The Pre-Foreclosure process and finding those who are in the process, is something else that does not need to be complicated. There are a plethora of sources to obtain pre foreclosure lists, but what they generally have in common is they are public record information, compiled after the lender has served the Notice of Default (NOD) or Lis Pendens, legal instruments which begins the foreclosure process.

While very inexpensive or sometimes free, the drawback to these lists is that because they are in the public domain, they are used over and over again by the masses. The homeowners on these lists are inundated with solicitations from REALTORS, investors, bankruptcy attorneys, credit repair firms, and other parties that are competing for the same crowded mailbox space.

By using “soft” credit data, you can eliminate the bulk of your competition by pinpointing exactly which homeowners in your area are 30, 60 or 90 days late on their mortgage payment. Since this data is insider information obtained when the lender reports a delinquent payment to a credit bureau, it is not public record information that everyone else has access to. Armed with this early, accurate and exclusive credit bureau data, you can be the first to reach out to financially troubled borrowers at the first sign of hardship. By reducing the bulk of your peers and being the first to reach sellers and lenders, you can get ahead of the curve and get more consummated short sale transactions.

Select troubled homeowners by zip code, how far behind they are, mortgage balance range, and number of mortgage liens. Refine the search by percentage of equity, loan type, credit score and myriad other attributes to put your message of hope and solutions in front of your most qualified prospects.

How many struggling borrowers are falling behind in your area? You can get a free area analysis by requesting a quick count.

It’s Sales 101, and we are are to help keep things simple. When you want to capture your prospect’s interest and speak to their felt need (the thing that makes them want to buy), you sell the benefits, not the features of your product or service. Let us show you how.

Take the electric drill. Nobody is going to buy one just so they can have an electric drill. They buy one because they want holes. Clean holes, deep holes, accurate holes, fast holes, holes of many sizes, holes in different materials. Most people don’t care what the drill is made from or how the circuitry is toggled – they do care that it makes holes. They might also care that the drill is light-weight, but spare them a discussion of the space-age aluminum casing. Thy might like that it is maneuverable, UL approved, has a super-long cord and comes in its own carrying case. But they only care about those things because they add to performance, convenience or safety – benefits, not features, and they appeal at an emotional level.

The same with distressed homeowners

You’ve saved 28 homeowners from foreclosure last month? Great feature, but it doesn’t help them. Your a member of the Better Business Bureau? Another feature that doesn’t in any shape or form provide relief to the struggling homeowner that can’t sleep at night. You are among the top 5% sellers in your market? Great feature to have on a resume, but it doesn’t stop annoying collection calls that keep coming in since the homeowner lost their job and the bills are piling up. You are a Certified Distressed Property Expert? The homeowner doesn’t care about your expertise or training, or credentials. Zig Ziglar once said, “people buy on emotion and justify it later with logic”.

To get through to distressed homeowners, you must present yourself not as a real estate agent selling your services, but rather, a problem solver that communicates in terms of benefits. While features talk about you, the agent, benefits answer the question that is foremost in their minds – what’s in it for me? How can you make my life better?

Some examples of benefits might be:

Stop the harassing collection calls
Get a good night’s sleep for the first time in six months.
Save your credit
Comfort your family
Relieve the uncertainty
Return to normal day to day activities

We can provide more examples. The main concept to get at 40,000 feet is that distressed homeowners that are at their wits end will make their decision to work with you based on emotions, not logic.

Using model late data, you can build targeted Pre NOD Leads through precise geographic and delinquency filters, before the homeowner’s hardship reaches any public domain. Armed with an early, accurate, and exclusive Pre NOD list, you can make an early introduction with homeowners being late on their mortgage payment before anyone else knows that a property is in distress.

Pre NOD leads that turn into profit

Most agents are targeting Pre-NOD leads at 60 days late because it is a serious sign of financial hardship, yet it still affords a window of opportunity to reach distressed homeowners before those mortgagors are deluged with solicitations. Oftentimes, homeowners that on the Pre NOD list reported as just 30 days late either become current, their parents bail them out, or they are more receptive to a loan modification.

Who’s your niche audience? For experience-driven advice, call a Pre NOD leads expert at 866-377-4599 today.

Disclaimer: Per CDL Data ‘Terms of Service’ following conditions apply to Your use of any of the CDL Data – Model Late Data :
1. You shall use CDL Data – Model Late Data solely for Your internal use and direct marketing purposes only.
2. You shall not use CDL Data – Model Late Data directly and/or indirectly or reference any type of Model Late directly to the Consumer without written prior consent of said Consumer in any (i) direct mail; (ii) conducting telephone solicitation; or (iii) conducting telephone or direct mail surveys.
3. You acknowledge that any contact either written and/or spoken with a Consumers as a direct result of CDL Data – Model Late Data is purely informational regarding your products and services.

★★★ Marketing To Distressed Homeowners

We are Marketing Specialists. We know the business and have been at it a long time. Adept real estate agents and investors that can empathize with distressed homeowners and help them get out of the woods will undoubtedly be successful, but getting through to them can be tricky. More than list brokers, our team of direct marketing professionals are happy to bounce some ideas around on how to turn our Pre NOD list into more completed short sale transactions, and answer any questions you may have. You can call 1-866-377-4599 or we’re highly accessible via e-mail, or to arrange a one-on-one consultation, you can schedule a call.

Our early, accurate and exclusive short sale leads for REALTORS comes in the form of an Excel spreadsheet with detailed contact, credit and mortgage information. You can download a sample spreadsheet to see what the list looks like. You can view all possible selects here.

Unlike most other pre-foreclosure sources, our 30-60-90 day late list is obtained through a soft credit inquiry, which means you can be the first to offer your help to troubled homeowners and get them to list their home with you. As a starting point to build Pre NOD leads, give us your criteria and we will go to the drawing board to tell you how many struggling homeowners need your help. Request a free count here.

At CDLData.com, we provide early, accurate and exclusive pre foreclosure data on distressed homeowners before their hardship reaches any public file.

In this post, I’ll take on the topic of using telemarketing as a channel to reach out to homeowners 30, 60, or 90+ days late on their mortgage payment.

Many marketers prefer to make contact with distressed homeowners over the phone, but in my view, that’s analogous to calling up a stranger and asking them if they have a drinking problem. Would they admit to a total stranger that they have an addiction?

I believe that the phone can be a good follow-up device once a distressed homeowner knows you, or at least knows of you. If you’ve made initial contact with distressed homeowners through other channels, you have more of a license to call them. Of course, it is not “cold calling” if the homeowner volunteers their phone number through a web-based form you can drive them to in order to download a free report, video, or other snippet of information – more on that later.

First off, when identifying homeowners in pre-foreclosure, phone numbers are in short supply because of two dynamics:

1. Land lines are becoming obsolete, as more and more homeowners – and particularly younger homeowners – are using mobile devices.
2. A staggering amount of homeowners that do have a land line are registered with on the Do Not Call List.

We can only obtain phone numbers from the credit reporting agencies that are compliant with the DNC regulations. They are real legal sticklers when it comes to that. Now, certainly no responsible marketing company would advocate looking up the homeowner without regard to the do not call regulations and we stop short of that. It is, however, noteworthy that most agents and others in the distressed property industry don’t seem to care about the DNC. Their sentiment is, “I’m not really selling anything”, and in fact, they are reaching out to help. It’s not as if they are selling steak knives or peddling a magazine subscription – it’s almost as if they are conducting social work. Says one subscriber of our pre-foreclosure data: “I’m not bothered by the do not call list, because if it wasn’t for me, these families would have their belongings on the curb”.

The appeal of calling distressed homeowners is obvious. There is little cost to getting the conversation rolling on the phone – the biggest cost is the time associated with making the calls. Moreover, there is an immediate response if you can get these homeowners on the phone, right? In my view, there is a fallacy in this thinking.

• For one, financially distressed borrowers are getting deluged with collection calls and so many of these homeowners simply are not coming to the phone or they change numbers.
• Second, many homeowners that are not paying their mortgage are not paying other bills, including their phone bill, and so the phone company disconnects their number.
• Finally, working with distressed homeowners is a process and requires a concerted, multi-pronged approach through multiple channels. It is not going to be a one-call close. While there is a perceived sense of instant gratification in using telemarketing, this is not the case from my experience.

Direct mail needs to be part of any successful short sale acquisition program. Direct mail leads convert a higher rate than telemarketing due to the self-selected nature of the responder. Direct mail leads have consciously made the choice to respond. Unlike a telemarketing lead where the choice to respond may be a concession, the choice to respond to direct mail is based on a genuine interest from the homeowner that wants to explore what their alternatives to foreclosure are.

During an age where marketers are zipping tweets and pulling in fans for Facebook, direct mail can seem decidedly old school. Yet direct mail should not be dismissed as too pricey or passe, and can be combined with online marketing to create synergy. Direct mail and online marketing are not mutually exclusive, but compliment one another.

For instance, you can use direct mail to drive a distressed homeowner to a landing page, where they can get access to a free report such as “10 things you should never do if you fall behind on your mortgage payment”. In order to obtain the snippet of information you are offering, they must fill out a form, including their phone number. Caution is an order, however, in asking the homeowner to fill out too much information. Pry too much and you guarantee that the homeowner will be scared away. A phone number and e-mail address should suffice.

It should go without saying (but it’s said because some agents do this) that if you elect to call distressed homeowners, you should never profess that you have any inside knowledge that they are falling behind on their mortgage payments. This will only alienate them at best, or at worst, lead to a mouthful of expletives.

★★★ Marketing to distressed homeowners – what works, what doesn’t work?

There’s no magic pill when marketing your services to distressed homeowners. The biggest determinant of success, in my view, is repetition and the number of “touch points”. Familiarity builds credibility, which in turn builds trust. Remember, all of the news media has told homeowners that if anyone contacts them with the offer to stave foreclosure, they are probably vultures looking to swoop down and profit from their misery. Repetitive marketing goes a long way to overcome this distrust.

The adept agent or investor that can empathize with the homeowner’s situation and help them navigate through this difficult period will undoubtedly be successful.

