A Sydney-based chiropractor is helping mortgage brokers fight back against the big advertising dollars of the big banks.
Dr Steven Lockstone, founder of chiropractic network HealthPros, has launched a crowd-funded marketing campaign for mortgage brokers, which allows brokers to pool their resources to run a national marketing campaign.
“I thought about it like this: you can buy shares in a company or shares in a boat; why not buy shares in an advertising campaign?” Dr Lockstone told Australian Broker.
The initiative works like this: there are 100 equal shares in the marketing campaign which will cost a broker $1,500 a month for three months – which Lockstone said is much more cost effective than an AdWords campaign which can cost up to $55 per click, or a one-off local newspaper advertisement which could cost up to $2,000.
The more “shares” a broker buyers in the campaign, the more kick-back from the campaign the broker will receive. For example, if a broker purchases 20% of the shares in the campaign, then visitors will land on their website 20% of the time.
Lockstone said it will also appear to the consumer that the individual broker is the one running the campaign. He explained that prospective clients who respond to the advertising will be sent directly to the broker’s own website, rather than an external landing page, so it will look as if they are running the advertising campaign themselves.
He told Australian Broker he is offering this to mortgage brokers after a successful campaign in the chiropractic industry – which battles the same “David and Goliath” story.
“I was frustrated as a chiropractor with the inability of individual chiropractors to compete against the pharmaceutical companies for patients with back pain.
“I put together a network of chiropractors and we ran a campaign in September last year. We got 130 chiropractors across Australia together and we ran a national marketing campaign for a month.
“We were running display adverts online across the News Corp network and we managed to get the Australian Medical Association complaining that chiropractors are now advertising in mainstream media.”
Due to its success, he said he is about the launch part two of the campaign for chiropractors, which will involve an extensive PR push.
“It will involve reaching out to the media to push articles about the benefits of chiropractic and get as much exposure and media as possible,” he told Australian Broker. He will do the same with mortgage brokers if part one of the campaign – the digital advertising – goes well.
“My intention [with mortgage brokers] is to run a three-month campaign and if we get a successful outcome then there will be an on-going nine-month campaign on the back of it. It will start in Sydney Metro and then we will expand it out into other states,” he said.
“We chose mortgage broking because the principal it is based on is the story of David and Goliath – the big guys versus the little guys. I see a real trend in Australia with the big bad banks versus the little guys.
“The majority of mortgage brokers are independent and non-affiliated, so I thought that if an independent mortgage broker could have a voice and have access to the public, then everybody else can access the service and relationship that individual mortgage brokers have with their clients that creates them business,” he said.
The campaign is titled ReduceTheMortgage.com.au.
