Mortgage Marketing Using The Noise Canceling Formula

The Ultimate Branch or Loan Officer Marketing Plan - Updated for 2024!

If you are a mortgage loan originator, I can probably guess what you are thinking...

“Oh great, another article about mortgage marketing written by someone who has never actually closed a loan with a bunch of stuff I'll never get around to using.”

Wrong.

I actually spent 15 years in the mortgage business before getting into the digital marketing world where I’ve worked for the last 10+ years. And all told, we’ve closed hundreds of million dollars in loan volume and worked on over 100 digital marketing campaigns.

Over the last couple of years, we’ve worked extensively with real estate companies, mortgage lenders and mortgage brokers to help them perfect some of these techniques and tactics that we’re going to share with you in this guide.

The bad news – they take some effort on your part.

The good news is they work. They’re not maybes, they work.

What REALLY Matters in Mortgage Marketing

My belief after 20 years in the mortgage business is that real estate relationships are built on awareness and trust.

That's why our focus has been increasing awareness through email & social, and doing it in a way that builds trust by keeping the content personalized, fun and interesting based on your, rather than mortgage-y.

This is what our mortgage clients tell us they value most.

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The Noise Canceling Formula?

There's alot of "noise" in the marketing world. If you follow this guide, you'll shut out the noise and focus on what's important...sort of like wearing noise-canceling headphones for marketing!

Why is digital marketing so hard for mortgage loan originators?

Not enough time, you're worried about compliance, or it's simply not your thing (or all 3)?

You’re Not Alone - These Challenges Face Every Mortgage Loan Originator

If you’re a loan officer or a mortgage lender and you are struggling with digital marketing you are not alone. Most everyone that we talk to in the business is having a hard time with this at one level or another.

Of course there are a small group of people who excel at digital marketing, but it’s a very small percentage.

For most people, mortgage tend to be natural salespeople. They’re people oriented and they like to be out and about. They like working with people, so for them, sitting behind a desk and working on their website or just social profiles or trying to connect with realtors on LinkedIn is not high on their priority list.

Nor is it really the best use of their time.

In fact, what we’ve found is that the really successful mortgage originators are looking to limit the amount of time they spend on things that don’t generate sales. And for some of them, we’ve found that digital marketing actually falls into that category.

But let’s get back to the topic and answer the question, that why is this digital marketing so complicated for mortgage originators?

3 Reasons Why Many Mortgage Originators Struggle with Digital Marketing

Reason #1: Fear Factor – The Compliance Angle

Obviously the mortgage business is very heavily regulated. There are laws, and if you break those laws, you actually will get fined.

So, most of the information that we’ve seen passed down through corporate offices is very negative in nature, don’t do this, don’t do that. In fact the last social media policy that I read from national mortgage lender was a page and a half and all it did was tell their lending team what they couldn’t do.

There was no advice about what they could do, no advice about what they should do, it was basically all about what they can’t do.

With that as the backdrop of compliance concerns or sort of fear-based negative information coming down from our corporate offices, it’s no wonder why officers tend to get afraid of the topic in general.

Reason #2: Information Overload

Information overload is not specific to the mortgage business, it is actually an issue we’re dealing with today in 2015. We all get a couple hundred of emails a day, we’re on social media, we’re on information sites there are articles and tips everywhere. And there are no shortage about articles and tips about digital marketing and we realize that.

Sorting through the ocean of tips is overwhelming for people and that’s one of the reasons we created this guide – to provide an in depth roadmap that you can study, work on and actually utilize in your business.

Reason #3: Time Constraints

When they’re new to the business, the one thing many loan officers has available is time. Because you’re not closing a lot of loans, you're out building relationships.

But once you begin to develop a decent book of business, time becomes scarce.

Things you have to do as a successful mortgage originator:

Work on your existing loans & talking with underwriters to clear conditions

Working with processors to get what they need

Communicating with realtors & borrowers on the status of loans

In between all those things loan officers have to find time to market and when they’re short on time they tend to fall back on what they know best and again for most loan officers, what they know best could be face to face, lunches, open houses, those sorts of things.

