The Single Best Mortgage Marketing Idea For Acquiring Leads Online
December 5th, 2012 by Wade Schlosser on Financial Lead Generation, Online Marketing 
3 Comments
“What’s the best online mortgage marketing technique that I can use to grow my mortgage company?”
It’s a question that I hear quite frequently.
If you want to know the answer to that question, allow me to talk about fishing for a second.
What Fishing, And Online Mortgage Marketing Have In Common.
Imagine for a second that you plan on going fishing soon. You’re excited about all the fish that you’re going to catch at the lake. You’re all set to go, you’ve got your license, your incredible new pole, the best reel, and all the right accessories to bring in some whoppers.
You just know that you’re going to be successful today. After all is said and done, you’ll be hooking so many fish you’ll have to throw some back.
So you head down to the lake and get ready to “reel em’ in.”
It’s only once you walk along the dock and get ready to cast, that you realize you’re not going be getting any bites that day.
Why?
Because you’ve forgotten something so important, that without it…you’ll never find a finned friend on your hook.
You’re Missing BAIT!
For your website to become profitable you need to bring in a lot of traffic. In order to increase traffic, you need to lure prospective customers to your website with bait.
You need to give them something of value so they’ll land on your website.
The best way to do this is provide valuable content that people will find as they search the web. Providing valuable content for people to consume is known as content marketing, and content marketing is a crucial element to generating traffic that produces leads/revenue from your website. The Custom Content Council indicated that 61% of people feel better about a company that produces custom content, and are more likely to do business with them in the future because of it.
According to the Content Marketing Institute “Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”
BtoB magazine did a recent study and found 82% of businesses rated strong content as the best way to generate stellar organic traffic.
Here are 2 of the most popular and most dependable ways to optimize your content marketing efforts.
1. BLOGGING.
Blogging is a tried and true way of producing valuable content. According to Marketing Charts, blogging is the single most important marketing tool for businesses who are online.
Mindjumpers indicates that blogs reach 80% of the Internet and along with social media blogs account for 23% of all user time spent on the Internet.
Neil Patel (one of the most successful bloggers on the Internet) indicates that magnetizing traffic to your blog is essential for creating revenue streams.
One of the most important things to remember is when your reader visits your blog, they’re doing so because they want to learn something. If your blog proves to be valuable to them, they’ll be hooked on you and your blog.
They might not be on your site every single day, but they’ll remember who you are, and if they’re drawing close to making a decision about getting a loan of some sort, you’ll be at the top of their list of companies to do business with.
To provide great value on your blog be sure to:
- Talk about them, not you - This is an absolute essential. Your readers are not interested in your company, they’re not interested in your accomplishments, or how awesome you are. They’re interested in themselves. So talk about them, their problems, their concerns, and their anxieties. Use the word you to create intimacy. When you create intimacy you build trust. And trust can equal new business. Check out this article on copyblogger about the importance of “you.”
- Speak simply - Despite what you might have been led to believe, writing to sound intelligent doesn’t make you sound smart. If your goal is to impress people with your vocabulary when you write, you’re probably talking over your visitor’s heads. So tone down the jargon, use smaller words and shorter sentences in your writing. Run your blog posts through a Flesh Kincaid tool and try to keep your writing around an 8th grade reading level. When your writing is clear and easy to understand then people will find it valuable.
- Prove your claims - Data and research matter. Don’t make claims unless you have hard data to prove it. Data helps to establish you as an authority. And authority builds trust… and trust can lead to new business.
- Use the words “How-to” – People like to learn how to do things. Providing “how-to” writing for visitors captures their attention and establishes your blog as valuable to them. For example on Amazon.com “how-to” is one of the most popular book titles with over 1.5 million book titles featuring “how-to.”
- Be relevant - Remember that people who are coming to your website are looking for someone that will solve a problem they have. Make sure to speak to the interests of your prospective clients and help them solve their problem. Being relevant will enforce the idea that you can help solve their problems.
As an example, Amerifirst Home Mortgage started blogging using Hubspot’s blogging tool. Because of their blogging efforts they experienced a 1316% increase in leads in one years’ time.
They didn’t dump tons of money into outdated marketing methods; they simply provided valuable content to readers and because of that experienced a pleasant growth in business.
Blogging might seem like it’s all about your company, but remember it’s all about the person who is coming to your site.
Another note: Make sure to offer the option to subscribe to your blog via RSS. This way people don’t always need to visit your blog but can get real-time updates with their RSS reader.
2. E-MAIL MARKETING.
Everyone has e-mail nowadays.