In addition to constantly exposing your message to these financially troubled borrowers, it’s important to speak to the homeowner in terms of benefits, not features. That you’ve “saved 28 homeowners from foreclosure last month” is a feature. Are you a CDPE or SFR or have another designation? That’s another feature that doesn’t answer the distressed homeowner’s fundamental question: “What’s in it for me?” They want to keep their children in school… move on to build better memories… get a good night’s sleep for the first time in six months… restore normalcy to their day to day affairs, etc – these benefits resonate more with distressed homeowners than your credentials.

There are several marketing vehicles to carry your message of hope and solutions:

Postcards: These are popular because they are cheap to print and cheap to mail and they stare homeowners in the face. The headline, the copy, the call to action, are some factors that determine effectiveness. Yet a post card will not close the sale. This tiny billboard is best used to continue the conversation that the postcard started, like sending the homeowner to a website. > Read more about mistakes to avoid when sending postcards.

Letters: A handwritten envelope/letter will beat postcards any day. Let’s face it, we all judge a book by it’s cover, and so will distressed homeowners that see you took the time to hand write an envelope. This has a high open rate because of the look and feel of personal correspondence. > See an example of letters that have worked well (pdf).

Dimensional Mail: Think inside the box, literally. Anything in a package is guaranteed to get opened.We work with one agent that actually sends a fortune cookie to distressed homeowners. Inside the cookie is a clever slip – “Save your home. Call me.” While this can get expensive, the ROI is phenomenal.

Door knocking: While it takes a special kind of person to do this, delivering your message in person has the most impact. > See a door knocking script that has worked for other agents

Calling: In our view, the phone is best used as a follow up device after you have communicated with them through other means, but you can use the HAFA program as the thrust for a cold call.

There are other considerations when marketing to homeowners in pre foreclosure which go beyond the scope of one blog post. To bounce some other ideas around, get in touch with us at www.CDLData.com

At CDLData.com, we provide early, accurate and exclusive pre foreclosure data on distressed homeowners before their hardship reaches any public file.

★★★ Marketing To Distressed Homeowners

Making an Emotional Connection with Troubled Homeowners

Adept investors that can empathize with a homeowner’s hardship and help them through this difficult period in their life will undoubtedly be successful. To make this connection, focusing on the emotional benefits of your service is more important than features.

A distressed borrower that is falling behind on their mortgage payment feels vulnerable. While they are eager for options and hope, they may be leery of a stranger and potentially, a vulture looking to swoop down and profit from their misery. How do you overcome this distrust? The answer is to appeal to the homeowner’ emotion, not their intellect.

Emotions are the gateway for a distressed homeowner to make a decision to work with you. World-renowned sales trainer Zig Ziglar explains, “People usually buy on emotion and then justify it with logic.” Sure, a short sale carries fewer consequences than a foreclosure, but this is an intellectual feature, and does not speak to their emotion.

Benefits are the language of emotion. Features are the language of logic. Even people who insist they make logical decisions based on features do so because that’s what makes them feel better. All benefits are emotional.

What would be a better way to sell diamonds?

“This ring features a 1.4 carat, pear-shaped cut white diamond with a SI1 clarity grade and an H color rating.”

Unless you’re a gemologist, this ad is gibberish. Here is what might sell diamonds better:

“Imagine that special evening when you gently slip this on her finger and stare intensely into their eyes. She peers at this symbol of your devotion, the promise of your future together, and tears begin to glisten. An adoring smile spreads across her face, and at that moment your love is sealed forever.”

The upside down or late paying homeowner has only one question to be answered, “What’s In It For Me?” It’s not about you, or your realty, or even your expertise. It’s about them – the distressed homeowners that need your help. How will you help them solve their problem, make their lives better and most of all, how will you make them feel good? Some examples of benefits might be….

Move on to build better memories…
Get a good night’s sleep for the first time in six months…
Return to you normal, day-to-day affairs…
Stop the harassing phone calls….
Save your credit…
Help your family…
Relieve the uncertainty…
Get rid of the loads of bricks on your shoulders…
Find the best solution that’s legally available…

“We’ve helped 28 clients this month avoid foreclosure” is a feature, not a benefit. “We’re a member of the Better Business Bureau” is another intellectual feature that will not build emotional rapport. If you’re a Certified Distressed Property Expert or have another four-letter acronym that gives you special training to resolve hardship situations, this is another feature that will not provide tangible benefits to the homeowner. Credentials are fine, but the distressed borrower will justify their decision to work with you on emotion first, and come back to your credentials later.

Two step marketing
Distressed borrowers need to be guided along and be told what to do NEXT. Many of these homeowners are cautious and need to take baby steps. By offering a free report or snippet of information, you can build credibility and rapport, and nurture the lead.

Every good marketing message has a clear call to action – it tells the prospect what to do next. While the call to action is often overlooked, it is critical because your objective is to get the homeowner to respond, period.

The most obvious call to action would be to pick up the phone and call for a consultation. Yet many distressed homeowners are cautious and need to be nurtured before they are comfortable enough to reach out to you. For this reason, you can employ a two-pronged approach when contacting distressed homeowners:

Step 1. Generate a lead by providing something of value, such as a free report, in exchange for something in return, such as the homeowners contact information.

Step 2. Provide the requested information and follow-up.

Consider experimenting with some different carrots that motivate troubled homeowners to access
more information. For example, one call to action can be visit your site for a free report. Some
free report topics:

» NOW THAT YOUR LOAD MODIFICATION HAS BEEN DISAPPROVED, NOW WHAT?
» FIVE THINGS YOU SHOULD NEVER DO IF YOU FALL BEHIND ON A MORTGAGE PAYMENT
» CHECKLIST OF WHAT TO DO IF YOU RECEIVE A CERTIFIED LETTER FROM YOUR LENDER
» YOUR FIRST STEPS TO AVOID FORECLOSURE
» HOW TO STOP HARASSING CALLS USING THE FAIR DEBT PRACTICES ACT
» SHORT SALE VERSUS FORECLOSURE – THE CONSEQUENCES

What’s so good about this two-step marketing? It’s much easier to create an interest in becoming educated about alternatives to foreclosure (a lead) than it is to get a homeowner to part with their home. You are generating interest, not asking them to list their home with you (not yet anyway). That is what the 2 step marketing process is all about – warming a lead along to fruition and continuing your dialog with distressed borrowers. Taking this principle a step further, you can offer a free report on 5 things you should never do if you fall behind on a mortgage payment, and in the report, list 4 things. What’s the 5th and most important thing you should never do? You guessed it, for that gem the homeowner has to call a pre recorded hotline or do something else to be guided along.

Directing troubled homeowners to a website When done properly, a landing page can be an excellent and non-threatening way to educate distressed borrowers on their solutions.

Your initial message to distressed homeowners should be a teaser and galvanize the homeowner to learn more once you’ve piqued their interest. The objective of your first contact should not be to close the homeowner. A post card, for example, is not meant to close the homeowner but to guide the homeowner to another destination such as a landing page, where they can learn more.

A landing page, or lead capture page, is a destination where distressed homeowners go for a specific purpose. Think of a golf course – a landing page is the putting green that you drive the ball (prospect) to. Once on the green, the goal is to get the ball in the hole. Likewise, the goal of the copy and design of a landing page is to get the homeowner that needs your help to take your desired course of action.

You wouldn’t ask someone to solve an algebra equation in order to view the content they came for on your website. Nor should you ask a distressed homeowner to find the page on your website that has information on foreclosure help. A typical REALTOR’s site is busy, with a lot of information and links packed into one homepage. For example, your site might have a section for buying a home, selling a home, the benefits of relocating to a certain community, tips on moving, and a whole host of other information that speaks to entirely different audiences. Rather than asking a troubled homeowner to wade through your site to find the relevant information on their options, create a landing page that specifically speaks to them and answers the question “What’s in it for me?”. Once on that page, a distressed borrower can seamlessly find the answers they are looking for without the need to dig through several links and pages to ferret out the information they are seeking.

It’s critical to capture the contact information of the homeowner that visits your landing page. In order to access your free report, video, or other promised snippet of information, prompt the homeowner for their e-mail address and/or phone number. The goal is not to send the homeowner to a website to learn all they can on avoiding foreclosure – the objective is to establish rapport and credibility and obtain their contact information so that you can continue the conversation through more interactive means. You should not give the homeowner the opportunity to close themselves. Remember, you are the real estate expert, not them. An effective landing page will not provide every single detail about your service. Rather, the goal of your landing page should be to capture the homeowner’s e-mail address so that you can “drip” a pre-written set of messages to customers or prospects over time. In agriculture, drip irrigation is the process of watering plants or crops using small amounts of water over long periods of time. Using this same principle, you can send timely, relevant e-mail messages to a highly targeted set of troubled homeowners that have sought out a resource to avoid foreclosure.

When asking your web visitor for information, caution should be exercised. People don’t like volunteering too much about themselves, and if they are asked for too much information, they will hit the back button. Prompting the homeowner for their name and e-mail address should suffice. We have seen some sites that require the homeowner to fill out a lengthy questionnaire asking for their estimated income, source of employment, home purchase price, number of mortgages and other detailed information – besides being overly prying, who has the time to fill it out?

There’s an old direct marketing axiom that states too many choices paralyzes your prospect into complete non-action, and this behavior applies to landing pages, as well. You may have a wealth of reports and resources, but we recommend not giving distressed homeowners too many options on what to do next. We believe that your landing page should have a single call to action, perhaps to download a singular report, rather than giving them a cornucopia of reports to choose from. The whole idea is to spell out to the homeowner, in specific detail, what to do next and not allow them to wonder astray and risk loosing them.

Online video can be a powerful tool to win the rapport of a distressed homeowner. With a 2 to 3 minute video, the troubled homeowner can experience your voice, hear your tone, and develop a connection with you in a “fireside chat.” You can use the video to amplify your call to action by saying, “Type in your e-mail address on the form above to discover how you can…” (complete the sentence). On many CDPEâ branded websites, the distressed homeowner is greeted with a video message by CEO and co-founder Alex Charfen. His message is powerful and effective, but in our view, the landing page would create more of an impact, and build even more empathy, if the video is replaced with the REALTOR, who ultimately will be the one to work with the homeowner.

