Summary
This post dives into traditional mortgage marketing—the tried-and-true strategies that have stood the test of time. Learn about key methods like direct mail campaigns, in-person networking, and print advertising, and how to make them more effective in today’s digital-first world. By the end, you’ll know how to seamlessly blend traditional tactics with modern tools to maximize your marketing impact and connect with clients more effectively.
When it comes to mortgage marketing there are two camps. Those who stick with the traditional ways they’ve been marketing for years. Using postcards, flyers, seminars and in-person referrals. Then there are those who’ve abandoned the old ways for landing pages, digital ads & referral forms. While neither strategy is wrong the traditional ways of marketing your mortgage business are becoming less and less effective with millennial and younger buyers. You may not want to ditch what’s been working for you for years so we’ve compiled tactics to help you boost your traditional marketing using modern methodologies.
Transform Your Traditional Mortgage Marketing Into Modern Marketing
The first step to giving your traditional marketing a reboot is determining what pieces are going to transform best into modern marketing. The key here is to select marketing pieces that can lend themselves to the digital world as easily as possible. For instance, let’s say you’ve been running a shopping cart ad at your local grocery stores for the last 15 years with your phone number on them.
You could create a web-page with an application form on it then list this page on your grocery ads with the text “Apply Online Today”. You’ve now empowered your potential borrowers to fill out an application on their own without having to be guided by you or your team to do so. They can call you with any specific questions on the application and you can track exactly how many people are coming to your page from the grocery ad. You’ve saved time, empowered your borrowers and removed the guessing game from your results.
When giving consideration to transforming your marketing pieces, here are some of the strongest ones to consider:
Postcards
Postcards perhaps have the most potential of any marketing piece to be updated. What once was a shotgun approach to marketing where you would send a card out with a single message on it to thousands of homes across your marketplace, knowing that it worked when your phone rang, can now be much more personalized, precise and measurable.
First of all, with so much data available online and printing technologies advancing so rapidly, you can literally send a bulk batch of 1,000 postcards out to a neighborhood, but actually have each card personalized to the recipient. For instance, you can work their name into the artwork of the postcard making it seem the card was specifically created for them. If you are talking about loan programs in the copy of the card, you can call out specific loan amounts and percentage rates that speak to their current loan, again making the experience a highly personalized one.
If you want to further refine your postcard program, you can even set up automated postcard mailings for your past clients on special days such as holidays and anniversaries of home loans using your mortgage CRM platform to facilitate the scheduling.
Here is a great example of a postcard that is utilizing personalization to attract attention that a traditional postcard approach cannot attain. By using variable data printing techniques, this card is sent with [[HOMEOWNER]] automatically updated to the renter’s name printed in bold letters, right at the top of the card.
As you are certainly aware, the average amount of time you have to catch and hold someone’s attention when it comes to a direct mail piece is 3-5 seconds. By putting their name front and center on the top of the card, you will force them to stop and once they do that, the likelihood of them reading the entirety of your message is exponentially higher.
PRO TIP: One suggestion we’d give to further improve this card is to even customize the graphic. For instance, on the box, why not make it say, “Why Rent In <<CITY/NEIGHBORHOOD NAME>> When You Can Own?”. Again, the more personalization, the more likely they are to stop and absorb your entire message.
Landing Pages
When running print campaigns such as postcards or brochures, traditionally when mortgage brokers would point people to their online properties, they would point them to their website’s homepage or contact page. While this is great to use one from of media to leverage another platform, it doesn’t give you much insight. For instance, if you are running many different marketing campaigns (e.g. a postcard campaign, a magazine ad and a brochure), and sending all the leads from all campaigns to the same spot online, how do you know which lead came from which source? You don’t.
Everything worth doing is worth being measured. This is why landing pages are such a great upgrade to traditional websites or contact forms. Landing pages are single pages that only serve one purpose. They are meant to collect people’s information. With landing pages, you can easily create and duplicate them, allowing you the ability to have a dedicated landing page for each marketing campaign you launch. This allows you the ability to track specifically which marketing campaigns are working and which ones aren’t.
