Bill Rice Internet Marketing > mortgage broker marketing

Here is a Quick Way to Own Your Local Mortgage Market

May 7, 2008 By

Are you still fighting against using the Internet in your mortgage marketing plan? That stubbornness is most likely losing you new opportunities and even worse past clients. The facts are clear, up to 75% of borrowers go online to research their mortgage. And the current market, rate, and home value volatility is only going to make that a more solid trend. Why would you jeopardize your mortgage business?

The Internet is more than a strategy for big National lenders. In fact, more than ever the hyper local Internet strategies are the most effective. People are going to do their research online. People are going to submit their name and telephone number for more information. Why would you let the competition have that opportunity?

Here are 5 easy steps to own your local mortgage market and make sure you have a shot at every local borrower that uses the Internet to look for a mortgage:

1. Get a Website

There are a lot of very simple ways to do this from Google Page Creator to finding a local web savvy high schooler. My personal suggestion is launching a blog with WordPress. Online customers are increasingly expecting to engage and interact with businesses. A blog allows you to demonstrate trust, personality, and give value first (mortgage education).

2. Submit Your Mortgage Business to Google Local and Yahoo! Local

Add your local mortgage business to Google Local and Yahoo! Local. Both take a matter of minutes and are guaranteed to put you into a prominent position on every search for a local mortgage broker or lender.

3. Submit Your Mortgage Business to Local City Directories

This needs to be done on two levels: (1) National big directories like InfoUSA, YellowPages.com, and CitySearch.com; and (2) Local city, township, or county government listings, rotary directory, and various other small Internet listings of local businesses and services.

4. Incorporate Your Online Presence Into Your Offline Mortgage Advertising

Your website address should go everywhere your telephone number goes. Often it is easier to remember a Web address than a phone number. And visit to your website can also be far informative and less intimidating than a cold call into your business.

5. Buy Local Purchase Mortgage Leads

These are typically very reasonable (big lenders like the easy, short-term refinance leads) and more likely to use a local lender. Buy everyone in your local area and you will be surprised how many Realtors start showing up at your door for referrals.

These are only starter steps and will probably cost you less than $100. As you get more experienced and savvy at marketing on the Internet there are a lot of opportunities to blow this solid foundation up into big success that will have you hiring an assistant, then a processor, then a couple of additional brokers. Who knows what you might become, but the certainty is no one in your local mortgage market will be stealing your clients off the Internet any more!

Filed Under: Lead Generation Tagged With: local mortgage marketing, mortgage broker marketing, mortgage lead generation, mortgage leads, mortgage marketing

Build Your Mortgage Marketing on Financial Education

May 5, 2008 By
As the market tightens and credit standards make it more difficult for borrowers to qualify your marketing needs to be fine tuned. This is no longer the days of everyone needs to refinance their mortgages for lower rates and better payments. This is a market centered around avoiding payment shocks, improving credit, securing equity, and stabilizing your personal balance sheet for a potential recession. Unfortunately, these customers are hard to find and most don’t even know they are headed for trouble.
This point was highlighted in this recent Forbes “Mortgage Meltdown” article, that cites a report by the FTC (PDF) commissioned by the Federal Reserve:

Of those surveyed, 25% could not identify the annual percentage rate of their mortgage, and 25% could not identify the amount of settlement charges. Half could not correctly identify the amount of the loan. Two-thirds were unaware of prepayment penalties that could be charged during refinancing. Three-quarters did not recognize that the loans included charges for optional credit insurance.


Not only does this spotlight potential past sins, but glitters as a significant opportunity. Let’s go beyond what this study may reveal about the past and look at the future. If you are running your marketing campaigns with calls to avoid payment shocks, ARM resets, and negative amortization equity depletion you may be shouting into the winds. Your customers don’t know they have a pending problem. They are getting surprised by their payment coupons and punting their homes to foreclosure. All the while wondering what happened, and never knowing they had options.

This is bad for the customer and for your mortgage business–so, let’s make some adjustments.

Create Your Financial Education Course

Obviously, financial education is the key, but how do you deliver? My first suggestion is to craft a little content first before you begin planning how to get it to your prospects.

Build a simple, brief whitepaper and an email campaign.

Start with your top five solutions for today’s’ market. This means assessing what you think, or have surveyed, as the top 5 borrower scenarios based on past loan programs, current rates, local housing market, and local jobs environment. Match these against the right loan program (solutions) you can offer. Now you are ready to write. Here is your outline:

  • Overview of the current mortgage market. What is going on and why?
  • Explain loan programs and economic factors that may signal a borrower’s need for a mortgage review
  • Review  4-5 case studies (borrow scenarios) and solutions (loan programs) you can offer
  • Wrap-up by offering a no-risk review or consultation, ask for them to opt-in to future reports, and don’t forget your contact information

Save your paper to a PDF and also break each of the four sections into four emails.

Educate Your Past Clients


Now that you have a mini financial education course created. You need to determine how to educate as many people as possible. This should be a truly important education series for a broad range of past and potential clients. Your first objective should be to educate folks that you are already familiar with, and whom you have current professional responsibility to keep informed–you past clients.

Take your client database, or parse your folders, and collect the emails of clients that are likely to fall into the scenarios you outline–ARM resets, neg-am’s, IOs–and email them your special report in an attached PDF. Also, inform them that this is an uncertain economic and mortgage market and request their permission to present them other special reports in the future.


Filter Your New Prospects

Now that you have covered you past clients ensure that you begin to touch your new clients with the same valuable information. However, since they are new to you and may be coming to you through a lead provider, referral, or other direct “buying” channel use your bite-size education emails. This approach will round out the value of your ongoing relationship, filter and nurture prospects, but not interfere with a direct path to a mortgage if that is their objective.

This type of email education is best facilitated by the email campaign tools within your lead management system or a separate autoresponder system. Again, ensure that you are asking each of these customers for their permission to continue to engage them with education material.

Use Financial Education to Pinpoint Current Borrowers

Building a program of whitepaper and email marketing will focus your prospective and past clients on the value of your relationship. Mortgage marketing has long been an impersonal and direct stingy attack on consumer, forcing abrupt decisions for a financial transaction that is more than current payment. Your refreshing approach of educating, and adding value first will win better conversations and more closings in a difficult market.

The added advantage your mortgage business is the filtering effect. Your mortgage education course is compelling your lead flow to self-assess and filter. Consequently, when you get calls they will be ready and educated to buy.
Filed Under: Lead Generation, Lead Management Tagged With: financial education, mortgage broker marketing, mortgage business, mortgage lead system, mortgage marketing

about |  contact |  disclosure