Getting Started With Digital Marketing for Mortgage Originators

Setting up a digital marketing program at your organization can be overwhelming but we’ve broken it down into four palatable first steps for you:

Step 1: Set up your website. Digital ads of every kind should be driving traffic to your company’s website so, before you put any budget into a digital ad program, you should make sure that your website is effective. Prospects should be able to quickly view your website and learn who you are, what you offer, and most importantly, what sets you apart from your competitors. If you wish to advertise specific products you should create product specific pages that your ads will link to.

Step 2: Capture leads. There are many ways to target ads and reach customers online but you cannot actually start a conversation with prospects through email or phone unless you get them to opt in with a lead capture landing page. These landing pages ask prospects to enter an email address and possibly some other basic information before gaining access to the landing page on your website. Data concerning which email addresses showed interest in which specific products can then be entered into a CRM and all your leads can be targeted with emails pertaining specifically to products they have showed interest in.

Step 3: Boost your search engine standing. Now that you have your website optimized it is important to make sure you are showing up in search engine results. Google AdWords campaigns should be set up with geographically specific long trail key words. Consumers are using google to look for a broker every day and if they are in your area and searching for a product you offer, you will benefit from being one of the top search results. You can boost your search results organically, without paying for AdWords campaigns, with some Search Engine Optimization tricks such as frequently adding content to your website that includes specific keywords, adding links too and from other websites, adding alt tags to all photos, making sure content is not repeated on multiple pages, etc. These SEO tricks can help but in a crowded market paid search tools like AdWords will be necessary to achieve top results.

Step 4: Place your ads. If your website is optimized, you are capturing leads, and you are working on improving your search results, the next priority is your actual advertising campaigns. You might benefit from one-off banner ads that you place on industry related websites, but it will be more effective (although more costly) to employ behavioral targeting mechanisms to your ads. There are many vendors on the market that provide different targeting options. You can look for consumers that displayed specific behaviors online that have been determined to indicate that the consumer is or soon will be shopping for a mortgage and then put banner ads in front of those consumers. You can target specific geographic locations such as open houses and send mobile ads to only consumers that have visited that location. There are many possibilities, but the best option will vary from organization to organization depending on your brand differentiators, competition in your market, budget, and other factors. You will want to make sure that any targeting mechanism your vendor is using is indeed purely behavioral and no demographic factors are being used in order to ensure the compliance of your advertising program.