As a loan officer, you are always looking for an edge. Tools and techniques to find new business as easy and as quickly as possible, as well as strategies to increase your time to more effectively process the loans that are already in your pipeline. However, with all the choices and technologies now available to mortgage professionals, it can be somewhat overwhelming to find the best options to use.
Through interviews and personal experience, I have come up with 5 mortgage marketing tools that will increase your commission checks and reduce your stress while spending less time working on your business. Some of these tools will be obvious but under utilized, while others will be a complete surprise. I hope that this article opens up your mind to new possibilities for marketing and running your mortgage business.
Tool #1: Business cards. Every loan officer I know has more than enough business cards, but I have yet to find a mortgage professional who is really working this tool to its full potential. Your business card is your own little advertisement, and should be given out at EVERY possible opportunity on a daily basis. Give out more than one. Ask the individual to give them to friends and family. Beyond giving them out, you need to make them more unique and valuable. How do you do this? You can make them unique by making it a different color or shape, making it magnetic, glow-in-the-dark, etc. You can add value to them by making it a phone card or CD-Rom, or by writing down a personal message on the back.
Tool #2: Toll-free 1-800 hotlines. Back in the late 1990s, very savvy loan officers were using this tool to the max. Here is how it worked. The loan officer would place a classified ad in the paper offering a free report. All the prospect had to do was call the hotline and leave their name and address. However, the hotline captured the caller's phone number as well. So the loan officer would call back the prospect to verify the mailing address and build rapport. It was effective then, and is effective now although it seems that fewer loan officers are using this tool.
Tool #3: Autoresponders. Autoresponders have been around for about ten years, but are just now starting to become mainstream. An autoresponder is simply an email program that responds automatically to any email that is sent to it. They now also have the ability of sending an unlimited number of follow-up messages plus managing your database of email addresses. All automatically. The most popular autoresponder service being used is Get-Response (http://www.Get-Response.com). Using the marketing technique for the 1-800 hotline, loan officers are now directing prospects to send an email to their autoresponder service to get the free report. Once the prospect does that, the free report is automatically sent, as well as the follow-up messages. These messages are not only sent automatically, but you can also decide on the delivery times (ex. one day after report sent, 3 days after, 7 days after, 21 days after, 6 months after, a year after, etc).
Tool #4: Loan Officer Websites. It seems like everyone has a website these days. But 99% of loan officer websites are useless. Why? It's not because they aren't professional-looking or lack valuable information about you, your company and your products. It's because setting up a website is just the beginning of the process. If you don't know how to market that website and get people to it, it serves no purpose. First, you are going to need to place your web address on all of your promotional and marketing materials. Next, you are going to incorporate your autoresponder with your website. So you place a classified ad offering a free report. The prospect emails your autoresponder, and you start your follow-up series to them. Now in those follow-ups, you need to stress the value of visiting your website. Maybe it's the helpful mortgage calculator. Maybe it's the additional 3 reports they can download by visiting. You need to really promote your website through your autoresponder series.
Tool #5: Ebay. Everyone knows that you can sell Beanie Babies and antique clocks on Ebay, but some smart loan officers are promoting their businesses their too. Here's how they do it. They take that same report used in your other marketing campaigns and put it up for sale on Ebay for $.99, or even a penny. The goal here is not to make a profit selling these reports (you will be lucky if you even break even). The goal is to find people who are interested in doing a mortgage loan. Once they purchase the report from you, you then email them the report and offer to do a free evaluation of their mortgage needs. Or, you can send them to your autoresponder and hit them with a series of follow-up messages. This technique works only if you can originate loans outside of your state (which most originators are allowed to do - if you are not one of these, you can still sell these leads to the numerous mortgage lead companies on the Web).
These are certainly not the only tools available to mortgage professionals, but used effectively, these tools can get you more mortgage leads with much less effort. A few of these techniques really use automation to your advantage. The hardest part is setting up the process up initially. After that, they pretty much runs on their own.
Mortgage Loan Officer Employment
For many Texas families looking for a first mortgage, the proposed mortgage rate can often be the one determining factor in whether or not the desired home is affordable. A low mortgage rate in this day and age is no longer a desire, it is a necessity. Low mortgage rates can make it possible for families to realize the dream of home ownership. With the cost of living increasing much faster than the standard rate of pay, a low mortgage rate means financial stability.
