Jason Frazier’s Five Tips for Marketing Your Mortgage Brand

If you’re a loan officer, the last thing Jason Frazier wants you to do is ask, “Anyone need a loan?”

Which is odd, considering he’s the CIO of Mason McDuffie Mortgage (MMCD), a company that is in the mortgage business. So you’d think driving mortgage sales would be top priority. Well, you’d need to think again.

“We think like a media company that happens to sell mortgages,” he said. Which is why one of Jason’s most ground-breaking creations at the company is the Concierge Marketing Program. It really started as mere wishful thinking, when his CEO wondered aloud if Jason could create a blueprint for all loan officers (LOs) to use social media and content marketing.

Today, the Concierge Marketing Program includes social profiles, content marketing and integrated CRM. But Jason and his team won’t just deliver all this to anybody and hope for the best. They want to know the LOs will make use of it.

“We invest in those who invest in themselves,” he explained. Formalizing the program made social media an easier sell to LOs, who’d shown heroic resistance to using Facebook,Twitter, Snapchat or Instagram for a mortgage business.

Jason has also done the same thing for real estate agents, and as a guy whose social handle is @RealEstateCIO, he knows of what he speaks. Mason McDuffie has an Agent Education Program, which helps agents put everything they learn at conferences into practice with robust social media strategies.

“We try to have them start slow and get comfortable,” Jason said. “For someone not on social, we start them on Facebook and then go from there. We get cover art created, get their channel set up and be a resource to help them with branding and marketing so they stand out.”

Considering Jason has worked with both real estate and mortgage companies, we had to ask: how do loan officers compare to real estate agents?

In my experience, real estate agents are more like entrepreneurs than loan officers, Jason noted. While mortgage pros are more likely to be in the office, real estate agents always seem to be on the move. And he’d like to see one learn from the other. “I tell LOs to act like agents,” he said. “Be a hunter — go out there!”

So getting back to our first point — if mortgage lenders don’t ask about loans, what should they be doing to market themselves? Luckily, Jason has some a plan.

Jason’s Five Point Plan for Loan Officers (and Real Estate Agents)

Stop thinking about ROI. Marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. Don’t look for instant success with any one tactic. Have patience, try everything, and give it time.
Be your own customer. Think about messages you respond to yourself. Too often loan officers forget that we’re all consumers.
Be where your enemy is not. This is based on The Art of War by Sun Tzu, but it applies to social. Right now, not a lot of mortgage companies are in the social space. Seize the opportunity to grab attention!
Give, give, give then ask. Based off of Gary Vaynerchuk’s Book, Jab Jab Jab, Right Hook. Add value above all else. Share your knowledge. Establish yourself as a trusted resource before asking people to trust you.
Focus on the relationship. Don’t think of your clients as leads. These are people and you are helping them with one of the largest financial transactions they’ll experience. Take the opportunity to connect with the emotions of the transaction and create a lifelong relationship!

These tenets are really universal, applicable to real estate, mortgage, insurance… whatever your vertical is. And chances are, whatever your vertical, you could learn a lot from Jason Frazier.