Industry players are turning high-tech – from blogging to Tweeting – to drum up leads, but one shrewd broker is now turning to the oldest of old-school approaches to drum up that business.
Industry players are turning high-tech – from blogging to Tweeting – to drum up leads, but one shrewd broker is now turning to the oldest of old-school approaches to drum up that business.
“We get out there (with) old fashioned advertising – talking to people on the streets and following up with potential clients,” Andrew Ffrench of MorCan Direct told MortgageBrokerNews.ca. “That’s basically how we’ve built our business; we’ve recently branched out to Internet and radio, but it started out with word-of-mouth advertising.”
Ffrench can be seen on the streets of downtown Toronto with a branded table and easel board displaying his brokerage’s latest rates. And passersby aren’t afraid to stop by for a chat about mortgages.
“We basically do it as often as possible, weather permitted,” Ffrench said. “We get a lot of attention, get a lot of questions about rates, options, where rates are going, (and they ask if) now is a good time to invest or break my mortgage.”
The brainchild of Ffrench’s boss, Marcus Tzaferis, the simple campaign is a way to connect with Torontonians and instill confidence in those who may have otherwise thought homeownership impossible.
“We’ve given away Freezies and coffee (and) we also set up a mortgage prescription – we’re able to give someone an idea of what they can qualify for by getting some minor information from them, such as income,” Ffrench said. “We can give them a rough idea as to what kind of mortgage they can qualify for. It gets people, who may have never though they can buy, thinking about it.”
The displays are often set up on highly-populated streets in Toronto’s bustling business districts, which provide ample opportunity for Ffrench to attract potential clients.
“It’s more or less a conversation piece; they see our display and easel boards with our rates on it,” he said. “I don’t see any other brokers doing it, so we’re pioneering it.”
