Finding the Value in Your Database
Why ask for referrals when you can be your own best referral source? There’s no doubt that database marketing is the future of lending. If you were to look at a motley bunch of people, how would you pick out the right person who’s interested in a refinance? Chances are you will spend a good chunk of your precious time looking for them or won’t even bother to do so. If you are curating your database correctly and using technology to your advantage, the opportunities are endless. Be sure to know where your database stands and that you can quickly access it.
2021 should be the year where you flip the referral script and start bringing pre-approved customers to agents. This will give you leverage with your partners and produce more referrals. In order to know when your buyers are ready to move forward and that you have a homebuying strategy tailored for each lead, there are a few things you can do:
1. Segment your database into leads, business partners, closed loans, etc.
2. Prioritize your strategy.
3. Create a true profile.
4. Have a marketing plan for each group.
5. Stay relevant and top of mind.
6. Build relationships for increased customer retention.
At Intent, we offer a range of campaigns for every moment in the customer journey your customers might find themselves in. These campaigns even include a missed opportunity campaign in case your customer decides to go a different direction. Often times, people who chose not to go with you will appreciate your reaching out and may even be a source of referrals.
We at Intent would love to help you find the value in your database. Take a minute to watch the video and get in touch with us!
Understanding LinkedIn
With over 660 million users worldwide, LinkedIn has recently been on a steady growth trail and seen record levels of engagement and job postings. Not only does LinkedIn help expand your professional network and connect you to other business-minded people who can contribute to your success, but it also increases lead generation. Adding LinkedIn to your marketing strategy is a pivotal move toward a successful business. According to a HubSpot study, the Microsoft-owned platform has performed better than Facebook or Twitter when it comes to visit-to-lead conversion rate at an impressive 2.74% compared to .69 and .77% from Twitter and Facebook, respectively.
There are a number of ways you can use LinkedIn to best advantage:
- Explore Opportunities: use advanced search resources available to find prospects
- Expand Network: send personalized connection requests to prospective customers and business partners
- Engage Connections: engage in conversation after connecting
- Establish Relationships: show interest in connections and engage with those who are active on your posts
- Expert positioning: provide value with great content that is shared consistently
If you are new to LinkedIn or haven’t given it much attention lately, you will want to update your profile with a current and professional photo, work experience, background photo, headline, summary as well as a customized URL. The URL should look something like: linkedin.com/in/yourfullname.
The profile headline, in turn, should be instantly recognizable, short and concise. By default, the headline is your current employment position; however, you can customize it to demonstrate your expertise or vision for your role. Sum up your specialty or approach succinctly and support the professional brand you’re cultivating.
For you summary, be sure to ask yourself the following questions: What do you really want readers to know about you, if they read nothing more? Professionally speaking, what’s your purpose? You can highlight your skills as well as developing aspirations.
Additionally, endorsements can enrich your profile tremendously. If you recommend someone on LinkedIn, chances are they will return the favor. By having good recommendations on your LinkedIn page, business partners and customers will be more likely to want to work with you. When recommending someone, make sure you follow this sequence:
- explain the nature of your professional relationship
- provide details of the position for which you’re recommending the person
- explain how they’ve grown at the company
- indicate how their contribution helped grow the team or company
- explain what these achievements reveal about that person
- end with a note about the personal aspect of working with him/her.
Once you have a solid profile, your next steps should be to customize your connections to grow your professional network, join and create your own LinkedIn groups, befriend everyone in your sphere, post about your closing with pictures of your happy customers, and take advantage of the blog and website links on your profile. These tips are guaranteed to help you crush it on LinkedIn!
Equifax Launches Lead Generation Tool for Mortgage Lenders
Major credit bureau Equifax has introduced a lead generation tool for the mortgage industry. Thanks to its Mortgage Lead Generation Models, Equifax can now help users predict the probability of a lead converting to a sale within the first two to six months. Equifax believes this will allow mortgage lenders to better target their mortgage marketing campaigns because lenders will have the ability to identify borrowers early in the home buying process and retain them.
Rather than relying on reactive methods to acquire and retain customers, Mortgage Lead Generation Models proactively identify and target prospects early in the mortgage journey through methods such as segmented customer marketing and the prioritization of quality leads.
Mortgage Lead Generation Models use information such as a prospective lead’s credit history, wealth assets and demographics to classify the lead as a likely new home purchase, first-time home purchase, refinance or HELOC. The system then rates the lead from 1 to 999, with leads who boast higher scores being more likely to turn into a sale. To read more about Mortgage Lead Generation Models, click here or here.”
Retention Marketing Versus Customer Acquisition
According to Harvard Business Review, it costs loan officers nearly five times as much to acquire a new customer as it does to retain a current customer. Increasing customer retention rates by 5% can increase profits by 25-95%. Keeping these points in mind, it should be easy to see that while building new business is important, nurturing current customer relationships to retain customers is equally if not more paramount.
Buyers who stay with your business over time allow you the opportunity to provide ongoing value to them. This means being able to nurture a brand advocate, and it also translates to more referrals and positive word-of-mouth marketing. These longtime customers can also introduce you to new prospective leads and business partners who have the potential to eventually become longtime customers and associates, thus repeating the cycle.
Mortgage Marketing Proven Plan of Action
Intent Home buying Marketing Intelligence creates a system to allow mortgage planners to build business and form relationships, as well as nurture existing relationships simultaneously. Intent provides a way for mortgage planners to stay in constant contact with their customers and business partners before, during and after the loan process. When the time comes for a past customer to purchase a new home or refinance their current home, Intent supplies the mortgage planner with the mortgage marketing tools needed to ensure they are top of mind for the customer.