The marketing secret every child knows
Repetitive marketing over time produces the best results.

People respond to repetition. If you are a parent, you know how hard it is to refuse repeated requests for an ice cream or a desperately wanted toy. If you are not a parent, you probably remember asking, even begging for a toy, a treat or permission to stay up past your bedtime, until your parents finally gave in.

Your prospects – homeowners that are 30, 60 or 90 days late on their mortgage payment – are similar. They may need to be asked repeatedly, too. The reality is marketing has never meant to be and will never be a one-time shot. It may take more multiple “touches” to create the trust and rapport necessary for a homeowner to work with you. It’s a well-established rule of marketing that any communication is most effective when it is repeatedly brought to the attention of your target market.

This principle of repetition is especially true when contacting distressed borrowers because many homeowners in pre foreclosure are in denial, or may not warm immediately to a stranger. It’s worth repeating that homeowners must trust you first, before they give you permission to work with their lender. Familiarity builds credibility, which in turn builds trust. Each subsequent message should escalate in tone and urgency and stress the magnitude of what will happen if the homeowner chooses to do nothing.

We’re often asked what the best marketing vehicle is to generate a response. Is it a post card, a phone call, a letter, a knock on the door, or is it best to drive them to a website? The answer is all of the above. There is no silver bullet. Rather, it is constant exposure to your service that is the biggest determinant of success. Consider the marketing of Publishers Clearing House. Here is a company who sells magazines with great flare… “Win 10 million dollars in the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes!” You’d think everyone would jump at the chance to win all that money and get their magazine of choice, right? Of course not – we all know it’s not that easy. They get people to buy its magazines through an absolutely incredible marketing campaign. The center point of that campaign is repetitive mailings over an extended period of time.

If you are persistent, you will have a smile on your face just like the kid with a belly full of ice cream that he/she convinced mom to buy.

Using Direct Mail

Direct mail is a tried and true method to generate new business. Although e marketing is affordable and social media has exploded, direct mail should not be dismissed as too pricey or passé, and can be combined with online marketing to create synergy.

During an age when a lot of marketers are zipping Tweets across cyberspace and pulling in fans for Facebook, direct mail can seem decidedly old school. Yet direct mail offers many significant advantages – it’s easy to implement, you can precisely pinpoint distressed borrowers in your area, it creates a more “personal” touch, and it’s a snap to measure results.

Sending Postcards

When done correctly, postcards can be effective because they are cheap to print, cheap to mail, and stare distressed borrowers in the face – they don’t have to be opened like an envelope.

Postcards are most effective when they are used to drive distressed homeowners to a landing page.

Remember, a post card is small and you cannot fit much information on it. Your goal with the post card should be to pique the homeowner’s interest and encourage them to learn more. A post card will not make the sale. Your post card should be a tease and direct homeowners to a destination where they can learn more about the solutions to their plight. By going off to a landing page, the homeowner has not committed to using your services – that’s not the goal of the post card. The goal of the post card is to send the homeowner somewhere else to continue the conversation.

In addition to being aesthetically pleasing, your postcard should be easy to understand – you don’t want the homeowner to work to find your message. Your postcards should talk about benefits and answer the homeowner’s fundamental questions, “What’s in it for me?” and “How can you solve my problem?”

We have seen postcards that talk bumpkins about the Realtor, their designations, training and other features that mean nothing to the struggling homeowner that is looking for solutions.

Yet the biggest determinant of your tiny billboard’s success is the offer and providing something of high perceived value to the homeowner such as a free report.

Once you have piqued the interest of the distressed homeowner by offering a free report, they are not saying to themselves, “I’m going to use their services” or “I need to call them”, or “I need to get in touch with them to sell my home.” They are merely thinking, “Geeze, I don’t want to make those five mistakes.’ You’ve begun the courting process.

Sending Letters

The Envelope

Studies show that recipients spend no more than seven seconds deciding whether to open your envelope. Regardless of how much time and work you invested in creating your mail piece and a system of offering solutions to struggling homeowners, it all comes down to seven seconds, and you can go from hero to goat in these mere seconds.

Let’s face it – we all judge a book by its cover. And distressed homeowners will judge direct mail by the envelope. The envelope has two purposes – to delver your message to a homeowner that needs your help, and to get it opened.

Want to guarantee that your letter is opened? Hand write the envelope. Hand written envelopes are always opened first, because it adds a personal touch to your mailings. Especially in competitive markets, computerized labels don’t work. Anything that looks like personal correspondence will get opened. To create even more impact, use an odd-sized envelope that looks like a wedding invitation or a birthday card from
Uncle Harry. Try experimenting with different colors, as well.

The “Yellow Letter”

The yellow letter is a handwritten, usually brief message on old school yellow ruled paper. Many investors have used this personalized vehicle to stop homeowners dead in their tracks and get their letter read because it stands out from commercial mail. In today’s fast paced society, messages are usually aided by computers, printers, texts, and e-mails. The value of a yellow letter is that the homeowner sees that you took the time to personally write them, an act that is rare in today’s digitalized world. For examples of yellow letters, get in touch with us at 1-866-377-4599.

Of course, individually handwriting hundreds of letters can consume a lot of your time and give you writer’s cramp. Fortunately, there are automated solutions available. The computer can duplicate a human’s handwriting and the personalization fields can be left blank so that they can be filled with individual information.

Word About Postage and addressing

First class stamps make the most impact. For even more of a personal feel, avoid standard US flag stamps and use a personalized stamps like fruits and vegetables, birthday, animal or other unique designs to smash through the color. For best results, put your own name in the return address, not your company’s name.

Using a Post Script

While other parts of your letter may be perused more thoroughly, studies show that nearly 4 out of 5 people read the P.S. first, because it’s viewed as a more intimate intimate message – that’s right, they will read the P.S. before any other part of your mail package.

Your P.S. can be used to create a sense of urgency for the homeowner to act now. The time is ticking, and you can use the P.S. to remind them that doing nothing should not be an option, and that the time is running out before the lender begins to foreclose on the property. You can also use the P.S. to send the homeowner to a website to access some snippet of information such as a video or free report, or provide an added incentive for the homeowner to respond to you, such as a free gas card or other carrot. You can also avail the P.S. to repeat key benefits such as helping their family, preserving their credit, and get from underneath their home.

Dimensional Mail

Think inside the box, literally. Also referred to as “lumpy mail”, Dimensional Mail is a type of direct mail that can take on any form other than your typical flat piece of mail. Although it can come in many shapes and sizes, all dimensional mail has one thing in common – all of it is practically guaranteed to get opened. Imagine a little kid underneath a Christmas tree opening presents and it’s easy to understand why. People love opening up packages and almost always pay attention to what’s inside.

While dimensional mail is pricier, the return on investment is superior because it creates maximum impact. Several clients report rousing success by sending out fortune cookies that when opened up, display a clever message to save their home.

The mailbox versus the inbox – the ultimate boxing match, right? Actually, no. Smart marketers know that it’s not about choosing one corner. Rather, you can integrate both mail and the Internet into your media mix to command the attention of your audience where they live, work and play. For example, you can send a postcard that drives them to a website to download a free report on alternatives to foreclosure. As a prerequisite to access or download your free report, prompt the visitor for their contact information, including their e-mail address. You can then correspond via e-mail and follow up with direct mail and vice versa to experience synergy. In other words, one plus one isn’t two. It’s three.

Consider offering a rock solid guarantee in your mail piece. For example, you can promise a homeowner that if you cannot provide the best solution that is legally available after a 17-minute face to face meeting, you will give them a $50 gas card. This carrot may be the added push a homeowner needs to call you. The idea is to “put your money where your mouth is” with an airtight guarantee.

Getting your foot in the door… literally.

There is nothing more personal than door knocking.

How many ads can pull a football fanatic out of his chair, during an exciting football game, to see or hear your advertisement? The answer is none. One-on-one door knocking is powerful and effective because it delivers your message face-to-face. No other marketing medium has that impact. “We have only one shot at these homeowners,” says a Century 21 broker in Southern California. “And we don’t want to blow it.” Several clients report phenomenal success with taking the personal approach by knocking on the door of a distressed borrower to deliver the message of hope and options, yet you shouldn’t walk up the steps unprepared.

Having a Script Prepared

When you are face-to-face with a distressed homeowner, your goal is to make an emotional connection. In theater, all actors are scripted because they are trying to build emotional excitement with the audience. In the same way, you should have a script prepared instead of “winging it.” You have a small window of opportunity to introduce yourself as someone that genuinely cares about their plight. Many realtors and investors mistakenly blurt the first words out of their mouths in a pre-foreclosure deal and never recover.

Based on the feedback we’ve received from clients that deliver their message of hope and solutions in person, the soft sell approach works well. Armed with our early, accurate and exclusive pre foreclosure data, you will know exactly which homeowners in your area are falling behind on their mortgage payment. Yet you should not profess any inside knowledge that the homeowner is struggling to make their payment. Rather, you should present yourself as a neighborhood real estate expert that is canvassing the block. Here is some sample verbiage to use when delivering your message of hope and solutions in person, courtesy of Chris Sylvada, the founder of Simple Listing Solutions, a turn-key marketing system for REALTORS to position themselves as a neighborhood short sale expert:

“Hi, Mrs. Jones, my name is ________, I’m a local real estate expert, hopefully I’m not interrupting dinner, I’ll be real quick. I’m not sure if this applies to you, but I know you know someone. I provide ethical and compassionate solutions to problems with real estate loans. If you know someone that is struggling to make their house payments, or they owe more on their house than what it’s worth, I can help. So, I’ll let you go, just want to get this in your hands (pass a flyer or door hanger) – if you know a friend, family member, co-worker, neighbor, please tell them to go to the website on here, to learn more about some options they have to get from underneath their homes, help their family, and save their credit. Thanks for your time Mrs. Jones, enjoy the rest of your evening.”

If the homeowner is receptive to talking to you, here are some additional tips:

Ask to come inside. Many novice REALTORS and investors think that the deal is going to be made right on the front porch. At the risk of redundancy, a distressed borrower will work with you only if they trust you and like you. If you launch into your pitch on their porch, the homeowner may view you as a slick salesperson that stands to profit from their hardship. Try to face them on the turf that they feel most comfortable in – their kitchen table.

