Mortgage marketing can be tricky. Depending on who you are advertising to, there’s a lot that can interfere with your ability to acquire and process new loans. For instance, in 2018, it was reported that 36% of millennials want to buy a home. How do you capture this market, though? You use digital mortgage marketing.
From content marketing and social media advertising to paid ads, digital marketing offers a goldmine of opportunities for mortgage brokers to capture exclusive mortgage leads that are more likely to convert.
It’s not just millennials either. 79% of internet users use platforms such as Facebook in the United States. You need to be where your audience is to improve your chances of generating free mortgage leads, and digital marketing lets you achieve exactly that.
In this article, we will review digital marketing for mortgage brokers and which marketing tools can serve you.
1. Understand Your Audience For Mortgage Marketing
Building a digital mortgage marketing campaign begins with focusing on your audience. For instance, you can choose between targeting baby boomers or millennials. These two target markets differ significantly from each other.
Millennials:
- Typically buy homes having an average value of $248,000
- Submit 4% to 10% as a down payment
On the other hand, baby boomers:
- Buy homes with a median price of $400,000
- Submit 14% to 20% as a down payment
Besides millennials and baby boomers, Gen Zers are also slowly entering the housing market. This demographic typically purchases homes valued at $160,000 and submits 5% as a down payment.
Depending on which segment you are marketing to, you can prepare a campaign promoting tailored mortgage loans that make homebuying more accessible for your prospects. You can also evaluate which platforms your customers use and place your ads there to generate exclusive mortgage leads that are more likely to convert.
Remember, the more targeted your campaign, the easier your chances of success. It will also cut your digital marketing costs and improve your ROI.
2. Use Content Marketing to Generate Free Mortgage Leads
Signing up for a mortgage requires a great deal of thought and research. If your prospects don’t trust you, they are unlikely to use your services. That’s why we recommend content marketing for mortgage brokers.
Content marketing is a great way to establish your authority in a specific domain. It allows your prospects to learn about your brand and products. As of 2020, 70% of marketers are using content marketing to improve lead generation and drive traffic to websites.
40% of marketers also cite content marketing as an integral part of their digital marketing strategy.
You can share blogs, prepare infographics and reports, and post video content. Here are some content marketing ideas to get you started:
- Discuss how mortgages work
- Highlight the risks and benefits of applying for a mortgage
- Offer advice on how to prepare for a mortgage application and stay on track with mortgage payments
- Evaluate trends in the real estate market and whether it is a good time to buy a home
Positioning yourself as a trusted mortgage consultant will encourage your prospects to sign up for your products and help you generate free mortgage leads.
We recommend sharing content on your website and LinkedIn Pulse. The Pulse is a publishing platform hosted by LinkedIn that allows industry experts and thought leaders to increase brand awareness and generate credibility.
Posts published on this platform can also be promoted to relevant prospects. This improves your chances of targeting the right people and acquiring leads.
3. Use Social Media to Drive Website Traffic and Increase Leads
As mentioned earlier, 79% of internet users are on social media platforms like Facebook. This applies to customers for the mortgage industry, as well.
It matters to millennials and baby boomers alike. Need proof? Here are some facts to consider:
- 83% of millennials engage with companies via social media.
- 62% of millennials are also more likely to become loyal customers of brands with an active social media presence.
On the other hand, 75% of baby boomers use social media. They rely on these platforms for entertainment and prefer video over text. If you are marketing to this demographic, we suggest using video content to get their attention.
Besides attracting organic engagement, you can also use paid ads to increase your leads. For instance, Facebook allows you to create tailored ad campaigns that can be customized to display your ads to your target market. You can adjust these campaigns based on the age, location, gender, and marital status of your prospects.
Facebook also lets you design campaigns based on your marketing goals. For instance, an online campaign to drive more traffic to your website will work differently than one designed to increase sales.
4. Make the Most of Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is another great way to produce exclusive mortgage leads. This mortgage marketing tool can be used reach out to a significant portion of your target audience.
93% of people use Google when making a purchase decision. 97% of customers also use Google Search to look up local businesses. That’s a significant chunk of your audience and successfully engaging with them can do wonders for your customer acquisition rate.
This is where Pay-Per-Click advertising comes in. According to HubSpot, Google Search advertising and Facebook generate the highest ROI for paid ads.
You can use Google AdWords to increase your reach and drive up your conversion rate. According to a 2020 report, companies using Google Ads have seen a 35% to 48% boost in brand awareness. In one case, a Company used Google Ads for mobile advertising and saw a 70% improvement in online sales.
It is also very cost-effective. Depending on the keyword you are using and the amount of competition you face, pay-per-click ads can cost between $1-$2 per click on Google. You can set a budget for PPC advertising to control your costs and manage your marketing campaigns.
