The single-family homes market has never been in a more unique place. Prices are at all-time highs, with every indication going up even higher. Mortgage rates themselves continue to be among the lowest ever, at least for now. As a result, it’s become a competitive market for mortgage loan officers who need to fight to land applicants who can handle today’s home loan requirements. That takes a cautious approach to marketing through multiple avenues at once.
Lead Generation
Loan officers look to connect with buyers searching for the perfect home. Whether you work for an independent brokerage that shops for the best mortgage terms for your clients or in a lending institution, you need to understand how to reach your market. That means knowing where they are most receptive to communications and how to reach them.
- Social Media Marketing
- Online accessibility via website and email
- Referrals from real estate sales agents
- Print and legacy media advertising
- Outreach to homeowners who have recently listed a house
- Purchase lead lists from industry providers
This range of choices should give you a way into generating leads no matter what kind of budget you’ve got, but one method of lead generation is not going to be enough. Make sure you reinvest in expanded marketing efforts until you have a real lead-building machine. While you do that, invest your efforts in a CRM platform to help you organize and follow up on your leads because the next step is nurturing them to conversion.
Nurturing Leads
Bringing those leads from the initial point of contact to closed mortgages is a delicate art and cannot be learned quickly. The basics are the same as any other kind of sales, but the product is a life-changing purchase for most people. It would be best to handle them with care, providing information as needed and options whenever possible.
- Be timely and specific when following up on queries
- Build a profile of each prospective home buyer so you can easily reference details about individual mortgage applicants
- Use your CRM software to optimize as much communication as possible, covering more leads with less time invested
- Demonstrate the value of a home purchase in all of your marketing materials, no matter which media you engage with
- Make yourself the helpful resource home buyers need whenever they have questions to keep communication channels open
It’s impossible to nurture one hundred percent of your leads to closed mortgages, and it is unrealistic to expect to get close. Working a lead list is a volume game, but you can improve your numbers with the proper outreach and a well-cultivated brand that speaks to the needs of a home buyer in today’s market.
Measuring Lead Generation Efforts
There are a lot of marketing tools and techniques that can be improvised or altered to save money, but data collection and lead conversion are two areas where you absolutely must invest in the right tools. How can anyone get a clear picture of how lead generation is going without clear information on how many leads are generated by different campaigns? How many of those are converting to approved mortgages at the end of the process? How should you focus efforts in the areas where you are getting the best returns for your effort?
- Lead follow-up tracking, SMS response, unsubscribe rates, and approved mortgage referral sources can all be tracked
- Check out the returns on your various lead building efforts before deciding where to double down and where to pull back each quarter
- Adjust to changing conditions by monitoring trends
- Use team dashboard tools to see who is performing & who needs mentorship in teams
That last feature is a crucial one as you scale lead generation efforts. It often takes a team to build the leads that keep a single loan officer busy, and software that makes team management is essential to take that step. That’s where BatchLeads is built to shine.
Scaling Up Lead Generation Efforts
Creating your marketing funnel is a long-term process and one that never really ends. As new tools show up in the marketplace and your operation changes in size and scope, you will find that constant work to keep your lead generation machine running is just a part of doing business. Eventually, that means adding team members. Whether building from a one-person operation or expanding an existing office, you need to know your lead management tools will grow with you.
- Support for additional users beyond your current account level
- Team management tools like task delegation, checklists, and progress monitoring
- The ability to add new leads and referrals to the app when you go to events and industry shows
The team management tools are what make the difference when you scale. Not just because you can see what is happening, but because you can more easily cement processes and then set up the positive feedback loops that keep them in place no matter who is working any given role on a given day. That allows you to be nimble, concentrating your staff efforts on the campaigns and lead generation phases that currently require the most attention.
Key Takeaways
Keeping the wheels of business turning requires constant work to bring customers to your business. There is usually no shortage of demand in the market, so the question becomes how you find it, appeal to it, and then bring it home to close. That means being highly visible to home buyers and those considering the option for loan officers. That requires constant outreach because it’s a market most people enter at one point or another, where few people become frequent buyers.
The challenge is real, but it is the same one many other real estate professionals face. The idea that the solution is the one other real estate professionals are using should be no surprise when you consider it.