Making Conversation

Talk for a few minutes. It’s important for the homeowner to view you as a person, not as an investor. Share some information about yourself and ask for the same in return, so that it doesn’t feel like some kind of awkward first date.

Avoid using the term “foreclosure” at all costs. If you imply in any way that the homeowner is responsible for their plight, you will surely alienate them. “I noticed that you weren’t keeping up with your payments” or, “I saw that you were late on your mortgage” is a sure way to get booted off the front porch. A better approach might be that you “provide ethical and compassionate problems with real estate loans.”

It’s worth mentioning that modesty is important when presenting your help to troubled homeowners. No suits or bling like expensive jewelry. That conveys that you will profit from their loss. Also, keep your hands in plain view and show your face when door knocking. When a homeowner looks to see who is knocking on their door, you better look non-threatening.

Getting the conversation rolling on the phone

The telephone can serve as a good follow up device once you have introduced yourself through other media. In our view, telemarketing should be used in conjunction with other forms of marketing, and should not be used as a stand-alone marketing vehicle.

When a homeowner has fallen behind on a mortgage payment, it is a sensitive subject. Whether it is because of unexpected expenditures that happen suddenly, illness, the loss of a job, or marital discord, there are some delicate circumstances that have led to a defaulted payment. To these distressed borrowers, home-ownership isn’t the American Dream – it could be the American nightmare.

Because their hardship is such a sensitive subject, we don’t recommend using our list of distressed borrowers as a purely telemarketing list. Just calling a distressed borrower without prior contact is a little like calling up a stranger and asking them if they have a drinking problem. Even if they were an alcoholic, would they admit it over the phone to someone calling for the first time?

However, the phone can be used as an excellent follow up tool, once a homeowner knows you or has at least been exposed to your message. Once a homeowner has received a letter or they have requested more information, or they are more open to talking to you on the phone. Having started a conversation with a distressed borrower through other means, you have more of a license to continue that conversation over the phone.

We include a DNC compliant phone number, when available. The operative term is when available. Landlines are becoming increasingly obsolete as more people use mobile devices. For those homeowners that do have a land line, the majority of them are on the do not call list. For this reason, we’d have to select a larger area to generate any meaningful amount of phone numbers.

Many REALTORS and investors are looking the homeowners up by themselves, without regard to the DNC regulations. Says one of our clients, a mortgage broker in Nevada – “I don’t care about the do not call list because I’m not selling them anything. I’m keeping them in their home.” While many of our clients share this sentiment and feel that they are exempt from the do not call regulations to the extent they are helping these distressed borrowers save their credit and relieve the uncertainty, it is mindful to keep in mind the potential penalties of calling homeowners on the do not call list.

Directing distressed homeowners to a hotline

Many defaulting homeowners are cautious and would prefer the anonymity of listening to a recording that presents your message of solutions and hope.

As one way to overcome a homeowner’s lack of trust, you can send distressed home owners to a recorded hotline that briefly discusses some of the options they have available. Home owners that may otherwise be hesitant to call you, may call a hotline to hear a pre-recorded message – there is little risk to doing so. If they are comfortable with the message or messenger they can dial through for a live conversation.

There are many affordable tech solutions to seamlessly start a hotline, such as Voice Nation. We recommend keeping the pre-recorded message two to three minutes long so as to not loose the homeowners attention or overwhelm them with too much information. The goal at this stage is to have a short, friendly “heart to heart” conversation with the listener that presents some different options the homeowner has, but more importantly, establish a level of trust and rapport by providing a calm voice of reason and empathy.

“I started mailing to the pre-foreclosure list in 2004. The most effective mail pieces for generating immediate business have always been the toll-free Recorded Messages. I find that a six-piece sequence over 3-4 weeks to around 400 homeowners gets the phone ringing immediately, averaging a couple calls per day for 2-3 weeks.” – Ross Kilburn, Seatle Short Sales, Inc.

“Sellers in distress are looking for solutions, but are very cautious as there is so much info/misinfo going around. By providing low risk – low or no exposure information to these folks gives them the ability to anonymously shop for a solution provider who they feel comfortable with. Whether it be websites, recorded messages or chat – no matter. The more media types, the larger your potential audience. One size doesn’t fit all.” – Steve Mallires (Real Choices Realty)

“I have to say I see the point in this. Having gone through the nightmare myself, it’s hard to talk to anyone. You don’t trust anyone, you don’t know who’s right and who’s wrong, and last thing you want to do is get scammed. Of course a telephone number isn’t going to keep you from getting scammed, but because there’s no pressure with the call – it at least feels somewhat safer. I would take this one step further and build a Google Voice message system. Let them call and listen to the pre-recorded message, but build a widget with Google Voice that allows the call to be connected – Google calls them and connects the call. It might seem a bit “safer” to them instead of having yet another random could-be-a-bill-collector number showing up on their phone.” – Matt Stigliano, RE/MAX Access

The added benefit of using a pre-recorded hotline is that incoming calls are logged so you can capture their phone number.

A word about tracking

The reality is there are myriad variables that influence the success of a marketing campaign to distressed homeowners. Your copy, your call to action, the frequency of contact, the day of your week your message is received, even the colors of your material are but just a few factors that play a role. Our best advice is to TEST, TEST, TEST again. If you are not testing your marketing, you are not marketing.

One way to test is to use different URL’s tied to different marketing messages. Let’s say you are contemplating two postcard designs that you want to send to 2,000 recipients. Naturally, you’d be interested in which postcard generates the most response.

As a call to action, you can direct 1,000 postcard recipients to yoursite.com/SanJoseHomeHelp and use the other thousand postcards to send the recipient off to yoursite.com/SaveYourHome. You can then check your log files or use Google Analytics to see which postcard generated the most web traffic.

We’re firm believers in the soft sell approach and that a great number of homeowners will seek more information online than picking up the phone to call. But there will always be people that prefer to call you to get information on how to get from underneath their home. For those people, you can assign unique phone numbers to each marketing vehicle. For example, you can send a letter to distressed homeowners and tell them to call you at 555-2222. A postcard can list your number at 555-3333, and dimensional mail such as a fortune cookie can instruct the homeowner to learn more about saving their home by calling 555-4444. There are many technology companies that can inexpensively provide multiple incoming phone numbers which can be directed to your office or cell phone. We use tossabledigits.com.

Let’s say that you want to test the call to action. In one mail piece, you direct distressed homeowner s to a landing page where they can download a free report. In the same mail piece, you instead direct them to a pre-recorded hotline to anonymously listen to a 2-3 minute “fireside chat” that presents a calming voice of hope and solutions. You can easily determine which call to action gets the most bites through technology.

What doesn’t require technology is a simple question you can ask homeowners when they walk into your office, call you or fill out a form on your website – “I’m curious… how did you hear about us?”. Here at Homestead Data, anyone that calls us is asked this question, but one caveat: this question of how the prospect learned about you should be asked only after some minimal trust and rapport is established. You don’t want the leery distressed homeowner who is already cautious, to be even more on the defensive when they feel drilled for too much information.

The quintessential point is that your campaign to distressed homeowners should be scientific in nature and shouldn’t be based on what you think might work from guesswork. Rather, your marketing efforts to distressed homeowners should be shaped over time, in response to clearly defined metrics that can be tracked.

Want to bounce some more ideas around? Get in touch.

A mail piece that is guaranteed to be opened by distressed homeowners

A “snap pack” mailer is a highly effective direct mail piece that has a HUGE open rate because it’s mean to look important, secure and confidential. The IRS uses this to send refund checks from Uncle Sam. This pressure snap pack mailer is perforated on three sides for easy and official opening.

Let’s face it. We all judge a book by its cover. And a distressed homeowner that is falling behind on their mortgage payment by the face of the mail piece. A snap pack begs to be noticed, opened and investigated – it creates a sense of urgency that other mail pieces cannot.

If you’ve found this article informative, follow us on Twitter @consumerdata. At CDLData.com, we provide early pre foreclosure data that is not yet public record. Armed with early, accurate and exclusive pre foreclosure data from the credit bureaus, you can be the first to advise distressed homeowners on their options.

Targeting strategic defaults

As housing prices plummeted, “strategic default” has been coined for homeowners that walk away from their homes despite their ability to pay mortgage payments. Since they have negative equity, they choose to default and get from underneath their homes, though they have the capacity to keep the home.

According to one subscriber to our pre foreclosure data “If a house was mortgaged for $200,000 and it’s now worth $100,000, the price has to double, and that’s just not practical. Not in the course of a lifetime.” It seems that there is a group of homeowners that are persuaded by this logic. Studies from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business indicate that in September 2010, 35% of mortgage defaults were strategic. The phenomena of borrowers that intentionally defaulted on a mortgage was so concerning to Fannie Mae that they announced policy changes aimed at penalizing borrowers that willfully walk away from their mortgage obligations absent a hardship.

An informative paper from FICO Insights reveals that homes that have lost the most value are twice as likely to default as those whose home have lost the least value. They conclude that 20% of mortgagors represent nearly 70% of of strategic default risk. >Read the full report.

This report states that strategic defaulter tend to be more savvy managers of their credit than the general population, with higher credit scores, lower revolving balances and fewer exceeding limits on their credit cards. Their behavior is distinct from distressed homeowners that cannot afford their house payment. At CDLData.com, we can identify homeowners that are late on their payments, but otherwise have a good bill of financial health.

With strategic defaults accounting for an increasingly growing share of real estate inventory, should real estate professionals target this group of homeowners?

At CDLData.com, we provide early, accurate, and exclusive pre foreclosure data to identify distressed homeowners 30, 60 or 90 days late on mortgage payment. Armed with this insider information, you can be the first to advise troubled borrowers on their options, before their hardship reaches any public file.

How to identify homeowners in pre foreclosure

There are a plethora of sources to obtain pre foreclosure lists, but what they generally have in common is they are public record information, compiled after the lender has served the Notice of Default (NOD) or Lis Pendens, legal instruments which begins the foreclosure process.

