In setting the communications strategy to help BridgeSpan launch its new eMortgageAxis product, Siler & Company faced two key challenges: Gain widespread media attention for the product (which as a result of its uniqueness, didn't fit nicely into an established product category) while simultaneously repositioning the company as a technology services provider in the consumer, business and trade media. The resources allocated for media relations for the launch were modest, adding to the launch's already challenging nature.

In consultation with BridgeSpan, Siler & Company decided the best strategy was to attempt to secure feature stories in key mortgage trade publications. In addition, Siler & Company proposed approaching the nation's preeminent consumer mortgage writer, Ken Harney of the Washington Post Writers' Group, about a possible story on eMortgageAxis. An article by Harney, whose syndicated stories regularly appear in nearly 100 daily newspapers besides the Post - among them the Miami Herald and the Los Angeles Times - would reach a vast audience and help lend considerable credence to the product's claims of industry-changing innovation.

The timing for securing media coverage was crucial: BridgeSpan hoped to generate a buzz about eMortgageAxis in the days leading up to the industry's premier technology trade show on March 14, 2002. Siler & Company sent an e-mail to Harney outlining the benefits of the new product and invited him to respond if he would like more information. Numerous phone calls later and a face to face meeting in Washington, D.C. between BridgeSpan Senior Vice President of Marketing Des Cahill and Harney ultimately paid off: On Saturday, March 2, an 800-word feature story by Harney ran in the Washington Post's Real Estate Section.

The story began by summarizing consumer wariness and the high level of mistrust plaguing the mortgage industry, labeling the home-loan process "needlessly mysterious and unpredictably expensive." Introducing eMortgageAxis, the story pointed out: "Some of the most powerful participants in the American home mortgage market, including the Federal National Mortgage Association, the giant investor known as Fannie Mae (are) gearing up to introduce a more consumer-friendly way of doing home loans." The remainder of the story explained how the new product works and why Fannie Mae and mortgage industry giant CitiMortgage are embracing eMortgageAxis.

Other major papers soon ran the syndicated story. It appeared in the Los Angeles Times, San Jose Mercury News, Miami Herald, Contra Costa Times, Boston Herald, Richmond Times Dispatch and dozens of others during the first week of March - a week before the industry's leading trade show. In addition, numerous mortgage-related trade publications - Real Estate Finance Today and Inside Mortgage Technology among them - wrote pieces discussing eMortgageAxis, its potential to transform the nation's home-loan process, and BridgeSpan's emerging role as a leading technology services provider.

As a result of Siler & Company's efforts, BridgeSpan:

• And eMortgageAxis received national exposure in leading consumer and trade publications
• Reaped the benefits of its story appearing in more than 100 publications with a circulation of more than 6 million readers
• Was the recipient of increased industry awareness of the product, which ultimately led to additional booth traffic at a mortgage technology trade show
• Quantified additional sales leads as a result of the successful introduction of the product