Three Types of Data and Their Impact on Mortgage Marketing
When using data collected to target mortgage leads, it is important to understand the type of data with which you are dealing. This will ensure that your mortgage marketing is being communicated correctly. Following are the three major types of data, which involve varying sources and interactions:
First-party data – In its broadest terms, first-party data is data that has been collected by a person or company itself, usually through a direct interaction. This information can include points such as name, address, email and phone number. First-party data is generally considered to be the most accurate and reliable data type, and it is often free due to the collection method.
Second-party data – This is essentially first-party data that has been shared from one entity to another. Usually gathered from consumer interactions by the entity that later does the sharing, this type of data can make understanding audiences much easier.
Third-party data – Acquired by purchase without a direct consumer relationship, third-party data is often gathered using surveillance of web browsing and cookies and may not be verified by the consumer. Third-party data can be effective for targeting or expanding reach.
In some situations, a discrepancy will exist between first-party and third-party data. In a case where leads are generated using an opt-in and the consumer knowingly agrees to receive information from a company, that data is sometimes said to be first-party. However, due to the way this information is collected, it is technically still third-party data.
When using data to market, it is important to think about the source. The way you reach out with first-party data is going to differ from how you reach out with third-party data. When you communicate with first-party data, you have had a real interaction with a person and can speak with them as if you’ve actually met. Because third-party data is bought, you have to speak to these people with the understanding that while they may be interested in a home loan, they have not met you and do not know about your business.
All types of data have a place in mortgage marketing. The key to using them correctly is identifying your goal and understanding how the data you are acquiring is going to support your mortgage marketing strategies.
Retargeting Leads is Crucial in Mortgage Marketing
What strikes us about lead generation in the mortgage industry is not so much how it is created (though the model could use some refinement) or the follow-up (which is decidedly interesting across the board). Rather, we are struck by how far the industry is actually behind in cultivating leads from past data and re-targeting leads on sites to build brand awareness and remind them to apply for home loans.
We teach digital marketing to our customers, and one of the “scariest” things for them is typically just how much data is out there to draw from and how “weird” it feels when they see an ad on one website that features something they were scoping on another site. Simple re-targeting of leads works. Not only does it capture attention, but when done subtly and artfully — two things that are always the most important part of marketing that involves data — it can be incredibly effective.
Intent founder Kelly Yale often tells a story in training with mortgage processionals and real estate agents about two years ago when she was building her dream house, which just happened to contain her absolute dream closet. Kelly was at Target enjoying a coffee and doing a nice, slow meander down all the aisles to consider what she would need once she and her family moved in.
In one of those aisles, Kelly spotted something she had never seen — TANK TOP HANGERS. Who knew such a thing even existed? She paused for a moment and considered picking up a pack or two but thought better of it and decided to wait until they had the house completed before filling her closet with every conceivable organizing product.
Ten minutes later, Kelly hopped in the car, opened up Facebook and found an Amazon ad for tank top hangers that was front and center in her News Feed. How could a picture of something she had never seen now be following her around the internet? Although Kelly is someone who truly understands much about how data is collected and marketed to, this simply blew her mind.
It was then that she thought about all the possibilities. Kelly had her Target Cartwheel app open when she was shopping. Had Target geo-tracked her around the store, noting where she stopped the longest? How did it pinpoint where she was looking? Did her buying behavior indicate she was looking into closet organization? Or was it possible that it just randomly happened that Amazon happened to target her with that ad?
Very little these days is unknown. We don’t fly under the radar nor do we live off the grid. We have all been stunned when a kitchen conversation turns into an online ad an hour later. It’s easy to be freaked out. It’s harder to accept that data collection is real.
But re-targeting is actually one of Kelly’s favorite things. She can’t tell you the amount of time and energy it saves her to be marketed to with ads on Instagram for things she likes and wants to buy, based off of her spending habits. Kelly happens to love when she forgets something in an online shopping cart and sees a little ad featuring the exact shirt she was buying. And if she was considering a home purchase and felt unsure of the next steps or wanted more information, she would be looking to have a branded experience built on trust and education.
Times have changed. Modern marketing is required in the mortgage industry, and it goes far beyond creating opportunities based on past databases. Loan originators should instead focus on creating the best buyer experience based off all data. If mortgage professionals want to find new business, they need to start looking outside their comfort zone and find homebuyers before those buyers are ready to offer up their data in a lead capture form on someone else’s website.
How Does Intent Help Nurture Mortgage Leads?
Lead nurturing, the process of tracking and developing prospective leads into sales-ready customers, is a crucial component of any successful mortgage marketing plan. When mortgage leads are captured from various sources, they cannot be expected to simply convert to a sale at the first point of contact. The mortgage leads must be nurtured before they are willing to entrust a mortgage planner with the task of helping them purchase or refinance a home. Through a process of contact points and email nurture campaigns, Intent Home buying Marketing Intelligence allows loan officers to effortlessly nurture their leads. And, as a result, loan officers have more time to invest in other aspects of building their mortgage business.
According to marketing research institute MarketingSherpa, 79% of marketing leads never convert to sales — and a lack of lead nurturing is the most common cause. As a mortgage marketing platform, Intent uses multiple systems to ensure leads are nurtured to their full potential. From the moment a lead is entered into the system, Intent guides the loan officer in helping the buyer through every piece of the home buying process. Once the buyer has closed on their home, Intent provides the loan officer with techniques to stay in touch with the new homeowner to ensure they remain a customer for life.
Intent offers a wide array of email nurture campaigns intended to educate homebuyers, build relationships and regain leads who may have slipped away. These campaigns are perfectly timed and provide calls to action targeted directly at the lead. The content in these emails is relevant, conversational and intended to not only convert the lead, but also create a customer for life. We hope that by providing your customer with useful information and a great lending experience, they will remember you when they decide to purchase a new home or refinance.