While very inexpensive or sometimes free, the drawback to these lists is that because they are in the public domain, they are used over and over again by the masses. The homeowners on these lists are inundated with solicitations from REALTORS, investors, bankruptcy attorneys, credit repair firms, and other parties that are competing for the same crowded mailbox space.

By using “soft” credit data, you can eliminate the bulk of your competition by pinpointing exactly which homeowners in your area are 30, 60 or 90 days late on their mortgage payment. Since this data is insider information obtained when the lender reports a delinquent payment to a credit bureau, it is not public record information that everyone else has access to. Armed with this early, accurate and exclusive credit bureau data, you can be the first to reach out to financially troubled borrowers at the first sign of hardship. By reducing the bulk of your peers and being the first to reach sellers and lenders, you can get ahead of the curve and get more consummated short sale transactions.

Select troubled homeowners by zip code, how far behind they are, mortgage balance range, and number of mortgage liens. Refine the search by percentage of equity, loan type, credit score and myriad other attributes to put your message of hope and solutions in front of your most qualified prospects.

How many struggling borrowers are falling behind in your area? You can get a free area analysis by requesting a quick count.

Postcard to distressed homeowners that generated 16 listings

Saturday, November 06

A subscriber to our pre foreclosure data used the following post card to get sixteen listings in a month’s time. She sent the postcard out to homeowners 60 days late, multiple times. Each time, she changed the font color. After the third mailing, she followed up with a phone call or a personal visit.

Although her home office offered postcard designs, she said that those were too much “in your face” and came up with this design. I like the picture of the little girl – it puts a personal face on the human element of foreclosure.

Notice that the postcard does not profess that there is any inside knowledge that the homeowner is late on their payment. Instead, the question is, “Do you know people in this situation?”. This disarms the homeowner. Any thoughts?

Sample letter to send to distressed homeowners

Here is an introductory letter I came across that offers solutions to problems with real estate loans. I like it because there are no bells and whistles – it’s straight down the middle. This person portrays them self as an adviser with several options on the table. I think it is much better to educate homeowners on the array of options available to them (forbearance, refinance, Deed In Lieu of Foreclosure, etc ) than to only pitch a short sale, because the message you send is that you have the homeowners best interest in mind. It can’t be emphasized enough – before a homeowner allows you to work with the lender, they have to trust you.

As I explained in an earlier post, repetition produces the best results when offering your help to homeowners that have defaulted on their mortgage payment. If the first letter doesn’t generate a response, a second and third letter is in order. Subsequent letters should escalate in tone and urgency by explaining the consequences of doing nothing, and stress the magnitude of what the homeowner will experience if they chose to go into hiding.

Sample Letter

Dear Bob/Sally,

My name is _______. Please do not be embarrassed, but I offer ethical and compassionate solutions to problems with real estate loans. My initial consultant is free. I can often refer you to other pre screened, ethical professionals in the fields of refinance, bankruptcy, or credit management.

Other times, I might be able to arrange for a quick and discreet sale and leaseback of your property, allowing you to preserve your credit, your reputation, and your day-to-day affairs. In some instances, people want to sell their property and make a clean break – moving some place else in order to begin building better times and better memories.

Whatever your goals, you can rest assured that I am not just another opportunist trying to make money at your expense. If I can help, and we can both come out ahead, then we need to work together. If I can’t help, then I can save you lots of time and anguish by referring you to people who can assist you.

Please take that first step of putting yourself back in charge of your life – contact me for some additional information and possibly a personal consultation.

Sincerely,

Your Name

At www.CDLData.com, we provide early, accurate and exclusive pre foreclosure data on homeowners that need your help. If you found this post informative, follow us on Twitter @ consumerdata

Think inside the box, literally – using dimensional mail

To get the creative juices flowing, I asked a potential client if he had any ideas on how he would use the list of homeowners that are preforeclosure, and he came up with what I thought was a hugely clever strategy – fortune cookies.

A troubled homeowner would be sent a custom fortune cookie. When the homeowner opened the fortune cookie, they would be greeted with a slip that said, “Solve your home problem – call me. 555-5555.” How clever is that?

I didn’t get the name of the website that crafted these custom fortune cookies, but later, did a Google search for “marketing fortune cookies”, “custom fortune cookies”, and the like, and a handful of promotional companies came up on the search.

This brings up a great point – the more creative you get in your campaign to troubled homeowners, the greater your ROI. Dimensional mailings can come in many forms, but they have one thing in common – they are guaranteed to get opened. Imagine children hovering under a Christmas tree opening presents, and it’s easy to understand why.

Sure, the costs of mailing something other than an envelope can be high, but the Return on Investment is superior to sending something flat. I’ve heard of double-digit response rates when using dimensional mailings because they are unique and commands the attention of their recipient – they are screaming to be opened. It’s not about ROI anymore… it’s about Return on Creativity.

When we provided a list of new homeowners that recently moved in, a few clients used dimensional mailings with stunning success. For example, A dentist sent a manilla folder with “Dentists” in the subject line, for easy filing. Inside the folder was helpful oral hygiene tips, a profile of the dentistry, and, get this – a toothbrush with the practice’s contact information. The cost per mail piece was high, but the response it yielded was well worth the investment. Similarly, a landscaper in Colorado sent out an evergreen sapling to new homeowners. This creative mailing ”sprouted” many new jobs.

If you think inside the box and use dimensional mailings, your fortune cookies will read, “More consummated transactions.”

At CDLData.com, we provide early, accurate and exclusive pre foreclosure data on distressed homeowners before their hardship reaches any public file.

When reaching out to distressed homeowners in pre foreclosure, one popular marketing vehicle is a postcard, because they are cheap to print, cheap to mail, and a postcard doesn’t have to be opened – they stare distressed homeowners in the face. Yet despite the advantages of this “tiny billboard”, there are potential pitfalls to avoid. In this post, I’ll hopefully give some insight when planning a postcard campaign to upside down, struggling homeowners that are eager for hope and solutions.

Focus on Benefits, Not Features

One of the biggest mistakes we’ve seen with postcard campaigns is the tendency to focus on features, which talk bumpkins about the REALTOR. The reality is, the homeowner doesn’t care about you, your expertise, your training, how big you are, how many homes you sold, or what association you are a member of. Let’s say you helped 28 homeowners avoid foreclosure last month, or you are a member of the Better Business Bureau, or you completed a course on short sales. That’s great, but it doesn’t answer the homeowner’s only question – WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME? People buy on emotion and justify it later with logic – they’ll come back to your credentials later, according to world renowned sales trainer Zig Ziglar.

While features are the language of logic, benefits are the language of emotion. Here’s some examples of benefits:

“Get a good night’s sleep for the first time in six months”…
“Move on to build better memories”…
“Stop harassing collection calls”…
“Lift a ton of bricks off your shoulders”…
“Help your family”… etc.

In another post, we showed an example of one client’s postcard that did a good job focusing on benefits, and it paid off. > See her postcard here.

The point to get here from 40,000 feet is that you should talk less about you and more about the homeowner that is experiencing a very difficult period in their lives.

Postcards Will Not Close The Sale

Not much can be fitted on a 4 1/2 by 6 postcard. The objective then of a postcard is to tease the homeowner and encourage them to learn more. In our view, the best call to action is to drive them to a landing page, where they can access something of high perceived value, such as a free report. Once on your landing page, you can capture the homeowner’s contact information and nurture the lead with “drip” marketing.

People Respond To Repetition

If you send one postcard one time to one list, hopefully you can get a deal. One listing will pay for the postcard campaign and put money in your pocket. But the reality is marketing has never meant to be and never will be a one-shot deal. To create big, predictable results, you have to market your services repetitively and be “in the face” of your listing prospect with several touch points. It’s like a parent that finally gives in to repeated requests for a new toy, a piece of candy, or permission to stay up late. Distressed homeowners are the same way. The best results come from multiple mailings. Through repetition, you establish familiarity, which in turn builds credibility, which in turn builds trust. You then have more of a licence to call the homeowner or knock on their door.

Use Creative Calls To Action

While you ideally want the homeowner that is falling behind on their mortgage payments to call you, the reality is many of these homeowners will not immediately pick up the phone and warm up to a stranger that has sent one post card. Yet those homeowners that would not otherwise pick up the phone will feel feel more comfortable going to a landing page where they could download a free report on the 5 things they should never do if they fall behind on their mortgage payment, or a leery homeowner would feel more at ease listing to a 2 to 3 minute hotline that provides an overview on their options available. The soft sell approach works.

Instead Of A Logo, How About A Map To Your Office?

In our view, a logo isn’t as important as a brick and mortar address. It’s a virtual world and there are a lot of shysters on the internet, so people want to see a real place. This is especially true with distressed homeowners that feel vulnerable. Remember, the entire media for the past two years has been telling everyone that if someone approaches homeowners with foreclosure help, they are probably a vulture. Having a real place for the homeowner to see and visit will go a long way in dispelling this myth.

There are myriad other variables that will determine the success of your postcard marketing campaign. The headline, your choice of color, font selection are just a few factors among them, but we won’t divulge all on this blog. For expert consultation, call us at 866-377-4599.

At CDLData.com, we provide early, accurate, and exclusive data for real estate professionals. Armed with insider information from the credit bureaus, you will know exactly which homeowners have just missed a mortgage payment. Since this is not yet public record information, you can get more listings by being the first to advise distressed homeowners on their solutions, long before your competitors.

At CDLData.com, we provide early, accurate and exclusive pre foreclosure data on distressed homeowners before their hardship reaches any public file.

I’m a firm believer in the omnipresence of marketing, and that that e-mail and direct mail can work together to create synergy. Both have it’s unique benefits and neither is superior. Rather, direct mail and e-mail should be linked together to blend both distinct benefits into one impactful marketing strategy. According to an insightful white paper by the USPS,

“Mailbox vs. inbox… the ultimate “boxing” match, right? Well-seasoned marketers know it’s not about choosing sides. By integrating both mail and the Internet into your media mix, you can command the attention of your audience where they live, work and play.”

> Download the white paper

For example, you can send a post card to troubled homeowner and as a call to action, you can direct homeowners to a landing page such as yourrealty.com/foreclosurehelp, to view some kind of report such as “what to do when you receive a certified letter from your lender”, or “5 things you should never do if you fall behind on your mortgage payment.” Of course, the web visitor should fill out some sort of contact form before they have access to your free snippet of information. This way, you can capture their e-mail address to harness the power of both direct mail and e-mail, a smart marriage.