So it goes without saying that an awesome way to deliver valuable content is to create an e-mail list that people want to opt-in to.
Consumers are beginning to use the Internet more and more to do their homework on purchases they’re going to make.
Sure we know that people buy Snuggies and the Twilight series from the comfort of their home as retail spending continues to increase online according to the U.S. Census bureau.
However, it’s becoming increasingly common for consumers to turn to the Internet to research the big purchases they’re going to make before they pull out their pens and start signing paperwork. For instance realtor.org noticed that 90% of homebuyers used the Internet to research homes they were considering buying.
That’s why if you can get people to opt-in to your e-mail list your e-mail content marketing efforts will result in revenue. Hubspot notes that 50% of people read most of their e-mails on desktops, and 80.8 % of mobile users read e-mail on their phone.
Using services from companies like MailChimp, Aweber, or SendGrid you can send valuable content directly to a person’s inbox.
This allows you to develop an e-mail drip system. As an aside good e-mail drip conversion rates are 5%, so make sure to track open and conversion rates.
Via e-mail you can notify subscribers of:
- Blog posts - Have a valuable article to share? Let them know via e-mail. With the right headline and the right content you can close tons of prospects with one e-mail.
- Special offers - Sometimes you have a deal too good to pass up. So let your e-mail list know, they’ll appreciate the consideration and might respond to your call to action. E-mail marketer Matt Furey has had several $250,000.00 pay days using this technique.
- News that affects them - Are loan rates about to change? Is there an important adjustment in mortgage news they need to be made aware of? Let your list know and don’t forget to have a headline that inspires the e-mail to be opened and have a solid call to action.
If the content you provide is solid then getting people to opt-in isn’t difficult.
Some methods of encouraging people to opt-in are:
- Offer FREE content (reports, e-books) - This is a classic method to get opt-ins. The thought of getting a valuable e-book or report for an e-mail address is an easy “sell.” It promotes trust, and helps to establish you as an expert in the mortgage industry.
- E-mail sign up form on blog posts - If you have engaging discussions on your blog, encourage them to sign up so they’ll be kept in the loop. Expect a .75%-2% sign up rate of total traffic.
- Invite them to be in your “inner circle” - By offering privileged, FREE information only available to subscribers of your e-mail list you can bribe people into giving you their e-mail address.
- Provide something “share-worthy” - This can be an interesting fact, infographics, a funny video, or a recent case study. If you find the information to be valuable, encourage people to opt in to your list to receive similar bits of info.
- Page pop-up opt- ins - Pop ups on landing pages or popular pages can really help with e-mail collection. Look for conversion rates of 1-3%.
The best part about an e-mail list is it will help you nurture relationships with past, current, or prospective clients and will eventually bring you more leads to close.
These 2 Methods Will Get You More Leads.
Here’s The Truth.
Plenty of mortgage companies think that just because they have a website up they should be able to attract clients since “they’re on the Internet.”
They have a regular mortgage business, yet their online mortgage marketing strategy consists of having a website with “neat” photos, a nice “About Us” page, and Twitter and Facebook buttons.
Well I hate to break it to you, but having a website with all the newest features doesn’t make you money.
The main objective of content marketing is to position yourself as a credible and authoritative source in the mortgage industry. Which is why you need to focus on putting bait in all the right channels for people to find.
Some Online Mortgage Marketing ideas for lead generation for content marketing we’ve gone over are in an article in the link above.
Some other methods for creating and distributing content people are eager to see are:
- Post Articles - Guest post on other blogs, or contribute to news curation sites to build your credibility. Hugh McCleod does this frequently to boost his traffic by as much as 237%.
- Publish Case Studies - Do this so that you can submit them to trade magazines or other sites proving your authority on a subject.
- Use Social Media - Use it to share your content and to connect with people. Just don’t expect a Twitter account to get you business without valuable content being the engine for lead acquisition. You can also pay-per-click in Facebook called “sponsored stories” to give your content some boost.
- Conduct Interviews - Interviewing authorities on a subject and sharing their perspective is a great way to bring in traffic and gives you a new platform to share with.
Lastly, Remember Your Customer.
Since getting a loan is one of the biggest financial decisions people make, be sure to give them valuable information about the process. Make sure your content answers the questions people will be bringing to Google’s search bar.
Tell them the difference in loans. How much money they can save selecting one vs. the other, the pitfalls they should avoid and more. Then, when they find answers to their questions on your website, they’ll trust you and want to do business with you.
Tell us what you think in the comments below.
How will you be using content marketing to help grow your business?
What are your biggest concerns for using content marketing to bring in traffic?
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