Summit Mortgage

Reaching the Summit of Corporate Awareness: How PAN helped build an organizational identity.

Based in Boston, Summit Mortgage LLC is one of the largest privately owned mortgage banking firms in Massachusetts, maintaining 10 offices throughout the state and closing more than $1 billion in mortgage loans annually. Summit also has a sizeable operation in Florida and provides mortgage lending services in New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, Colorado and Kentucky.

The Challenge

"PAN’s initiative and creative thinking helped us realize significant business benefits in a very short time. Their targeted media approach put Summit in front of potential consumers that we need to reach in order to grow our business in a highly competitive lending environment."

Michael Istvanko
Director of Marketing

The Massachusetts mortgage lending market is crowded and competitive, with hundreds of lenders marketing themselves as qualified players that provide products and services for the home-buying customer. Although Summit had been in the market since 1996, company officials were not satisfied with Summit’s name recognition among consumers, who tend to do business with lenders they know and trust. In September 2004, Summit officials sought out PAN’s help and expertise to assist them in building brand awareness among consumers.

The Approach

Knowing that time was of the essence, PAN moved quickly to raise Summit’s brand awareness and improve the target market’s level of trust. PAN did this by positioning top executives as thought leaders on topical subjects, including the Federal Reserve interest rate outlook and regional housing trends. Three weeks after launching the program, PAN capitalized on a Federal Reserve rate-hike announcement by conducting a blitz around the news, offering Summit experts to comment on how the move would impact mortgage rates. In October, PAN used a regional housing report as a hook and again offered Summit spokespeople to discuss regional and local trends illustrated by a new set of market data. When the Federal Reserve raised interest rates again in November, PAN again targeted regional daily and weekly papers, as well as broadcast outlets, to reach a wide-ranging audience of consumers likely to be in the market for home loans.

The Results

Within 90 days of beginning Summit’s public relations program, PAN succeeded in placing Summit on the forefront of a variety of breaking news announcements pertinent to the mortgage market, including a pair of Federal Reserve rate increases and announcements of monthly home sales data by the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. The resulting coverage—which included two placements in The Boston Globe, the first of which was a front-page story, and a two-minute report on New England Cable News—set the stage for Summit to be viewed as a top-notch mortgage outlet in the competitive marketplace. In addition, PAN secured coverage in the Boston Herald, The (Lawrence) Eagle-Tribune, the MetroWest Daily News, Banker & Tradesman, and the Worcester Business Journal. Rounding out the print coverage was a five-minute WBIX drive-time radio interview with Summit President and Founder Rick Fedele that also spoke to the firm’s ability as a direct correspondent lender with financial backing to close loans quicker than competitors classified merely as mortgage brokers.

Summit Mortgage is highlighting three pieces of the resulting coverage on its corporate website, www.summitmortgage.com, to further merchandise the third-party validation to consumers. In addition, Summit has been able to leverage this coverage in the B-to-B front arena. With much of Summit’s business coming from referral sources, the media coverage that Summit has received has solidified existing relationships and opened doors for new relationships.