For example, you can:

– Send a post card with a brief statement of the benefits of your services. As a call to action, direct the homeowner to a landing page.
– Once on your lending page, deliver some sort of free report in exchange for entering their e-mail address and phone number.
– Deliver the free report.
– Send out a personal letter to the homeowner, thanking them for downloading the report and explaining what is in it for them if they agree to let you help them.
– Armed with their e-mail address, you can write an e-mail that escalates in tone and urgency, and lays out the consequences of doing nothing.

There are many possibilities of using the inbox and the mailbox together to create trust and rapport. Neither are superior, but they can work together in tandem to create more completed transactions.

Do you track your marketing results?

A client showed me two postcards he was contemplating sending to distressed homeowners, and he asked me what I felt was the best one. My answer was send them both and see what works the best. Send one postcard to 500 people, and send the second postcard to another set of 500. Whichever gets a better response emerges as the winner.

The first elemental step is to ask a homeowner how they heard of you. Pretty simple question that is neglected so many times. How can you gauge the effectiveness of a marketing campaign until you ask a warm lead (someone that contacted you) where they learned of your services?

Perhaps your campaign to distressed homeowners is working. How would you know unless you ask sellers how they heard of you? By methodically tracking results of your marketing, you can optimize your campaign based on your learning.

Here are some practical steps you can take now:

Ask every prospect how they heard of you.

Put a marketing code on every mail piece, and ask the prospect what that code is. Put this code on a spreadsheet or a piece of paper.

Create a unique landing page that corresponds to different marketing pieces. For example, Ad 1 directs homeowners to yoursite.com/foreclosurehelp and Ad 2 directs homeowners to your side.com/alternativestoforeclosure.

Attach different phone numbers to different marketing pieces. So if you have five different mailing pieces, get five different phone numbers, and measure which gets the most calls. There are inexpensive online services that enable you to take out several phone numbers. My favorite is www.tossabledigits.com, which can provide multiple local phone numbers that get forwarded to your cell phone or any other number you designate. You can then go online and see how many calls were made to each number.

Marketing shouldn’t be a crapshoot, but a science.

At www.CDLData.com, we provide early, accurate and exclusive pre foreclosure data to real professionals.

Would you call up a stranger and ask them if they have a drinking problem?

Would you call up a stranger and ask them if they have a drinking problem? Probably not.

On a national average, 10-20% of our pre foreclosure records have phone numbers compliant with the do not call regulations. In some locales, it’s much lower.

The reality is landlines are becoming increasingly obsolete as more and more people – especially younger people – use mobile devices. The overwhelming majority of those families that actually have a house phone are on the Do Not Call List. Of those that have a DNC compliant phone number, many of them are just bored people that like talking to sales people!

While the phone can be a good follow up device, I don’t think that the telephone should be used by itself as a stand alone marketing vehicle – our pre foreclosure list shouldn’t be a purely telemarketing list to be dumped into a dialer. At best, homeowners that have missed a mortgage payment are probably too embarrassed to admit that there is a problem over the phone to a stranger that they know nothing about. At worst, they might think that you are a vulture looking to swoop down and profit from their misery.

Would an alcoholic admit that they have a drinking problem to someone that calls them up out of the blue? It’s probably the quickest way to get the phone slammed in your ear. Call up a stranger and ask them if they are late on their payments and you will get a predictable response, I
guarantee it.

I’m not saying that there is no value to calling homeowners that need your help. I’m just saying that it is most effective when used in parallel with other marketing vehicles such as direct mail and e-mail.

Having introduced yourself through other offline and/or online media, you have more of a license to call a troubled homeowner to offer your help.

“Hello, Mrs. Smith?…”
“Yes, this is Mrs. Smith… who are you?”
“I’m Randy Jones… I sent you a letter last week…”
“Oh, yea, I got your letter in the mail…”

Since the distressed homeowner knows you, or at least knows of you, they are more receptive to talk to you over the phone.

In my view, the phone can be a great follow up device to warm a lead after your initial presentation, be it a post card, a free report, a knock on the door, or a fortune cookie that says “Save your home. Call me.” In my view, you should only call a distressed borrower after they are familiar with you. Familiarity builds credibility, and in turn builds trust.

Only when they trust you – or at minimum know of you – will they admit there is a problem. Marketing has never meant to be and never will be a one-step process such as picking up the phone and blowing through phone numbers.

Telling distressed homeowners they can stop annoying collection calls

Marketing to distressed homeowners is a process. The reality is, many homeowners do not want to part with their most prized possession – their home. At least not yet. At least not with one marketing piece.

In earlier posts, I wrote about calls to action, which is what you want the homeowner to do NEXT. “Pick up the phone to schedule a personal consultation” is one obvious call to action, but let’s face it – many of these defaulting homeowners are gun shy and may not immediately warm up to a stranger.

Try experimenting with different calls to action. For example, one call to action might be, “Call me” or “Visit my website” for a free report on “how to stop annoying collection calls using the Fair Debt Collections Reporting Act.”

If there is a hardship, these homeowners are likely getting hounded by bill collectors. Many that would otherwise not pick up the phone to short sale their home, would reach out to you to learn how to stop annoying collection calls. You are adding something of value – they can have a peaceful evening without interruptions. This call to action – reduce the calls from bill collectors – is a much lower risk than “let me sell your house.”

Once they make contact with you, in this case to learn how to stop the nonstop collection calls without unplugging the phone, you have the opportunity to nurture the lead along towards a completed transaction. Remember, before you can sell their home, they have to first agree to work with you. In order for them to agree to work with you, you must first have a dialogue. Make it easy for them to enter into this dialog… don’t ask for too much at first. Take baby steps.

Just ask yourself what you would do if you were in a bind and were about to lose your home… what would be the easiest call to action?

1) Call for a private and confidential consultation;
2) Call me to sell your home;
3) Call or e-mail for your free report on how to stop harassing collection calls.

Hands down, I pick number 3. Do you agree?

Now, once they respond, you have their attention, and the opportunity to build trust and rapport.

Do the do not call regulations have any teeth?

In an earlier post, I said that the availability of phone numbers is limited because of the staggering number of families on the Do Not Call List.

We include phone numbers when available, only if they are scrubbed against the do not call regulations. We cannot obtain a phone number from the credit bureau unless it is ok to call at that point of time (keep in mind, some phone numbers that are not on the do not call list today can be added to the do not call list in 30 days – a SANS number is required to cross check your database of phone numbers with an updated Do Not Call List).

Yet we encounter many clients that look the phone numbers up anyway, without regard to the Do Not Call List. One client even hires a computer wonk to take our list of defaulting homeowners and somehow gets the phone numbers automatically by comparing it to an internet yellow page directory (don’t ask me how to do it).

Among many clients, the sentiment seems to be, “I’m not really selling anything”, and so they think they are impervious to the do not call regulations.

Says one mortgage broker we work with in Southern California, “I don’t care about the do not call list. I’m not selling them a magazine subscription. If it wasn’t for me, they would be kicked out out
to the curb. I save their home.”

Another client memorably stated, “If they are heading for foreclosure, they are in a big mess. They have more to worry about than suing me for calling them.”

Points well taken, but it’s a slippery slope, and certainly we cannot advocate looking up phone numbers if they are on the do not call registry. There are potential consequences to calling homeowners that have explicitly banned telemarketing calls. For more information on these regulations, visit www.donotcall.gov.

How colors can influence your direct mail campaign to distressed homeowners

If you are using direct mail, the fashion police won’t come looking for you if don’t choose the right color for your next mail out. But your clients may not either.

Colors aren’t as clear cut as words, but there is a meaning for most. Although it’s not an exact science, Cynthia Cornell, a color researcher with Color Communications Inc, says hues can influence the outcome of a direct mail campaign. It’s important, then, to be conscious of the message you want to convey to the recipients of your mail piece. It’s no coincidence that Campbell’s soup has used the same four colors on their labels year after year after year.

I’ve seen a lot of people using the color blue when marketing to distressed homeowners, because it conveys calm, trust and dignity. A majority of people will report blue as their favorite color. Much of the world is blue – blue skies, blue seas. Seeing this color, in fact, produces a chemical that is calming, but that’s not true with all shades of blue. Some shades has the tendency of conveying a cold, uncaring message. Why are so many bedrooms blue? Because it’s a calm, resting color. Why are so many uniforms blue? Because over time, blue has been associated with steadfastness, dependability, wisdom and loyalty. People tend to be more productive in a blue room because they are calm and focused on the task at hand. In fact, nearly all sports are enhanced in blue surroundings.

I’ve also seen black when mailing out to distressed homeowners because it invokes strong emotions. Black conveys seriousness, power, stability and strength and the ability for high contrasts. It has the ability to create drama, as captured by this postcard that depicts a troubled
girl:

At www.CDLData.com, we provide early, accurate and exclusive pre foreclosure data for real estate professionals. To bounce some ideas around and get a count of distressed homeowners in your area, call 866-377-4599.

What can a REALTOR or investor learn from the diamond industry?

The diamond industry are masterful marketers. Think about it. Who would spend thousands of dollars on a little rock that comes from the earth, and a rock that is actually pretty abundant?

The answer is no one. The answer lies not in the gemological properties of the rock, but what that rock conveys.

What would be a better way to sell diamonds?

“This ring features a 1.4 carat, pear-shaped cut white diamond with a SI1 clarity grade and an H color rating.” Unless your a gemologist, this ad is pure gibberish. Compare that ad to this:

“Imagine that special evening when you gently slide this on your finger and stare intensely into her eyes. She peers at this symbol of your devotion, the promise of your future together, and tears begin to glisten. An adoring smile spreads across her face, and at that moment your love is sealed forever.” Which is a better way to sell diamonds?

Benefits are the language of emotion. Features are the language of logic. As world renowned sales trainer Zig Ziglar explains, “People buy on emotion and justify it with logic.”

For a distressed homeowner to work with you, they must first like you and trust you and so intellectual features will not win them over.

