Mortgage Blogging 101, Part 5: Setting Up Your Mortgage Blog
A Business Tip from LTB Member Mark Madsen

LTB member Mark Madsen is a loan officer and mortgage blogger from Raintree Mortgage Services in Las Vegas, NV. Since 2005, Mark has specialized in real estate Internet marketing, and has developed many high-traffic real estate and mortgage platforms.

Over the past month, Mark has shared Mortgage Blogging 101, a special 5-part business tip series to help remove some of the mystery of social media for LTB members. This week Mark offers the final tip of this valuable series: Setting up your mortgage blog! The team at LTB thanks Mark for taking the time to share his successful strategies with the entire LTB membership.

Mortgage Blogging 101, Part 5 – Setting up your mortgage blog

Before we get started, here's a quick recap of my Mortgage Blogging 101 articles:

• What is a Blog?
• Why loan officers blog
• Research tools and how to find opportunity online
• Publishing content to the web – Sharing vs. Speaking

To learn more about real estate and mortgage social media marketing, check out Domus Consulting. More details at the end of this article.

Regardless of your specific marketing agenda, time commitment, or financial position, learning how to leverage social media to expand your online reach will build perpetual equity in your personal brand and sphere of influence.

Now that you've had a chance to get familiar with the tools and strategies that I mentioned in my first 4 articles, it is time to take that next step and set up your new blog.

Here are three blog solutions that serve different purposes:

1. Strategic Search Engine Marketing / Placement

• Resource: blogs.wannanetwork.com
  Cost: Free

The Beta WannaNetwork blogging solution ("blogs built for business, not social networking") has effectively combined a high-traffic site with the power of a Word Press blogging platform for the purpose of maximizing search engine exposure.

These blogs allow you to quickly test your niche marketing campaigns, create powerful links to other web projects, and reach your target audience online.

To see an example of what Paul Dunn and I have accomplished over the past couple of months with very little work and content, go to Google and search "FHA Short Refinance".

2. Positioning yourself as a Thought Leader and providing a valuable resource center

• Resource: Bring The Blog
  Cost: $39 / Month - No Contracts

Because Bring The Blog writes daily content for you, it's like having an Associated Press for mortgage blogs. Just like the New York Times uses a wire service to complement their home-grown articles, Bring The Blog delivers professionally-written mortgage posts to make your blogs more effective and efficient. They can either stream content into your current blog, or you can use one of their pre-designed complete solutions.

This is a great service that helps you fulfill a daily commitment of providing valuable and timely info to your mortgage clients and referral partners. Getting someone to your site is one thing, but having a professional first impression is a vital part of developing new business relationships. Think about how powerful the results would be if you integrated this service into your current automated Platinum Plus CRM marketing campaigns. Click here to check out their service.

3. Centralizing your entire online marketing, client communication, and networking activities

• Resource: RealEstateTomato.com
  Cost: Custom Design

Jim Cronin, owner of RealEstateTomato.com, has been helping thousands of real estate agents develop successful blogs since 2000. With a previous background in the real estate web site industry, Jim's team can deliver the entire package. He is a featured speaker at Inman Connect and several other high profile real estate technology events.

Currently, Jim is working on a few major mortgage blog projects for me, including a massive broker blog that will give over 600 loan officer employees the ability to have a powerful online presence by leveraging the combined content of the mortgage company. The RealEstateTomato.com services also include training and education.

Need More Education?
Domus Consulting Group will be offering the next series of their well-reviewed Social Media Marketing Workshops starting this Friday, December 5. Their one hour weekly webinar is every Friday at 10:30-11:30 Pacific Time over 12 weeks (with a holiday break).

The comprehensive Social Media Marketing System gives mortgage brokers an online presence that generates leads with or without blogging. You essentially become the go-to source for breaking real estate news in your area.

The knowledge and the system itself are worth far more than the tuition fee. You can see online conversations revolving around the workshops here.

They normally charge $299 for the 12 week session, but they are offering My FHA Blog readers and authors a 50% discount. So basically, the total tuition fee is only $149 for 12 weeks, about $12/hour session. They "TIVO" the session for later viewing. In addition, they include full access to 100 step-by-step tutorials on blogging and the social media. Their past sessions have all been sellouts.

If you're interested, sign up at: http://domusconsultinggroup.com/fha to qualify for the reduced rate. You'll see more details about the curriculum and many testimonials at that landing page. I'll be participating in this course as well and hope to see you guys there.

With New Year's Resolutions around the corner, now is the time to aggressively go after market share online while the rest of the loan officers rush out of the business.

The formula remains the same – Research, Write, Promote, Share the Love...Define your purpose, and execute!

Happy blogging.

LTB hopes to team up with Mark again next quarter to check on your progress and offer tips for enhancing your blog. In the meantime, check out Mark's blogs mortgagesalesblog.com and myfhablog.com.

Credit Scoring: Your Most Powerful Client Retention Tool
An Exclusive Webinar with CRC's Linda Ferrari, author of The Big Score

Due to the extreme popularity of the first special webinar, LoanToolbox is pleased to announce a second Credit Scoring Webinar for LTB members hosted by CRC's Linda Ferrari, the author of The Big Score. In this free 1-hour webinar, Linda will reveal how credit scoring can be your most powerful client retention tool.

Credit is the most important issue facing anyone looking either to buy or refinance a home in today's tough economy. Without the right information and resources, the wrong FICO score for many potential borrowers means higher borrowing costs or, even worse, missing out on the best combination of decreased home prices and lower interest rates we've seen in years.

Topics include:

• Learn the answers to the biggest concerns facing consumers about credit right now.
• Discover how foreclosures, short sales, and loan modifications affect credit.
• Ensure that you are giving the right advice to your clients and referral partners about how to handle credit challenges that affect loan guidelines and restrictions.
• Advise your clients on how to deal with collections.
• Implement a system to let your entire database of clients, prospects, and referral partners know that you are now the go-to person for this invaluable information.
• Linda is offering a special discount for her new book, The Big Score, for all LTB members.

Register Now: Only 57 Seats Remain for this Free Webinar!

Title: Credit Scoring: Your Most Powerful Client Retention Tool
Date: Friday, December 5
Time: 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM PT

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.


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Jim McMahan Hosts This Month's Talk to the Experts

Jim McMahan from Certified Scripts for Success will host the next edition of LTB's Talk to the Experts. Considered one of the mortgage industry's leading authorities on high-trust consulting, Jim has been a loan officer in Dallas for over 20 years and, over the course of his career, has generated more than a billion dollars in closed loans.

More importantly, Jim has real answers to today's toughest financial questions and how they relate to your clients, including:

• Recession
• Inflation
• Deflation
• TALF and TARP
• Economic cycles
• Interest rate movement