Paid advertising has also been reported to deliver an ROI of 200%. Furthermore, the traffic brought using PPC advertising increases your conversation rate by 50%. Remember, the right Google AdWords strategy is very important here. We recommend:
- Doing keyword research to include high-ranking keywords
- Utilizing geo-based targeting to attract local prospects
- Adding negative keywords to your Google Ads campaign
To learn more about this, get in touch with our team at Red River Digital Media. With over half a decade of experience in the mortgage lending industry, we understand the challenges that confront mortgage brokers only too well. We can help you formulate the right strategy for PPC ads that potentially saves you thousands of dollars.
5. Use Remarketing Strategies to Improve Conversions
Have you ever browsed products on a website, only to see them displayed later on your social media or other sites? This is remarketing. Why do you need it, though?
It’s simple. Only 2% of prospects convert on their first visit. Remarketing allows you to reach out to prospects that visited your site previously and display your ads to them as they browse online. It delivers a stronger sequential message that encourages them to convert.
For companies offering financial services, the use of retargeting ads can increase the conversion rate by 147%. What’s more, the average click-through rate of a retargeting ad is 10 times higher than a regular display ad.
It is an excellent way to nurture prospects and encourage them to engage with your brand again to make a purchase. You can set up a remarketing tracking code on your site and target visitors who did not take the desired action you wanted them to.
Since these visitors are already familiar with your brand, you can adopt more aggressive marketing techniques for them and convince them to reconsider what you have to offer.
You can use Facebook, as well as Google AdWords for retargeting ads. Let’s review some examples of how this works.
Example 1:
Facebook uses a retargeting pixel for remarketing. This allows it to track which Facebook users engaged with your social media posts and display ads accordingly.
To understand this better, let’s suppose you posted a blog on Facebook discussing the impact of different mortgage rates on homebuying costs. This can be followed by a retargeting ad highlighting your products and services. The ad can be displayed to people who read the blog post. It can ask them to fill out a lead form or offer more information on your lending services.
Since these people previously engaged with your brand, they are more likely to click on your advertisement and take the action you want them to.
Example 2:
Google AdWords offers a variety of ways to remarket your products and services to past website visitors. You can opt for standard, dynamic, and video remarketing. Google AdWords also allows you to upload a list of contacts and display ads to them.
One of the advantages of using Google AdWords is that it enables you to advertise your business on other websites. This increases your visibility and offers more engagement opportunities.
6. Make Use of Email Marketing
Email marketing is another surefire way to nurture your exclusive mortgage leads and invite potential customers to convert. It allows you to reach out to your prospects in a more personal way that cannot be achieved through content and social media marketing.
If you want to make the most out of this marketing tool, we suggest you focus on generating personalized emails and improving their design. Here’s why:
- 20% of marketers have stated that email design is essential for improving email engagement
- The open-rate of emails with personalized subject lines is 50% higher
We also recommend developing segmented email campaigns. Segmented email campaigns see a 100% higher click-through rate as compared to non-segmented ones.
Segmentation allows you to divide your mailing list into smaller segments based on specific criteria. It lets you personalize the content of your email and promote your products and services to your prospects based on their interests, priorities, financial position, and geographic location.
You can also integrate your email list with Google AdWords and Facebook Ads. These tools allow you to upload your mailing list on Facebook and Google. If your prospects use these platforms, they will receive personalized ads for your products and services.
Once again, this technique can do wonders for your brand recall and propel your conversion rate in the direction you want.
7. Optimize Your Website To Deliver a Better Impression
Most of the mortgage marketing strategies mentioned above will be redundant if your website is poorly designed. It serves as a hub for most of your marketing tactics, and you need to make sure it is optimized to deliver a strong impression of your brand.
A few things to keep in mind here are:
- Optimize your page speed, so your website loads faster
- Make sure all your content is professionally written and does not carry any grammatical mistakes and errors
- Choose a functional yet aesthetic template for your website
- Optimize your website for desktops, tablets, and mobile devices
Remember, a mortgage is one of the most significant financial decisions that a homeowner makes. They will seek help from a lender they can trust, and if your website does not reassure them, they will move onto the next one.
Website optimization also plays a critical role in improving your search rankings on Google.
Wrapping It Up: Use a Comprehensive Digital Marketing Strategy for Mortgage Brokers
If you want to develop an effective mortgage marketing strategy, we suggest utilizing a combination of the marketing tools and techniques mentioned above. You can evaluate which techniques will work best for your target audience and build a robust marketing plan that enables you to generate exclusive and free mortgage leads.
To learn more about digital marketing for mortgage brokers, get in touch with our team. We specialize in PPC management, social media marketing, video marketing, and email marketing and can help you create effective marketing campaigns that let you reach your goals.
