Pat Racco
Founder of Advantage Media
FACT: Brokers struggle in oversupplied markets
Need Leads?
No leads. No money.
(December spots available: 1)
🔥 Tell me about your GOALS 👇👇
I’ve recently been asked what Lead Generation for Mortgage Brokers looks like.
In the following article, I’ll show you exactly how to design a solid marketing strategy that, not only will generate more leads for your business, but will also establish you as an authority in the home loan industry in Australia.
Before we dive into the “how-to-do-it” part, let me tell you this: generating leads for mortgage brokers is like generating leads for any other type of business. It makes use of the same tools in the lead generation shed, that work on almost any industry.
However, engaging with people that are looking to buy a property, is way different from dealing with someone looking to buy a car.
Furthermore, first-home buyers, like me, are different from property investors.
Although the marketing strategy is approximately the same for any lead generation process, what a mortgage broker should really differ from any other industry is the human factor.
With that being said, if you, mortgage broker looking to generate leads, think you can outsource the job to an agency, let me tell you’ll have a hard time.
Let me explain.
First of all, why am I confident here, saying what I’m saying?
- I am a marketer and lead generation expert
- I purchased a property in June 2018
- A mortgage broker guided me throughout the process
- I was shitting myself to make the wrong decision
As you may understand, I lived the whole experience to the highest intensity it could have gotten.
I’m telling you this because people dealing with you or any other mortgage brokers in Australia have a desperate need of being taken by the hand and be guided, inspired, motivated, encouraged.
An agency or a lead generation expert will undoubtedly help you generate more leads, but what will make the difference is you, your words, your attitude, your face and the way they feel when they talk to you. Especially, when you talk to them in person.
Finally, before you even think of outsourcing a lead generation agency, please answer this question: “Am I doing this just to make more money or I want to help someone fulfil a dream?”
As I mentioned, first home buyers are very different from real estate investors. As David Cheade from Real Estate Investment Finance once told me, buying a property to live in involves emotions. It’s an emotional decision. While when people buy properties as an investment, what matters is that you, as a real estate broker, show them their ROI. No tears are shed.
Define your target audience
As a mortgage broker, you should know that your audience is particular and can be easily reached using the right tools. But we’ll see how later.
In my opinion, your lead generation strategy should focus on these three audiences:
1. Refinance seekers
- They know how things work
- They are sensitive to rates
- They are likely to spend more time looking around for quotes
2. First home buyers
- They need guidance
- They would pay more for a better service
- They trust referrals
3. Property investors
- They are looking to find the next big deal
- They are open to opportunities
- Profit drives them
It’s clear that each of the three audiences requires a different lead generation strategy.
Create spot-on content
You’re probably sick of hearing people saying you should create content. Who has time for that? Remember, what matters here is quality over quantity. People don’t care how often you write a blog or make a video. What they want is to find answers. When you define your target audience, you certainly know better than anyone else what type of questions they have.
Create content by answering those questions, whether it’s a video, a post, a podcast, an infographic or an ebook. And make sure you make that content public for free.Â
If you are targeting first home buyers, write something like: “The 7 mistakes you must avoid when buying your first property in Australia”, or “How to buy a property in Australia with less than $10K savings”.
Just send it out, help people to solve those pains that keep them awake at night, and they will come back for more. I would come back for more.
You should create unique content. Stealing is not a good idea. Yes, you can take ideas, but make sure you build your own identity. Your brand.
Copying somebody else content will only penalise you in search engines, especially Google. There’s something called ‘plagiarism check’ that continuously monitor the whole internet in search of non-unique content to throw to Google’s bin.
Design landing pages for A/B testing
Creating spot on content will build your authority. When you search for comparing products, what do you do? Let’s say, you Google ‘best rate for home loans in Australia in 2019’. Where are you more likely to go to to find answers? I’ll tell you:
- Compare the Market
- Canstar
- Lendi
- Finder
- iSelect
- Choice.com
These established themselves as authorities. They have money to do it quickly by placing their ads everywhere. But we don’t have that power, so how do we do it? With content.
Now that you know you have to create content for your audience to be able to trust you, follow you and pick up the phone and call you, it’s time to push your lead generation strategy further.
You need a landing page and a small budget.
A Landing page is a webpage where you send cold traffic to from the internet, or warm traffic from one of your pieces of content. ‘Cold traffic’ simply represents a group of people that has never heard of you before. ‘Warm traffic’ instead, are visitors that somehow already know you, like your blog post readers. You are warm traffic for me now.
Traffic is like a pizza, warm is better than cold. When you have a warm audience, you better send it to a landing page, before it gets cold.
The difference between a landing page and a traditional web page is that a landing page aims to remove all those elements that might bring away the user’s attention from the Call To Action (CTA).
In other words, a traditional landing page does not have links, navigation menus etc. The only link you could find on a landing page is the CTA. Also, a landing page is built around one strong message; not two, but one and one only.
Designing two or more landing pages allows you to find out what design converts more visitors into leads. As a consequence, a better landing page design will lead to a lower Cost-per-Click, meaning a more cost-effective campaign.
In 101% of cases, one landing page performs better than the other. This is called A/B test, or split test. Using Facebook Pixel and Google Tag Manager, you can refine and improve the effectiveness of the campaign.