“We’ve helped 28 clients this month avoid foreclosure” is a feature, not a benefit. “We’re a member of the Better Business Bureau” is another intellectual feature that will not compel troubled homeowners to work with you. Are you a Certified Distressed Property Expert or have another four-letter acronym that gives you special training to resolve problems with real estate loans? That’s great, but the distressed borrower won’t initially care. They will make their decision to work with you based on emotion, and justify it with your credentials later.

Some examples of benefits might be, “Get a good nights sleep for the first time in six months”…. “Move on to build better memories”…. “Relieve the uncertainty”… “Help your family”…. “Save your credit”… “Return to the normalcy of your day to day affairs”… “Stop the harassing phone calls”,
etc.

When putting your message out to distressed borrowers, it’s important to know that it’s not about you, or your realty, or even your expertise. It’s about the troubled homeowner that needs your help.

How you will help them solve their problem, make their lives better and most of all, how you will make them feel good.

When writing to distressed homeowners, include a P.S.

While other parts of your letter may be perused more thoroughly, studies show than nearly 4 our of 5 people read the P.S. first, because it’s viewed as a more intimate message. That’s right, they will read the P.S. before any other part of your mail package.

Your P.S. can be a hard or soft sell, or in the event of a mail piece to distressed homeowners, provide a sense of urgency to act now. Perhaps this is the best use of the P.S – to create a sense of urgency to act NOW. The time is ticking for a distressed homeowner, and you can avail the P.S. to remind them that time is running out. Another use of the P.S. is to send them to a website to download a free report or snippet of information. (you might consider prompting the user to enter their e-mail address to access the information, so that you have their e-mail address for repetitive messages).

You can also offer something of value in exchange for a personal consultation. For example, you promise the homeowner that if you cannot provide the most viable financial solution that is legally available, you will receive a $100 gift card. I have rarely seen these gurantees or perks in real estate, but they work well with other products and services. Am I alone here in suggesting that?

You can also repeat your key benefits in the P.S. Help your family, move on to build better memories, save your credit, stop harassing phone calls, etc. I’ve wrote at length in earlier posts
about articulating these benefits.

Avail the P.S. as a powerful, eyeball gripping tool to resonate with the reader.

P.S. Your letter needs to be opened before it is read. Consider handwriting the address to guarantee it is opened!

At www.CDLData.com, we provide early, accurate and exclusive pre foreclosure data for real estate professionals. Be the first to reach homeowners at the first sign of hardship, before an NOD or Lis Pendens is filed.

Are you measuring the effectiveness of your social media?

By definition, if you are reading this, you are engaged in social media. Yet according tostatistics by Mashable, the social media guide, 84% of professionals do not track the return on investment of their social media efforts.

In other posts, I stressed the importance of measuring ROI of your online and offline marketing campaigns using specific metrics and tools. In light of this staggering statistic – the overwhelming majority of people do not track their social media efforts – it begs the question of whether you can take a methodical approach to measuring the ROI of social media.

This has a personal relevance to me because I landed my first sale from Twitter. As a relative newbie to Twitter, it was intriguing. Someone had re-tweeted some snippet of information I tweeted, and their associate found it interesting, called me for more information, and it led to a new account. This sparked many questions. What information did they find gripping? Should I spend more time on Twitter? What metrics indicate a successful social marketing campaign – is it new followers on Twitter, or hard and fast sales? I knew this was a topic that I needed to explore.

There are standard engagement metrics for driving visitors to your website, such as unique page views, how many pages your visitor viewed once on your page, the amount of time they spent on your site, the total time spent by each user, how often they came back, conversion, etc. ( earlier entry on using Google Analytics>

Yet how to you measure social media?

Content Consumption: Measure engagement by monitoring who is reading your content, where they are coming from and exactly what it is they are reading. What’s the most popular content on your site or blog? You can also ascertain the bounce rate – the percent of traffic that left your site after visiting a certain page.

Content Contribution: How many people are interacting with your content? This is a fast and easymetric to see how many people are exposed to your social media.

Social Bookmarking: Who is adding you as a friend, follower, subscriber?

Subscribing to feeds: You can determine how many of your readers are subscribing to your RSS feeds.

Emailing posts: How many times is your content being emailed to other people by your viewers?

Who is talking about you? Through analyzing links, you can see who is linking to your content.

Social media is not free. It demands time and inexorably, time is money. It makes sense then, to measure the effectiveness of it just as diligently as other investments.

At www.CDLData.com, we provide early, accurate and exclusive pre foreclosure data for real estate professionals. Be the first to reach homeowners at the first sign of hardship, before an NOD or Lis Pendens is filed.

Telling distressed homeowners what to do NEXT

When marketing to homeowners in pre foreclosure, you should stress the magnitude of what they are about to experience if they do not join you arm and arm.

Once the gravity of the situation is established, what should a troubled homeowner do next? The most likely call to action would be “call me to talk about the alternatives available” or “call me for a free consultation”, etc.

Yet I am of the view that many prospects need to be nurtured or “warmed” first, before they pick up the phone to call. This is even more true with homeowners that have defaulted on their mortgage payment, because they are at their wit’s end and feel vulnerable. They view you as a stranger and possibly a vulture looking to swoop down and profit from their misery. An adept investor will overcome this natural distrust by educating these homeowners on the alternatives available and become a personal advisor and coach with their best interest in mind.

So rather than “pick up the phone and call me” for a response mechanism or a call to action, how about something along these lines –

“Call or write for a free report on your credit reporting rights” or
“Call or write for a checklist of steps you can do if you are receive a certified letter from your lender” or
“Visit our website to learn more about new legislation”, etc…. the possibilities are left only to your imagination.

The concept is to nurture, inform, and educate a troubled homeowner before going in for the close.

Remember, before a homeowner in pre foreclosure can work with you, they have to TRUST you.

By providing some sort of white paper or snippet of information, you are doing 2 things.

1) You are asking a troubled homeowner to do something non-threatening by becoming better informed. There is little perceived risk with downloading a free report or checklist, etc.

2) You are building rapport and trust by educating the homeowners and conveying that you have their best interest in mind.

At CDLData.com, we provide early, accurate and exclusive pre foreclosure data on distressed homeowners before their hardship reaches any public file.

We’re often asked if our pre-public record list contains e-mail addresses of distressed homeowners. Although the answer unfortunately is no, there is a way to obtain their e-mail address.

Since our data is obtained through a “soft” credit inquiry when the lender reports a defaulted mortgage payment to one of the three credit bureaus, there is no opt in device for the borrower to volunteer their e-mail address. Yet you can prompt those defaulting homeowners for their e-mail address by sending them to a landing page and require them to submit an e-mail address before they download or view your free report, video, or other snippet of information.

In other words, you can offer the distressed homeowner something of value, in exchange for their e-mail address. By teasing the homeowner and piquing their interest by offering a free report, you can capture their e-mail address with a form as a condition to access the promised information.

Which credit bureau is the best to pull data from?

We’re often asked which of the three credit bureaus we get our data from. We can access from all three, but your choice of vendors will depend on which outputs are needed in your list of homeowners 30, 60, 90, or 120 days late on their mortgage payments.

For example, do you want to distinguish between FHA and VA loans? If so, only Equifax provides this filter. However, do you provide reverse mortgages and need the age of the homeowner? In that case, we would have to draw the data from Experian.

There are some other anomalies between vendors. To build a custom list that makes sense given your unique goals and niche audience, e-mail us at info@CDLData.com or call us at 866-377-4599.

The marketing secret every child knows

People respond to repetition. If you are a parent, you know how hard it is to refuse repeated requests for an ice cream or a desperately wanted toy.

If you are not a parent, you probably remember asking, even begging for a toy, a treat or permission to stay up past your bedtime, until your parents finally gave in.

Your prospects – homeowners that are 30, 60 or 90 days late on their mortgage payment – are similar. They may need to be asked repeatedly, too. The reality is marketing has never meant to be and will never be a one-time shot. It may take more multiple “touches” to create the trust and rapport necessary for a homeowner to work with you. It’s a well established rule of marketing that any communication is most effective when it is repeatedly brought to the attention of your target market.

Armed with an exclusive list of borrowers in pre foreclosure that recently missed a loan payment, you can send one message out and get a response. One transaction will pay for the cost of your campaign and put a lot of money in your pocket. Yet the best results come from using your database for repetitive marketing.

This principle of repetition is especially true when contacting distressed borrowers because many homeowners in preforeclosure are in denial, or may not warm immediately to a stranger. It’s worth repeating that homeowners must trust you first, before they give you permission to work with their lender. Familiarity builds credibility, which in turn builds trust. Your initial message should stress the magnitude of what will happen if the homeowner chooses to do nothing. Each subsequent message should escalate in tone and urgency.

We’re often asked what the best marketing vehicle is to generate a response. Is it a post card, a phone call, a letter, a knock on the door, or is it best to drive them to a website? The answer is all of the above. There is no silver bullet. Rather, it is constant exposure to your service that is the biggest determinant of success.

The more touch points you set up with distressed borrowers, the easier it will be for them to contact you and trust you. If you are persistent, you will have a smile on your face just like the kid with a belly full of ice cream that he/she convinced mom to buy.

For more insight into marketing to distressed homeowners, visit us at www.CDLData.com, call us at 866-377-4599, or e-mail us at info@CDLData.com.

Making an emotional connection with distressed homeowners

Adept investors that can empathize with a homeowner’s hardship and help them through this difficult period in their life will undoubtedly be successful. To make this connection, focusing on the emotional benefits of your service is more important than features.

A distressed borrower that is falling behind on their mortgage payment feels vulnerable. While they are eager for options and hope, they may be leery of a stranger and potentially, a vulture looking to swoop down and profit from their misery. How do you overcome this distrust? The answer is to appeal to the homeowners emotion, not their intellect.

Emotions are the gateway for a distressed homeowner to make a decision to work with you. World renowned sales trainer Zig Ziglar explains, “People usually buy on emotion and then justify it with logic.” Sure, a short sale carries less consequences than a foreclosure, but this is an intellectual feature, and does not speak to their emotion.

