Effective mortgage brokers and loan officers are always looking for innovative ways to increase their clientele and grow their business. Sometimes, we tend to forget that our current prospects and clients have busy lives. They may not immediately think to contact us when they need our services. 

Because of this, it is important to find ways to remain top of mind with your borrowers and clients. You want them to think about you first when they’re in need of the products or services you offer. This is more than just good business, it’s a smart marketing principle. When someone on your contact list is in need, they should have your name and contact information conveniently at their fingertips. 

The best way to ensure that current and potential customers come to you first is to maintain consistent contact with those in your network. When you think about your business, do you know if you are doing everything possible to keep in touch with those on your contact list? Are you waiting for some future date when you will have “enough” time to develop productive relationships with clients?

Staying top of mind with borrowers and clients is essential to maintaining and growing your mortgage business. Don’t wait to develop productive relationships with your clientele. The more your clients know and trust you, the more they will think of you when they need the products and services you provide.

Below, we will examine some market-proven techniques for remaining top of mind with your borrowers, prospects, and clients.

Invest Time in Cultivating Productive Relationships

Like many important elements of growing your business, you should never wait for an “ideal” time to begin investing in client relationships. Choose to dedicate a certain number of hours each week to cultivating connections with your existing contacts and clients. This will increase your reach and result in more referrals and clients.

A good rule of thumb is that your clients, high-quality contacts, and referrals should hear from you at least once every thirty days. In order to grow genuine and productive relationships, do not only reach out to your contacts with sales attempts. 

Attempting to sell to contacts once a month will simply annoy them. As we mentioned above, the people in your network are busy. They have their own lives and concerns.

Schedule one day each week to reach out to the clients and prospects that you haven’t spoken with recently. These points of contact should be brief and professional. It is likely that this investment of your time will result in additional referrals and a growing list of high-quality contacts.  

Using the BNTouch Borrower and Partners Management tools can help you keep track of who you have contacted, when, and for what purposes. We discuss this strategy in greater depth below.

Handwritten Correspondence

In today’s business landscape, digital communication is pervasive. Everyone communicates through emails, texts, and social media. While these tools are necessary and incredibly helpful, they also provide room for you to stand apart from the competition.

Sending handwritten notes to your contacts will make you stand out. Writing personalized notes by hand shows borrowers and clients that you care about them and their business. Sending handwritten notes is an incredibly effective and inexpensive marketing strategy. 

While notes can’t (and shouldn’t) replace all your digital communication, there are many occasions where sending handwritten notes to clients is a great way to stay top of mind. For instance:

• “Thank you” notes following contact referrals
• Notes telling them about an exciting opportunity or item of interest
• A reminder for an upcoming meeting
• Send a note as a “thank you” following a meeting
• “Thank you” notes after a sale or successful development

Clearly these are only a few examples of the types of notes that you could draft. Look for other instances where a personalized note would build trust with your borrowers and clients. When clients and prospects know that you are invested in them, they are more likely to trust you with their future business. 

Strengthen Your Social Media Presence

While handwritten notes can add a personal touch, you still need to have an effective social media strategy in today’s business environment. Consistent engagement is the key to widening your network of contacts through any social media platform. When a company or independent broker posts relevant content on a regular basis, they are viewed as credible and reliable.

Your social media engagement should always be professional and relevant to the services that you provide. Don’t post personal anecdotes or experiences that have nothing to do with your business. 

At the same time, you shouldn’t waste months worrying about whether your blog post is perfect before sharing it. Post regular, reliable, and useful content to build a thriving community through your social media profiles.

Make sure that your social media content provides clear and easy-to-follow calls to action (CTA’s) for your audience. This will allow those in your network to contact you easily when they need you. Clear and effective CTA’s are a useful marketing tool to build trust and to remain top of mind with all of your prospects and clients.

Many LO’s think it sounds daunting or overwhelming to constantly engage with various social media platforms. But marketing on social media is only overwhelming if it’s done inefficiently. When you use a CRM, like BNTouch, you can automate your social media posts and schedule them ahead of time. This allows you to plan your social media work around your other important responsibilities.

Email and SMS Automation for Regular Contact

As we mentioned above, automating your social media posts allows you to simultaneously accomplish top of mind strategies and make your workflow more efficient. Similarly, using a CRM to automate your email and SMS communications can save you valuable time, while showing your contacts that you are consistent and trustworthy.

There are many reasons to make contact with your borrowers, clients, and prospects through email and SMS. Emails are a great way to send useful information, infographics, or video links (discussed in detail below). While some consumers do not regularly check their email, SMS text messaging is ubiquitous. Sending regular, but not overly frequent, texts to those in your contact pool is an excellent strategy for staying top of mind. 

You can send clients information about new opportunities, customized birthday wishes, or personalized loan anniversary messaging through SMS and email. Because these features can be automated through BNTouch functionality, email and text messaging can keep you in the forefront of your clients’ minds without taking over your whole workday. 

Customized Video Messages

In the same way that handwritten notes provide a personal touch, customized video messages are an excellent marketing tool for remaining top of mind with your clients and borrowers. Video content is one of the most effective ways to engage with clients. Videos are easier to engage with than large blocks of text and they can be personalized for the specific occasion and client that you are contacting.

Utilizing a CRM platform, such as BNTouch, provides you with professional and customizable videos for a range of purposes. There are many reasons to send customized video marketing content to those in your network, including:

• In-processing videos that provide new and prospective clients with a basic overview of the loan process
• Loan anniversary videos in order to remind clients of their positive experiences with your company and to detail their refinancing options
• Happy birthday videos to cultivate relationships with clients and show them that you appreciate their business
• Videos that show borrowers and clients who you are and humanize you beyond your company’s branding

Because it is so versatile, video content marketing is a great way to remain top of mind with your contacts. Videos can be shared through social media, emails; and video links can be sent through SMS messaging. 

Specify a Routine for Contacting Borrowers and Clients

While using the strategies discussed above, spend some time developing a routine to consistently engage with your clients and prospects. It is important to avoid annoying your contacts with irrelevant or redundant messaging, but consistency is important for remaining top of mind. 

When creating a routine, think through what kinds of communication are useful at different intervals of time. Consider the following examples of the types of outreach that you should engage in daily, monthly, and annually:

Daily Forms of Outreach:

• Notify current clients on the status of their projects
• Update social media with useful content

Weekly Forms of Outreach:

• Coordinate with partners and look for new opportunities
• Send any relevant handwritten notes or cards
• Cultivate digital engagement by drafting personal responses online

Monthly Forms of Outreach:

• Customer meetings
• Post a blog filled with useful information
• Send a marketing newsletter detailing new opportunities

Annual Forms of Outreach:

• Birthday messages (personalized videos, handwritten notes, or SMS)
• Holiday cards (physical handwritten cards or customized holiday video messages)
• Loan anniversaries

The most successful mortgage brokers are those who use effective strategies to remain top of mind with their borrowers, prospects, and clients. Using the BNTouch CRM platform allows you to increase your efficiency through automating portions of your marketing. The BNTouch CRM also provides convenient client and partnership management tools to ensure that you are staying top of mind in the most efficient ways possible.

Stay Top of Mind with Borrowers and Clients with Email and Text Marketing Automation