Mortgage Broker Lead Generation

5 Things Mortgage Brokers Can Do To Generate Leads Online

Online lead generation for mortgage brokers is hard.  Between the banks, mega-affiliate sites like Lending Tree and thousands upon thousands of competing mortgage companies, it's no wonder most mortgage brokers can't find success when it comes to online lead generation.

Many mortgage brokers resort to buying their leads from online lead gen sites, typically paying between $50-150 per lead.  And that is usually for a lead that is also being sold to several competitors.  How can they charge so much money for a poor lead?  Because they know the average mortgage broker has no clue how to generate their own leads.

If you want to find success online and eventually generate your own leads, you'll need to create a long-term and layered online strategy for your business.  The suggestions below do not cover everything when it comes to a great online marketing strategy, which would include SEO and a comprehensive PPC/Conversion strategy, but they are great places to start and well within the reach of any mortgage broker ready to start getting serious about online marketing.

Connect with Real Estate Agents

Let's face it, real estate agents are the primary gateway to the homeowner for a multitude of services.  They are usually the first point of contact for a home buyer and can be influential as to what home-related services they use throughout the process.

But they are usually not easy to connect with and get inundated with pitches from other real estate related services.  So what do you do?

The first thing is to not ask for anything, that's the fastest way to get tuned out, especially if you don't already have a relationship with that agent.  What you want to do is to promote and market them to the point where they feel the need to get to know you better.  Or just feel so back for all of the work you are doing for them that they feel the need to return the favor.

Here are some things you can do

Social media.  If they are active on social media, make a point to Like, Retweet and post their content on your own social networks.  They most likely won't have many people sharing their stuff so it's pretty easy to become a standout in their eyes.

Your blog. Ask to interview them for your blog or to add an expert comment on an article you are writing.  In the blogging world we call this “Ego-Bait“, to give someone all the limelight in the hopes they will share your content on their own networks.  Better yet, ask the top 20 agents in your area to share their best tip for home buyers and create a roundup blog post. Now you will have 20 real estate agents eager to share your post because they were highlighted as an expert on your blog.

Give them content.  Most people love the idea of blogging but most business owners hate the actual blogging part.  It's time-consuming and even for seasoned writers, will often leave you with writers block when you actually sit down to write.  Create mortgage-related content in the form of a PDF guide, infographic or even a guest blog article they can freely use for their own website.  Even offer to co-brand the PDF with them, they will be much more likely to use it if their name is on it as well.

Add them as a resource.  Ask if you can add them as a resource on your own website and create a profile page for them on your site.  We did this with a mortgage broker client and they managed to get connected with 20 new real estate agents who loved the idea of getting free advertising, 5 of which became active lead referrers for them.

The common theme to everything above?  Give (and then give again) before you ask for anything.  Actually, if you do it right you won't have to ask.

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Remarketing

What is remarketing?  Remarketing is when you advertise to someone online after they have visited your website.  So when someone visits your website, a “cookie” will be placed on their computer, that will allow advertisers to track and follow that visitor after they leave your website.  This is done across various sites that have advertising agreements in place and can be in the form of text ads, banner images or even video.  Yes, it is creepy, but it's used by most quality online advertisers and works great.

Why it's good.

It's good because it allows you to get extra mileage out of every visitor to your website, regardless of how they got there.  Since the majority fo people “rate shop” when looking for a mortgage, it allows you to stay top of mind during this process.

Google Adwords offers a remarketing product that will give you the broadest reach across the internet, being able to show your ads across thousands of websites.  Facebook also has a great remarketing platform that allows you to advertise to your website visitors inside Facebook with an assortment of advertising options.

Marketing for Mortgage Brokers

Facebook Ads

In addition to the remarketing options we just discussed, Facebook is a golden opportunity as an advertising platform.  There is no other platform that knows its customer's interests and behaviors better than Facebook.  They encourage you to Like, Share and Connect for demographic gathering reasons for their ad platform, not because they really want you to re-connect with your high school sweetheart.

If you have a solid understanding of who your potential customers are or want to target a specific audience, Facebook is great.  You can create a targeted audience based on age, sex, location, interests and behaviors and advertise directly to that audience.

If you have an established email list, you can also create a custom audience using your email list and advertise to your list via Facebook.

The ways Facebook is willing to use  information for advertising purposes never ends.  I forgot who said this, but it's true, “When you use a service for free, your are not the customer, you are the product”.

Google My Business

Originally called Google Places, GMB is a free Google listing for businesses.  You will see it show up when a local search is triggered in Google, which means the map shows up along with pin icons showing local businesses on the map.  These listings do not happen because of your website but from your GMB page.  It's a free page and you may already have one, but you should spend some time reviewing and editing your page to make sure it is complete and accurate.

Most searches are now local, meaning the local search results and the GMB listings show up very often.  Since they tend to show up above organic search listings, good rankings for your GMB page is just as important as your website.

So what do you do?

Log into your GMB listing (or create a new page if you do not have one) and make sure it is filled out complete and accurately.  If there a place to add information or an image, do it.

Get reviews for your page.  Google reviews are one of most important spots for customers reviews online as it's often the first review they see when they do a Google search.  Not only will reviews help with ranking your GMB page, lots of positive reviews will greatly increase the amount of clicks (and conversions) you get from your listing.  A recent survey by BrightLocal found that 92% of consumers now read online reviews for a business before making a purchase.  Yes, reviews are important.

Inside your GMB page is also where you can use Adwords Express, which is a lighter, easier version of Google Adwords, meant for businesses trying to advertise on their own without the help someone experienced with using Adwords.

Local Customer Reviews are Important

LinkedIn

While linkedIn is mostly a BtoB platform, it is fueled by individuals, most of which will need a mortgage at some point.  The thing I like best about LinkedIn is that it has the most detailed and up to date user profiles out of any social platform because people use it to promote themselves and their accomplishments.

We recently worked with a mortgage brokerage where we wanted to offer special mortgage deals to specific industries.  We had offers and landing pages made up for dentists and used LinkedIn ads to identify and target the offering directly to them. The nice thing is that we were able to do this for several industries, creating specific offerings for each one.

For a longer term strategy, LinkedIn groups are a great source for potential customers as well.  Posting thought leadership content to groups, actively engaging in discussing, and keeping your eye out for mortgage related questions is a great longer term way to pick up new leads.

 

Use a layered marketing approach

Using more than one of the approaches above helps to create a layered online marketing strategy for your mortgage business.  Things like Google My Business, blogging and online ads can help drive targeted visitors to your website.  Some will convert but most won't.  From there you can use remarketing strategies to continue the engagement process after they leave your website and the opportunity to convert more of those original visitors you worked so hard to get in the first place.

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Gary

CEO at 3Bug Media
Gary Shouldis is the founder of 3Bug Media, a web marketing company that helps businesses create 360 Marketing Strategies to dominate their market. His blog is read by over 20 thousand small business owners a month and has been featured in the N.Y. Times Small Business, Business Insider and Yahoo Small Business.