Benefits are the language of emotion. Features are the language of logic. Even people who insist they make logical decisions based on features do so because that’s what makes them feel better. All benefits are emotional.

What would be a better way to sell diamonds? “This ring features a 1.4 carat, pear-shaped cut white diamond with a SI1 clarity grade and an H color rating.” Unless you’re a gemologist, this ad is gibberish.

Here is what might sell diamonds better: “Imagine that special evening when you gently slip this on her finger and stare intensely into their eyes. She peers at this symbol of your devotion, the promise of your future together, and tears begin to glisten. An adoring smile spreads across her face, and at that moment your love is sealed forever.”

The upside down or late paying homeowner has only one question to be answered, “What’s In It For Me?”. It’s not about you, or your realty, or even your expertise. It’s about them – the distressed homeowners that need your help. How will you help them solve their problem, make their lives better and most of all, how will you make them feel good?

Some examples of benefits might be…. Move on to build better memories… Get a good night’s sleep for the first time in six months… Return to you normal, day-to-day affairs… Stop the harassing phone calls…. Save your credit… Help your family… Relieve the uncertainty…

“We’ve helped 28 clients this month avoid foreclosure” is a feature, not a benefit. “We’re a member of the Better Business Bureau” is another intellectual feature that will not build emotional rapport. If you’re a Certified Distressed Property Expert or have another four-letter acronym that gives you special training to resolve hardship situations, this is another feature that will not provide tangible benefits to the homeowner. Credentials are fine, but the distressed borrower will justify their decision to work with you on emotion first, and come back to your credentials later.

Advertising in a recession and a lesson in history

There’s been a lot of realtors that have fallen on tough times like everyone else. Many of them haven’t survived this climate, while others have thrived.

When people tell me that they are waiting for commission checks and deals to close and they cannot afford marketing, my response is “you can’t afford NOT to market your realty.” If you want to grow, you need to get your message out. It’s like gas in your car – without it, it won’t run.

In fact, I think it is even more imperative during recessionary periods to promote your business than in the good times. This is because with fewer dollars to go around, prospects are more selective in who they do business with. Advertising in a recession pays more dividends because you can separate your real estate business from the rest of the pack.

We can learn from history.

Not everyone went under during the depression. David Chase wrote a brilliant article about economic history during the depression, and how some businesses accelled. He cited three corporations that are still here today because they chose to amp up their marketing budget during this devestating time, while others cut back and fell into the ash heeps of failed businesses. For example,

Procter & Gamble: To this day, P&G embraces the philosophy of not reducing advertising budgets during times of recession.
Chevrolet: During the 1920s, Fords were outselling Chevrolets by 10 to 1.
Camel Cigarettes: In 1920, Camel was the top-selling tobacco products

The companies above had products across the spectrum from essential consumables to deferrable purchases to non-essential products. ”Procter and Gamble represents essential consumables, Chevrolet represents deferrable purchases, and Camel represents non-essential products. As you can see, the so-called hierarchy of necessity and want was sidestepped by those who had the marketing chutzpah to ignore such distinctions,” Chase wrote.These companies were in for the long-haul and they took marketing actions to ensure longevity. Today, they are alive and well.

American Business Media states that history has shown that businesses that have steadily continued or increased their advertising efforts during times of economic hardship experienced an overall spike in growth, at the expense of their competition.

What to say about direct mail? Is it here to say, or will it fall to the wayside as social media becomes more and more popular? Direct mail is here to stay. One thing you can say about direct mail is that it is measurable. David Chase put the nail on the head when he pointed out that when budget cuts are hacked, the advertising media with the least ability to measure ROI will lose revenue to measurable marketing channels.

In fact, Invest Bank Cowen and Company found in their research that spending on direct mail actually grew during all of the recessions since 1950.

During tought times, will you survive?… or will your realty thrive?

At CDL Data, we provide early, accurate and exclusive pre foreclosure data to real estate
professionals.

Good real estate marketing has clear call to action – it tells the prospect what to do next and creates the sense of urgency to act NOW. This can be pick up the phone, fill out a response card, go to a website, etc. While the call to action is often overlooked, it is critical because the only objective to your marketing is to get someone to respond, period. In this post, I’ll focus on marketing to distressed homeowners, although these principles can be applied to other audiences,
be it a prospective homeowner, a FSBO, expired listing, etc.

The most desirable result of your marketing to distressed homeowners would be the homeowner calls you to list their home, but we all know it’s not that easy! There may be people that want to pick up the phone to call and but they are just not quite ready yet. They are on the emotional roller-coaster of shame, embarrassment and panic, and they don’t want to warm up immediately to a stranger, especially when the entire media has been telling them that if someone offers foreclosure avoidance help, it’s probably a scam or a vulture looking to swoop in and profit from their misery.

To overcome this mistrust, experiment with some different calls to action. “Pick up the phone and call me” will not work with a great number of leery homeowners that don’t want to divulge their problems, much less to someone they don’t know from a can of paint. However, those homeowners that would not ordinarily pick up the phone might respond to getting a free report. Some possible report titles:

• A checklist of steps you can do when you receive a certified letter from your lender…
• Five things you should never do if you fall behind on your mortgage…
• How to stop annoying collection calls using the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act…
• Etc

At this point the homeowner isn’t thinking, “I want to list my home with this agent”. They are merely thinking, “I just lost my job and am falling behind on my house payment – I don’t want to make those five mistakes”, or they are thinking, “I am bombarded with calls from collectors, it would be great to have some piece and quiet”. Now, the conversation begins.

Are you keeping a finger on how many distressed homeowners that visit your foreclosure prevention site are converting to leads?

A subscriber to our pre-foreclosure data has seen an uptick in traffic to his landing page after mailing to distressed homeowners, but wanted a higher percentage of those visitors to actually convert to leads that pick up the phone to call for a consultation, or at minimum fill out a form with their contact information. It’s not enough to drive eyeballs to a website where homeowners can learn about their alternatives to foreclosure. Once there, they have to experience an emotional connection and be galvanized to continue the conversation. I knew this was a topic that had to be studied, so I took some time to visit several dozen sites over the course of several hours, including the examples of competitors that offer turnkey solutions to short sale agents. From this exercise, I’ve gleaned four questions to ask when optimizing web pages made for distressed homeowners.

Are those homeowners clear on what to do NEXT? Are they guided along in a sequential process which tells them specifically what you want them to do?

Some sites are cluttered with calls to action. Download this ebook. Visit a site on HAFA. Click to find out what a short sale is. Contact me. And so forth. There’s a saying in marketing that if you give prospects too much to choose from, they are crippled into complete inaction. I believe that distressed homeowners need to be “spoon fed” and not be enticed to click on too many things.

What are one or two courses of action you want the homeowner to take while on your page? Is it to find out what the first 3 steps they can take right now to take back control of their life? Or is it a free report? You can make these elements bigger, bolder, surround it by white space, and use varying color to bring attention to them. » Read an article about the best practices of calls to action. It is better, in my view, to have one or two clear calls to action that stand out, than to have a page sprinkled with 10 calls to action. The homeowner should not be overwhelmed or confused.

Are there links on your page that don’t apply to distressed homeowners?

I’ve seen some sites that have links to tips on buying a home, how to buy a short sale, searching the MLS, and other links to resources that do not apply whatsoever to homeowners that are in distress. It’s important to have a one on one, “heart to heart” conversation with struggling homeowners by having pages that speak directly to their needs. There are other resources you may have that belong on your general home page and should not be included on a foreclosure help site.

Are you providing too much information without anything in return?

You don’t want the homeowner to go to your page, become educated on avoiding foreclosure, then leave your site. You may have a wealth of information that the visitor finds helpful, but it’s all for naught if the distressed homeowner gets the information, says, “gee, that was helpful” and never makes contact with you. You do not want the homeowner to close themselves – you are the real estate expert, not them. By providing too much information, you run the risk that the homeowner comes to their own conclusions and not consult you. The remedy? Provide smaller bits of information and prompt the homeowner to fill out a form to access more information. Once you have their contact info, you can overwhelm them with information all you want. The key is to provide a “teaser” and offer more information, in exchange for their phone number or at least their e-mail address so that you can get back in touch and continue the dialogue your page started. This is the first rule of negotiation – a give and take which says, “I’ll give you X in return for Y”.

Here’s a couple applications of this. Let’s say you have a page that outlines the many options to foreclosure, be it a loan modification, deed in lieu, forbearance, short sale, etc. Rather than getting too detailed on what these options are, you can provide a brief explanation on your page that provides a general definition. In order to learn more and get a full discussion on what the advantages and disadvantages are with each option, they can fill out a form to download the full pdf report. Or, in the paragraph which explains loan modification, you can throw in a link, “Has your loan modification been denied? Now what? Download this free report on what to do next”….

Let’s say you have a report entitled, “Five mistakes you should never make if you fall behind on your mortgage payment”. You can entice the homeowner to fill out a form to get the entire report, or you can be more creative by spelling out the first four mistakes the homeowner should avoid. Having piqued their curiosity, you can hook them by stopping at the fourth mistake and say, “What’s stake you can’t make?” You guessed it, they have to fill out a form to have that fifth mistake e-mailed to them.

By having multiple devices to capture the homeowner’s contact information, you ensure that the homeowner doesn’t close themselves or dissipate into never never land.

Are your forms asking distressed homeowners for too much information?

I’ve seen forms that prompt the homeowner to volunteer entirely too much detail into their situation. They ask for the percentage of equity, monthly income, purchase date, what they paid for the home, how many loans they have, how far behind they are, what cereal they eat for breakfast, if they golf right or left handed. Many homeowners are gun shy and they will not share such personal information with you. Besides that, they have short attention spans and if you ask them to do much, they will hit the back button.

Get your free checklist on optimizing your pages for distressed homeowners.

At Homestead Data, we practice what we preach…. I can offer additional tips on creating pages that make an impact on distressed homeowners, but almost as if to show these principles in action, you can get the all-inclusive checklist by going to http://www.CDLData.com. This report can serve as a springboard of ideas when creating and revamping landing pages that increase your web traffic among struggling homeowners that need your help.

For experience driven advice and a free critique of your pages, you can also call us at 1-866-377-4599.

Till next time, A-B-C… always be closing.

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