Finding a low mortgage rate in Texas starts with the mortgage loan officer. Low mortgage rates aren't under every mortgage loan officer's pillow, as some are bringing rates to the table which are nearly twice as high as other mortgage loan officers. What exactly is the difference? The higher the mortgage rate and the more the process costs you, the more business a mortgage loan officer is likely to earn if they are paid strictly on commission. Bad news for you can mean good news for the mortgage loan officer. Mortgage companies that offer their loan officers a fairer determining factor in their salary or commission are more likely to bring better offers to you.
Online loan officers seem like a really good idea. They try to make it simple for you. All you need to do is enter your information and Presto! You have mortgage offers flooding your email inbox, right? Sure, and not exactly. People with perfectly spotless credit may receive mostly fair and even a few low mortgage rates by doing it this way. But for truly low mortgage rates, the personal touch is still a requirement. Even people with nearly perfect credit don't typically have spotless credit. Something as simple as a disputed charge or a $1 charge from a credit card company that you never knew about can ruin your chances of a low mortgage rate from an online source. Yet when dealing with credit scores, mortgage rates, and financial obligations, there is not real black and white formula which can spit out exactly what is available to you. Being able to talk face to face with mortgage loan officers makes a huge difference. For those who knowingly do not have perfect credit, which is most of us, there really is no other alternative than a real live in the flesh mortgage loan officer.
If your mortgage loan officer is truly searching for the lowest mortgage rate possible, they will gladly explain the process, how they came up with the low interest rate they are offering you, and why they can't go any lower. Mortgage rates fluctuate nationally, and there are various low mortgage rate options available. Some people want to opt for fixed rates while others are looking for balloon payments. These things can not be adequately discussed with an online mortgage loan officer. Perhaps you believe you know exactly what you are looking for and why. A good and ethical mortgage loan officer can not only bring you a low mortgage rate, but they can help guide you in the process of deciding which type of mortgage is right for you. Often the mortgage loan officers have information that you don't. Mortgage loan officers can often guide you in the best direction to save you money beyond a low mortgage rate.
Low mortgage rates are an imperative requirement for young families. While online mortgage loan officers find young families a high risk category, not all mortgage loan officers will. Some mortgage loan officers can find deals that simply blow the internet mortgage loan officers clear out of the water. This is exciting stuff when you think about it. Despite the fact that young families are not well established, they can still be an excellent risk for a low mortgage rate. Established families are typically a good risk as well, although some mortgage companies do not give them the credit, so to speak, which they deserve since they were renting properties for the first twenty years or so of marriage. These factors do help determine whether or not you will receive a low mortgage rate. It's not necessarily fair, but it's true.
When seeking low mortgage rates and the best mortgage package available for your personal circumstances with an online mortgage loan officer, there is no consideration given to your personal goals and desires for your future. Online mortgage loan officers can only determine a given set of information based on a predetermined formula, and none of it has anything to do with flexibility, probability, dreams, goals, wants, needs, or hopes. The right personal mortgage loan officer is able to sit down with individuals, couple, and families, and look at a larger picture and hear what the clients are hoping to attain for themselves and their families before making recommendations. There is more to a low mortgage rate than just a low mortgage rate.
All of the variable and all of the factors which go into finding the right mortgage package can only be well put together by finding the right mortgage loan officer. The right mortgage loan officer means different things to different people, but low mortgage rate always falls somewhere into the description. Knowing whether or not you are receiving a low mortgage rate depends on your circumstances, your credit rating, your income, your stability, and of course, the present market. You should walk into a mortgage loan officer's office understanding what you think would be a low mortgage rate, and why. You should also remember that you may not have all of the information available to you to really determine what a low mortgage rate will mean for you.
Both Joe Pahl & Steve Kyles are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Joe Pahl has sinced written about articles on various topics from Marketing Campaign, Real Estate and Finances. Joe Pahl is a marketing consultant and co-creator of the [url="http://www.loanamkergold.com"]LoanMakerGold Mortgage Marketing System [/url] for Loan Officers. To learn more marketing strategies targeted at loan officers and orginators, please visit. Joe Pahl's top article generates over 2900 views. to your Favourites.
Steve Kyles has sinced written about articles on various topics from Real Estate, Mortgage Marketing and Finances. Steve Kyles is a prominent Mortgage Loan Officer in Houston, Texas and leads a highly skilled team of professionals. Kyles is consistently recognized as one of the Top 10 Mortgage Originators in America. Contact Steve Kyles at 713-623-5109 or. Steve Kyles's top article generates over 3600 views. to your Favourites.
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