By Peter Harvey
Founder and CEO
Intellidyn Corp.
Spin a Marketing Web n M r n W
Take your efforts online to understand prospects and earn new business
In addition to stricter underwriting, changing guidelines and vanishing warehouse lines, mortgage brokers
also must contend with major changes
in marketing tactics. Implementing
the same marketing strategy you did
in boom times won’t work in today’s
dwarfed market. Instead, you must
think beyond direct mail, telemarketing
and lead aggregators — which rarely
provide the results they once did — and
embrace online marketing methods.
Brokers who adjust their marketing
plan appropriately can increase their client load, fund more loans and improve
their return on investment. To do this,
you must understand where and how
mortgage seekers spend time online,
advertise strategically, develop a picture of prospects’ personal credit situations, and meet their mortgage needs.
Find them
Online marketing channels continue to
grow, as does the amount of consumer
information available. Brokers who
embrace online advertisements and
social-networking sites can reach con-
sumers with personalized messages
consistently and inexpensively.
Know your prospects
In many cases, consumers give mortgage brokers their business for one
simple reason: They believe the broker
knows them. One way to get prospects
to feel this way about you is to gather
enough information to market to them
individually.
For example, when prospects reply
to an online ad you placed in a specific
city’s newspaper, you know a couple of
things:
1. They are interested in the real es-
tate market in a certain area.
2. They are wondering about financing
options in that area.
You can find out more information
by fine-tuning your advertising. For example, when prospects reply to an ad
placed on a Web page that returns results for houses in a certain price range
in a certain city, you learn more about
what they’re shopping for and what
they think they can afford.
Knowing where your target consumers spend time online is the first step
toward learning about them. When you
combine that with information about
their specific Web searches and data
they provide through interactive landing pages, you’re on your way to developing relevant marketing messages
and building lasting relationships.
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“Knowing where your
target consumers
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Such early intelligence can drive
your messaging and help you establish relationships. Online marketing
that uses keywords on search engines
can take your data-gathering to an
even higher level. For example, you can
begin to establish tentative consumer
profiles for people who contact you
through ads that appear on search-re-sult pages for “riverfront homes [your
city]” or “cheap condos [your city].”
Advertisements on social-networking
sites can work similarly.
A great way to increase the information you know about prospects who
click your online ads is to direct them to
interactive landing pages that capture
key data points. The more you know,
the more specific your follow-up and future marketing materials can be. Make
sure you ask for prospects’ e-mail addresses and get their permission to
send them messages.
Meet consumer needs
One of the best ways to provide consumers with beneficial mortgage solutions is to create a picture of each
prospect’s personal credit situation. To
do this, you should find out if they have
equity in a home and their credit score.
From there, you can bolster the impact of your messaging via the following three steps.
1. Acquire more information about
prospects’ personal credit situations. If you don’t know the answers
already, you should attempt to discover specifics about prospects’
age and income along with information about any property they own.
2. Develop marketing messages specific to personal credit situations.
You’ll want to speak to first-time
homebuyers differently than you do
to owners of multiple homes. Prospects looking to refinance should receive a much different message than
those looking to buy. Young singles
and couples often will react positively to different words and imagery
than people with families or retirees.
3. Stay in front of your prospects consistently. Don’t quit if you fail to get
a response right away. Send relevant content at regular intervals.
This is where e-mail comes in. It represents an ideal and inexpensive
way to reach people with targeted
messaging in a timely manner.
•••
Personalized marketing that begins
online represents one of the best ways
to adjust to today’s changing market. Brokers who use it to get to know
prospects’ needs and follow up with
custom messages that offer individual
solutions can discover a new way to do
the same thing they’ve always done —
provide personal service and profitable
mortgage solutions. •
Peter Harvey is founder and CEO of Intellidyn Corp. Prior to founding Intellidyn (www.
intellidyn.com), Harvey held senior marketing
positions with Bank One, Chase Retail and
GE Capital. Reach him at (781) 741-5503, ext.
100, or pharvey@intellidyn.com.
