Marketing has always been a massive component in the growth of any business, which is why it’s utilized so heavily. But, with lending companies, there’s extra pressure to fine-tune marketing campaigns, in order to connect with their target audience on a more personal level. After all, borrowing a substantial amount of money to live in your dream home for years to come, is not a decision to be taken lightly.
Right now, the largest pool of potential homebuyers is millennials. However, so many lending companies struggle to understand their habits, their interests, and their purchasing triggers. That’s when lending businesses start struggling with adhering to their budget, and will end up wasting it. Plus, for loan officers, it can be incredibly difficult to liaise with vital partners on a regular basis.
So, we’re going to provide you with the ultimate guide so that you can seal more deals as a loan officer in 2018. You’re going to learn how to market effectively, so that you can subsequently maximize your results. Traditionally, the sales process for properties can be lengthy, but all of these strategies will optimize your time, effort, and your money.
Sound good? Well let’s get started then…
STRATEGIES
Social Media:
Social media is extremely powerful nowadays, and it not only gives you an online presence, but it allows you to connect with your audience quickly, easily and efficiently. With regular, interactive posts, you’ll be able to gather a lot of crucial information, as well as become an authoritative figure. Once you’ve then built up a following across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest, you’ll have trusting millennials who will feel comfortable using your service.
Paid Advertising:
There’s no quicker way to get traffic to your site than paid advertising, and if you have the budget, will produce fantastic results. With the likes of Facebook Ads, and Google AdWords, you can reach a world-wide audience. But, it won’t just be any old audience, as you’ll be able to select certain criteria to target specific groups of people. Once you’ve found a winning ad campaign, you’ll then be able to scale it up.
Content Marketing:
As far as free advertising goes, content marketing it very effective. Now, you will need to take some time to learn about search engine optimization (SEO), and then to produce regular content on either your site, or a blog. But, once the search engines recognize that you’re providing value, you’ll receive a ton of traffic to your site, without paying a single penny. In addition, content marketing is a great way to increase engagement.
Landing Pages/Sales Funnel:
This strategy is mainly aimed at loan officers that decide to go down the paid advertising, although a quality sales funnel is a wonderful asset regardless. So, if you’re going to advertise your service, you’ll most likely attract cold traffic, which is people that aren’t quite at the ‘ready to purchase’ stage. To warm them up, you can send them to a landing page which builds a relationship, and then through a sales funnel to capture emails, or make a sale.
Email Marketing:
If you’re serious about growing your company, and setting the foundations for long-term success, then email marketing is a brilliant option. There’s a variety of ways to collect emails from your audience, but once you have them, you can essentially send them emails forever to maintain a healthy relationship, sell them products, or advertise your service. Although, remember not to sell, sell, sell, as you want to offer value too!
Check out our post on 3 Things Loan Officers Can Do to Increase Email Response by 50%
Referral Marketing:
Forming partnerships with realtors and homebuilders is way more important than you probably appreciate. A healthy database of contacts are essentially warm leads, and you can utilize those to gain referrals. Marketing to people who can send millennials your way that are ready to buy is a wonderful tactic, and it’s also financially-friendly – just send out an email, or make a phone call!
APPS/PLATFORMS
BankingBridge:
This is by far one of the best platforms for loan officers. It gives you a centralized hub for forging productive partnerships with realtors and homebuilders, building a social media presence, and connecting with millennials at any time. Plus, you’ll have access to a real-time algorithm to see display your rates, and therefore generate more leads. This platform will practically reduce the length of the entire process.
Buffer:
As a lending company, you’re probably going to have very limited time, as you’ll be focused on making sales and growing. It’s fair to say managing and building your social media presence could be difficult, so why not utilize Buffer? This is a free social media management platform where you can schedule posts, view analytics, and boost your following.
Fiverr:
The number one platform for outsourcing tasks, while not overspending, is Fiverr. You can literally use this service for anything, and will allow you to concentrate on other aspects of your business. For instance, if you need a month’s worth of quality blog posts, help with setting up ads, or improving engagement on social media, check out some of the brilliant gigs.
MailChimp:
If you’re going to take up email marketing, then you’ll need a superb mail auto-responder to compose and send out your series of emails automatically. Time is money, so spending hours writing emails and sending them out every day is inefficient, so being able to write tens, hundreds or even thousands of emails at once is fabulous. Oh, and it’s completely free to use!
ClickFunnels:
Like we’ve already touched on, landing pages and sales funnels can be an excellent addition to your marketing campaigns as a loan officer. But, you’re going to need to design and set them up. For most people, that sounds daunting, but ClickFunnels has a drag and drop functionality for landing pages so it will literally take minutes. As for a sales funnel, they have a vast array of options to choose from, and they’re all easy to understand.
