Vanity 800 “Hook” Drives Business to Direct-Lending Mortgage Banker

1-800-NEW-CASH

Background: A direct-lending mortgage business is licensed to serve in NJ, CT, DE, MD, PA and CA. The company’s specialty is “difficult loans” – loans to customers who might not qualify with other lenders.

Client: Wade McGinley, Director of Advertising • South West NJ

Challenge: The mortgage business is highly competitive. The client needed a top-of-mind hook to separate itself from the competition.

Strategy: Leave people with an unforgettable number to call. “No matter how good the ad message is if you don’t leave people with a memorable number to call, they will forget about you.”

Signed up on December 31, 2002, for 1-800-NEW-CASH.

Added 888, 877, and 1-866-NEW-CASH for print advertising in October 2003.

Results: Wade McGinley, Director of Advertising, says, “I knew 1-800-NEW-CASH would give us the top-of-mind hook we were looking for.”

The first month the company had 1-800-NEW-CASH, it received 1,258 calls. It currently averages 2,600 calls a month.

McGinley says, “I remember the first month using 1-800-NEW-CASH. I didn’t know exactly what to expect for calls, but I knew it had to be better than what we were getting with the 1-877-888-6515 number. I always chuckle when I hear some of our competitors’ ads with a plain number. Who’s ever going to remember something like 1-215-444-6928? Shortly after we started running the ads that month with the new vanity number, the phones were ringing off the hook!

“We’ll get a phone call literally within minutes of the radio ad – and I attribute this more to the 1-800-NEW-CASH number than to the ad message.”

McGinley continues, “You cannot beat the online tracking. It is a no-brainer: You know exactly how many calls, and the length of the calls. I can tell what was an order and what was not. With this service everything just falls into place."

"1-800-NEW-CASH has been tremendous for our business. The number has most definitely gotten us to where we are right now."