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Marketing Pulse Sep 5

Two dates are coming — write the message before they land

August CPI lands Friday the 11th and the Fed meets the 15th and 16th with a dot plot attached; the originators who win those mornings drafted their message the week before.

Saturday, September 5, 2026 30Y 6.84%15Y 6.22%5/1 ARM 6.53%

You know exactly when the next two market-moving moments are, which is rarer than it sounds and almost nobody markets against it. August CPI publishes Friday, September 11 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. The FOMC convenes September 15 and 16, and that meeting carries a Summary of Economic Projections — the dot plot — which makes it the one that resets expectations past October. The standard pattern is that an originator reads the number, thinks about it, and sends something on Monday. By then the borrower has already seen three push notifications and formed an opinion without you. The entire advantage here is drafting both versions of your message this weekend, while nothing is happening, so that on Friday you are choosing between two finished drafts rather than writing from scratch.

The rate backdrop makes the honest version the more valuable of the two. Bankrate's 30-year is at 6.84% this morning, the top of both its 30-day range of 6.67 to 6.84 and its 90-day range of 6.47 to 6.84 — up five basis points on the week and two on the month. That is the highest it has been in three months, and it means a large share of the people you quoted in June were quoted a better number than you can offer them today. Two segments follow directly. Borrowers already carrying 7.25% or higher are genuinely better off now — roughly $111 a month on a $400,000 balance, and more as their rate climbs from there. And the summer pre-approvals still sitting in your pipeline need to hear that the number moved against them, from you, before they discover it themselves and quietly conclude you were not paying attention.

The tactical move is to write the two drafts as a matched pair and keep them in the same file. Version A is for a cooling print: short, specific, no victory lap, one number and one question. Version B is for a hot print or a hawkish dot plot: even shorter, and its whole job is to be the first honest message the borrower gets that day, which is what buys you the conversation. Both end with the same ask — reply with your timeline. Then set a calendar block for 8:45 a.m. Eastern on Friday the 11th and a second for 2:15 p.m. on Wednesday the 16th, fifteen minutes after the statement, and treat those blocks as appointments rather than intentions.

Do this today

write Version A and Version B, send them to yourself, and put both calendar blocks on the books before Monday — the drafting is the work, and doing it while the market is closed is the only time it is free.

Borrower segments to act on today

Closed loans at 7.25% or higher, where the gap is already real

At 6.84% today, a borrower carrying 7.25% is about $111 a month better off on a $400,000 balance, and the gap widens quickly above that. This is the one segment for whom the current level is genuinely good news, so it is the segment that can absorb a message on a day the print goes against everyone else.

closed loans · rate ≥7.25%
Summer pre-approvals that never went to contract

These borrowers were quoted at or near the 90-day low in June and July and have not heard from you since the market moved five basis points higher on the week. The value here is not a new sale, it is being the person who told them first — a borrower who learns their number got worse from a rate app rarely comes back to the originator who stayed quiet.

active loans · 1–3mo since close · purchases

Today’s content angles

Email

The pre-written print-morning message, drafted before the number lands

Draft this now and send it Friday morning, filling in one blank: "Hi {client} — the inflation report came out this morning and I have already run what it means for your file. Right now a $400,000 loan is about $2,618 a month in principal and interest. [Your number went up slightly / Your number held steady.] Nothing about this changes what you should do on its own, but you should hear it from me the same day rather than next week. What is your timeline looking like? I will send a written breakdown with all costs today." Send it individually, not as a blast.

Tactics worth stealing

Deliver the update that went the wrong way yourself

Re-engagement copy is usually written for good news, which is why most pipelines go silent exactly when rates rise. The originator who sends the unflattering number first is the one who still owns the relationship when the number improves. Keep it to two sentences and one question, name the actual dollar figure rather than a direction, and never pair it with a pitch — the message is the credibility, and the pitch is what you earn with it.

Bankrate 30-year survey, September 5, 2026: 6.84%, the top of its 90-day range of 6.47 to 6.84
Pre-Write Your CPI-Day Message Before the Sept 11 Print