Digital marketing is often low on the list.

Not to worry, we actually are going to share with you a proven five problem shared blueprint that we’ve created just for mortgage loan originators.

Here's The Noise Canceling Mortgage Marketing Formula in 5 Simple Steps

Focus on Business Development
Not Lead Generation
Identify Your Ideal Borrower
And Referral Partners
Master 6 Digital Marketing Tools
The Keys to Success
Be Interesting
Find the Right Mix of Content
Be Consistent.
Budget Time Daily

Step 1Create a New Mindset

The first step of our process involves a mindset shift.

I suggest that you stop thinking about immediate lead generation when it comes to digital marketing and start thinking about business development.

I get it, at the end of the day you’ve got to get loans closed to pay the bills.

I know that.

But the fact is that people use their digital tools to be SOCIAL, to learn, to get educated and really, it’s kind of a bad practice in general to go into digital marketing with the idea of selling something.

Think farming.

So instead of focusing on immediate loan closing, we’re going to get you to focus on looking at how you can build your pipeline, build your awareness of people who know you that you’re in the mortgage business.

Remember the Mortgage Buying Cycle

The other thing to keep in mind is that people often go years without needing to get a mortgage loan.

Some people may stay in their house their entire lives, they may renovate, others may move around, others may get loans more often. The reality is this is not like in book sales, or something else where things are more transactional.

So in order for you to stay in touch with people who know you’re a loan officer, you don’t want to turn them off by constantly asking them for loans.

A few of the ways we suggest doing that are to simply start commenting and engaging about what is going on with them.

Show you’re interested in them without mentioning anything about mortgage lending.

3 Waysto Shift Your Mindset

How to change your focus from selling on digital media.

Trigger Events

Look for events that bring changes in people's lives

Find Referral Partners

Focus on developing new business & referral partners

Give Compliments

Edify those who are working hard to build their audience

Trigger Events

Let's say that you’re on Facebook and you see that somebody is changing jobs. That is a good reason to reach out to them, and say, “Hey I just saw you are switching jobs, if you wind up moving and need any help with home financing, I can help you with that”.

Those kinds of direct messages are received very well because that person has had an event in their life which triggered a need to possibily need a mortgage.

Another obvious one would be kids getting out of the house.

Somebody may be ready to downsize or move or buy a vacation house.

A third example of a trigger event would be somebody who mentions that they’re moving. These are the sorts of trigger events that you want to keep our eye out for on your social media feed.

Business Partner Development

Perhaps the best use of digital marketing for mortgage lenders is developing new business partners.

If you ask most loan officers what is most valuable - a loan closing this month or a relationship with a new realtor who can send you four to five loans a year, which would you choose?

Obviously, I think most loan officers would choose the new realtor relationship.

It’s been our experience that investing in developing new builder relationships, new realtor relationships, new CPA’s, new commercial bankers, etc., is much easier on social media than it is finding that one person that is ready to refinance this month.

If you can simply make that your focus, you’ll find your success with social media goes way up rather than if you only focused on closings for the month.

Let's take a specific example.

If you’re on Linkedin and you see that Suzie Realtor has just made ten years with Latter & Blum, that’s a great excuse to reach out to Suzie and congratulate her on ten years. It’s a great excuse to invite her to coffee, check in, see who she’s doing business with and find out if there’s anything you could do that could be a support for her business.

Or, let’s say Suzie just posted an update that she’s changing jobs, and leaving Latter & Blum and going to Keller Williams. That’s an outstanding opportunity to reach out to her with a quick direct message. “Suzie, congratulations on your move. I’m sure you must be excited, we actually work with quite a few real estate agents at Keller Williams, if you would like to talk, please give us a call if there is anything we can do to help.”

Those sorts of things are received very well because for someone who’s in transition, they’re developing the relationship when they move to a new place.