Drive cold traffic to your landing pages
Lead generation for mortgage brokers through Facebook Ads
If we were in the US, it would be a piece of cake targeting on Facebook. Check this out:
Unfortunately, targeting people “likely to move” is not possible in Australia yet. It’d be awesome though. You need to find a workaround to this. A good Facebook Ad agency knows how to do it properly.
The content creation I mentioned above is perfect for a Facebook lead generation campaign. Use it to grab people attention and to establish you as “one who knows stuff”.
Lead generation for mortgage brokers through LinkedIn
Lead generation on LinkedIn is enormous. Would it work for mortgage brokers? Certainly. Although advertising on LinkedIn is much more expensive than Facebook Ads and Google Ads, it generates four times more leads.
Anyway, you don’t have to advertise on LinkedIn if you don’t want to. LinkedIn is an incredible source of leads you can generate organically.
Remarketing warm traffic
Remarketing is probably the most essential step in your lead generation strategy as a mortgage broker. Don’t get intimidated if you have no idea of what remarketing is. It’s conceptually really simple to understand.
In a nutshell, you create really targeted ads for people who have visited your website or landing page before. By creating a remarketing campaign, you allocate part of your marketing budget in a very wise fashion because you invest money only on those who have shown some level of interest in your offer.
If I was a mortgage broker and I needed to generate leads, I would create two remarketing campaigns: 1 for Facebook and 1 for Google Display Advertising.
By installing the Facebook Pixel and the Google Tag Manager on your website or landing page, it is effortless to collect the data you need for remarketing quickly to that “warm traffic”.
The infallible lead generation strategy for mortgage brokers
This section of this post is probably the most important. I want to give you a real example of what I would do if I were in your shoes. This will work; trust me.
There are variables involved in your algorithm of success.
Yes, it’s an algorithm. For as intimidating as this term may sound, an algorithm is merely a mathematical calculation that does not have one and only one result but can have multiple outputs. In reality, it can have infinite possible outcomes.
Now, I mentioned this concept not because I want to complicate your life but to simplify it. Your brain is a spectacular calculator, the fact you’re not aware of it, won’t stop your mind elaborating algorithms at the speed of light.
Imagine how many micro-decisions you make every day and how many variables you find on your way every minute. If your flat white was colder than usual this morning, this fact alone has changed the course of your day.
In a nutshell, generating leads and clients for your mortgage broker business is nothing more than an algorithm. It has variables and outcomes. If you control (some) variables, you can improve the results.
Remember, there can be infinite results. Indeed, you make your future by focusing on the variables.
So, what are the variables you can control to generate leads and ultimately, get clients?Â
- The message you give to people
- The feelings you can trigger in them
- Your vernacular, tone, voice, speed when talking
- The number of people you talk to
- The location you choose
Let’s put all the pieces of the puzzle together. Obviously, there are many other variables, but let’s focus on these.
Here’s how my brain would calculate this algorithm:
“I want to make people feel safe about getting in debt because I know for a fact that many of them are buying their first home. I know how they think and that a bank may have already rejected some of them. However, I can make them feel confident if I patiently explain to them how it works because I know some may have very little knowledge. The only way I can create confidence is if they can ask me as many questions as they need. And the only way to do this is to have them in front of me. Not too many because I want to serve them all the best I can. Hence it has to be a small, local and live event.”
Imagine you organise a live event in your area. A 2-hour free seminar + Q&A and run a Facebook campaign to attract people to the event.
- First: it’s free, so why shouldn’t they come?
- Second: not showing up could be the worst mistake they make in their entire existence.
- Third: they can ask you anything, and you will be very transparent and honest.
At the end of the seminar, some of them will be clients. If you answered their questions thoroughly and all doubts have vanished, why go and find somebody else?
Look, generating leads and clients is and will always be your job, not an agency one. An agency can get you high-quality traffic, but then it’s your algorithm that makes the difference.
FACT: Brokers struggle in oversupplied markets
Need Leads?
No leads. No money.
(December spots available: 1)
🔥 Tell me about your GOALS 👇👇
Conclusion
FACT: Facebook Ads is a great Traffic Generation Tool but not a conversion medium.Â
To be completely honest, based on my experience, driving traffic is less than the tip of the iceberg. Well, to be even more honest, driving traffic to your website won’t get you a single sale. Unless you have a funnel.
A marketing funnel is nothing more than a place where you exchange your knowledge for one’s contact details. A good sales funnel is all but selling.
When you drive traffic to your landing page, you must have an irresistible problem-solving “something” that one will perceive as a must-have:
- Download now “what the average bank won’t tell first-home buyers”
- “The 3 hottest suburbs in Australia right now”
- “Why a low mortgage rate is irrelevant.”
- “Join Our Next Live Event and Learn how to buy your First Property with less than $10K in savings.”
In my personal opinion, you should put yourself in the visitor’s shoes.
Let’s say you target First-Home-Buyers.
What are First Home Buyers pain points? What keeps them awake at night?
This type of buyer has a desperate need of being taken by the hand and guided, inspired, motivated, encouraged. Plus, they need knowledge.
I know the feeling exactly, as I bought my first property on June the 27th, 2018.
Buying my first property was an emotional event, for my family and me. I probably wouldn’t have purchased without being motivated by a real person, who I could talk face-to-face.
I remember how he made me change my point of view by saying: “Our goal is to get that property!” while, for some reason, a voice in my head was saying “Am I sure I can pay back that amount?”.
That simple statement made me focus on how our life would have been by living in that property, rather than focusing on the debt.
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