal cues.
- Be a supportive communicator. Most of your target customers will be intimidated by the complexities of a mortgage transaction and need support, understanding, and reliable communications.
- Use the proper style for the situation. People have different preferences for communicating with others and interpreting the communications from others. Explore the styles defined in communications models to better understand how to adapt your own style with the needs of each customer.
- Clarify your ideas.
- Use personal space effectively. People have invisible, psychological bubbles surrounding them that expand or contract according to their needs and the situation. Effectively navigating this personal space can make the difference between offending a person and closing a deal.
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Selecting media channels
- Select the richest channel—or combination of channels—you can afford
- Be aware of what the channel itself communicates.
- Select media channels that will be seen and digested by your target customer.
- Avoid cluttered environments over which you have little control
- If you’re conducting media buys on radio, television, newspaper or Internet, make sure the channel’s target is compatible with you and your brand image.
- Make effective use of email; if the communication is important follow-up email with another channel, like telephone or face-to-face
- Combine channels to assure effective communication and facilitate a constant and complete feedback loop. For example, follow up your newsletter mailings with a phone call.
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Soliciting Feedback
- Give and receive feedback.
- Gauge the flow of information.
- Carefully monitor and accurately interpret nonverbal communication; be careful not to over-interpret nonverbal communication. Meanings in nonverbal behavior can change depending on culture, environment, and many other factors.
- Become an active, attentive listener. Active listening is a vital skill that contributes to effective communication. To develop active listening skills: ask questions that put the speaker’s ideas into your own words; avoid jumping to conclusions or evaluating the speaker’s remarks until you have all the information necessary; Try to gain a complete understanding of the sender’s intent before formulating a response.
- Avoid mixed signals by being consistent and honest in your communication. Sending different messages about the same topic to different audiences can prove harmful to your brand equity.
- Be sensitive to and aware of potential for cross-cultural issues that can lead to miscommunication. For example, the “OK” sign commonly used in the United States is considered a vulgar gesture in some cultures.
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About the author
This article was adapted from Brent Duncan's seminar titled "Communicating for Greater Personal and Professional Effectiveness." Brent Duncan is an adjunct professor at the University of Phoenix School of Business and Management where he teaches organizational psychology, organizational behavior, management, and marketing. Mr. Duncan specializes in developing strategic marketing functions for organizations in the high tech and mortgage industries. He provides a free Mortgage Origination Marketing Resource Center  www.RealMarCom.com and produces the Mortgage Note$ Newsletter, which mortgage origination marketers use to build relationships with homeowners, homebuyers, and real estate professionals. Contact Mr. Duncan at brentduncan[at]realmarcom.com or 831 688-9520.
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Written by Brent Duncan |
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