Give Compliments -Show Them a Little Love :)

Another opportunity that goes untouched with business development is a simple tactic I refer to as edification.

What do I mean? Let's take a specific example:

Let’s say you have a realtor or builder is posting for an open house and you don’t get business for that builder. You can send them some variation of this message:

“Hey Jim, I saw your listing and saw your post for the new house. It’s a beautiful house and a great neighbourhood. I want to share it on my social profiles. I hope that helps and by the way if there is anything else I can do to help you market that home, please let me know as I’m pretty good in the digital marketing area.”

You can actually use what you do in the digital marketing area as a lead in to work with other people.

Step 2Get Specific About Your Targets

The second step in our success blueprint is to get laser focused about who you want to reach.

If you try to reach everyone who does or may one day own a house, good luck with that.

However, if you want to connect with ten new realtors and one new builder to work with locally, we’ve got a much better chance of doing that.

If you can get very specific about targeting, who you want to work with and what you want to get out of it, it will help wash out some of the loud noises on social media and so you can be more specific with who you want to reach.

Tip

Specialize

Experts in multiple fields suggest that you specialize in an area so that you’re not just selling generic services to everyone.

You will do a better job if you know a certain industry or a certain vertical better than anyone else.

This definitely applies in the mortgage business, say if you’re specialist in renovation loans or VA loans for example.

Or you’re great at residential loans or constructions loans, make that part of your brand, build that brand and that identity.

Personal networks might have dozens of mortgage lenders that they know, but there’s a small chance that they have many people who specialize in a certain area.

I strongly encourage you to think about the types of business that are most profitable for you that you have and you use time if you were a particular company.

Step 3Master 6 Digital Marketing Tools

After you get the mindset work out of the way, and decide what your focus is going to be, there are six tools that every loan originator needs to master.

6 may sound like a lot, but I can tell you that there are literally hundreds of social media tools out there.

You don’t need all of them.

Remember, noise canceling...focus on a few things.

You only need six and we’re going to walk through what they are.

Digital Marketing Tool #1 - Personally Branded Website

The first is a personally branded website.

Some of you may skip to the next tool because you work for a national company or for a bank and you’re only allowed to have a limited website or page on the company website.

That’s fine. But I want to encourage you to think about having a branded website if at all possible..

Over the years, most originators will switch companies multiple times, so if your entire web presence is tied to a bank or national lender, that may not be the best for you in the long term.

If you can create a website with your own information and keep it aside for what you do at the bank or net branch, I would strongly recommend that as a long term strategy.

Even if you’re stuck with a 1 pager, our strategy with the website is to make that the hub of your digital networking activities.

If you’re on Facebook, if you’re on ActiveRain, if you’re on LinkedIn, the goal should be to continuously direct people back to your website, because your website will do the selling.

You do the social part, make the connections and make someone want to learn more information, send them to your website where they will be asked to join your newsletter to apply for a loan or to become a referral partner, let your website do the selling, send all of your activity there.

Digital Marketing Tool #2 - Blog

The second tool on the list is a personal blog.

A blog is one of those tools that is greatly underused.

In the mortgage business, the best reason to blog is so that you can create content that is information driven without having to be salesy.

Some of the most popular blog posts we’ve seen by mortgage lenders are things that have nothing to do with the mortgage business. For example, “4 time hacks that will save you time throughout the day” or “3 ways to organize your inbox”.

Anything that is relevant to you and has value are things that your personal network will want to see and hear about.

After creating these blog posts, make sure to share them to your social media sites. Then, people will click back to your blog and be reminded that you are a mortgage lender and next time that they need a mortgage they will be more inclined to call you.

This other nice thing is that your blog can be customized to include important calls to action, things like contact information, apply now, sign up for a newsletter are all great pieces to have on your blog.

Digital Marketing Tool #3 - Email Marketing

The next tool on the list is email marketing.

Email marketing is somewhat like blogging in that a lot of people do a really bad job with it.

It’s easy to send someone a reminder or an email on their birthday or their anniversary day of their loan, duh.

But I would encourage you to think past all that, past the boring mortgage content and think about creating content that your customers might be interested in sometime in between anniversary emails.

Focus on something that you're good at - again, it doesn’t have to be mortgage related because they may not need a loan this at this point.

So the goal would be to keep them engaged without putting them to sleep or getting them to unsubscribe from your email list.

Digital Marketing Tool #4 - Facebook

The next tool on the list is the 800 pound Gorilla of social media.

Facebook is one of those things that we could spend an entire day talking about as there are so many nuances.

The reality is that you’ve got to be on there if you’re a loan officer and you’ve got to figure it out.

Facebook Tips

A few tips on Facebook to help you get started...

The number one question we get is, “Should I use a personal page or should I use a business page?”

My recommendation for most originators is to use your personal page.

The main reason is that your business page is not going to get the visibility that a personal page will, it just won’t. You have a network of four/five hundred people who will see your updates if you post them on your personal page.

The strategy with Facebook mirrors the strategy with blogging and emailing- keep your content interesting keep it varied, keep it personal and occasionally remind people that you’re in the mortgage business.

You want to occasionally post something about rates or if there is a program change, when it’s relevant. Those things are absolutely great to post about because you don’t want to do it all the time.

Digital Marketing Tool #5 - LinkedIn

Linkedin is definitely one of our favorite tools for mortgage lenders.

In fact, I’d say it’s the biggest opportunity you have to develop business relationships with new realtors, CPAs, builders and bankers.

A lot of realtors are on LinkedIn promoting their content, trying to get attention to their buyers or their sellers. Are you getting their attention?

You can make a big impression by engaging with their content. Try something simple: “Hey, I saw your article, this is really interesting!” or, “Your house is beautiful, I shared it on my page”.

LinkedIn Tips

Did you know that you can post your blog content as a "post" on LinkedIn?

So if you’re taking the time to create a blog, you can also put it in your newsletter, put it on LinkedIn. Each time it creates a link for people to see back to your website.

Another great LinkedIn strategy is to look for opportunities to work with groups.

Groups are a great source of potential relationships - especially if you get involved with local groups.

There are local real estate groups in every markets, but you don’t have to pick something related to mortgages. You could pick something related to football or eating, but being active in those groups will definitely get you introduced to people you haven't met before.

Digital Marketing Tool #6 - Active Rain

Our last tool on the list is ActiveRain.

ActiveRain has gone through a couple of transformations but the core functionality has value to you as a loan officer.

It combines lead generation and business development.

ActiveRain Tips

Like with LinkedIn, there are realtors working hard on ActiveRain to publish their content and promote their listings. Reach out and interact with these realtors - they are dying to have someone notice their content.

ActiveRain also offers you the option to answer questions posted by borrowers. It’s free so it’s not going to cost you anything, you just have to share your expertise with it. We’ve seen this turn into a loans down the road because of the newly established relationship.

Step 4Create the right mix of content

The fourth step on our blueprint is finding the right mix of content.

You’ve got to write post content that is interesting because if you just stick to mortgages, people WILL unfriend you.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be your own content, but we do encourage our lenders to write at least one piece of original content per month.

It doesn’t have to be on something industry specific, it could be something you’ve been personally involved in. Share what you know and what you’re passionate about.

You can always go and find an article in the industry that interests you on those things. Realtor.com is a great place to get super informative content.

Step 5Be consistent

The last piece of advice we can give you about digital marketing is to be consistent.

The truth is digital marketing is a bit like exercise - if you show up at the gym without a plan and you have no idea of what you’re going to do, chances are you’ll spend 20 minutes working up a little bit of a sweat, but won’t accomplish anything and leave frustrated.

Digital marketing is really the same way.

You go and check your LinkedIn inbox after three weeks and you’ll have 42 invitations and you haven’t posted anything - it seems like a waste of time.

By working on your social media and your digital marketing activities on a regular basis you will see results and see progress.