Here’s a great example of a landing page. As you can see, this particular page is tied to a marketing piece that offered a free buyer’s guide. You can easily take this page, clone it and change the item of value (e.g. change it from buyer’s guide to first time home buyer checklist). By creating a specific landing page for each marketing piece you send out, you then have granular control over your metrics, enabling you to make smart marketing choices.
Seminars
Next to postcards, seminars are perhaps the marketing vehicle with the single greatest number of options for upgrading and optimizing. The way the seminar model used to work would involve a mortgage broker sending out postcards to renters, for instance, to advertise an upcoming first time home buyer seminar. They may also choose to take out an ad in the local newspaper as well. The seminars are generally held in a conference room either at their brokerage or the local title company and are held at a specific date and time.
This is a great marketing method and if it’s working for you we don’t recommend you stop, but there are some really easy ways to give this strategy a digital boost. Record these seminars and presentations and upload them to Youtube.
End the videos with a title card that has your contact info and title it with your city and the seminar topic for example “First time home buyer info Houston TX”. Now anytime someone searches for that online your recorded video will appear with your contact info.
You can even do these seminars as webinars. Online presentations with digital audiences. Webinars can be easily recorded and uploaded all online. If you do a Google search for “on-demand webinar platform”, you’ll see thousands of web results. On-demand platforms are a great way to give potential clients immediate access to your webinars. You can run an ad for advertising your webinar, have people interested fill out a form and you can email them the recording. You’ve now collected lead information for a potential borrower in exchange for a relevant webinar you did months ago. You’ve squeezed more value out of something you’ve been doing for years.
If pre-recording a webinar is a little too impersonal for your style, there are also live streaming options. Running a Facebook Live Stream during your live seminars will allow you to give personalized interaction with seminar attendees while giving others the flexibility of watching and participating from the comfort of their own home.
This is a great example of how you can update your traditional buyer seminars using Facebook Live. In this example, you’ll see that the ad was set up with an eye-catching image, and all the details of the seminar date and time, as well as the specifics of what will be covered during the event.
It’s important to remember that with live online events, the percentage of people that say they will attend and do not is higher than an in-person live event. For this reason, clearly stating all the benefits of attending the event is critical. Additionally, leading up to the event you’ll want to post comments hyping the rapidly approaching event date and perhaps even giving attendees a couple of pieces of bonus material that will be covered during the live stream.
Software To Help You Modernize Your Marketing
While there are literally dozens and dozens of platforms to choose from when deciding how you want to push the needle with your traditional marketing pieces, often the best place to start is with the things that can be considered pillars of modern marketing. Here are three places we would suggest starting.
Variable Data Postcard Tools
While there are many variable data printing companies out there that you can use, Corefact is perhaps one of the best ones for Mortgage Professionals. Specializing in the Real Estate and Mortgage Industries, Corefact has developed a cloud based print marketing solution and catalog of print marketing pieces that can be completely customized with a homeowner’s information, making each piece seem a “one off”, unique marketing piece that is sure to get homeowners to stop and pay attention.
Corefact’s use of customized, unique offer codes on each postcard also allow you to track in real-time which homeowners are interacting with your marketing pieces, giving you a road-map to who is expressing interest in your services and who you should speak with first.
Landing Page Tools
While some modern wordpress websites have the ability to create landing pages in an on-demand fashion, the truth is that many mortgage brokers don’t feel super comfortable building out landing pages inside their website’s content management system.
There are many cloud based landing page tools available that can help you easily create and deploy landing pages, as needed for any of your marketing campaigns. Tools like LeadPages, Unbounce, and GetResponse for instance all have template libraries to choose from, easy to use, intuitive interfaces and support teams and tutorials to help you if you run into any problems.
On-Demand Webinar Tools
You’ve decided to take your seminars digital and begin offering webinar versions, creating a Youtube catalogue or running your webinars on Facebook live, maybe even all the above. Where do you start? We’ve compiled some of the top webinar platforms that’ll let you run, market and create a webinar catalog with ease.
Zoom is a great webinar solution as it allows you to do a few cool things. You can host a video panel with other thought leaders for your peers. Add interactive polls and even stream your webinars live on Facebook & Youtube directly from your Zoom client.
GoToWebinar is probably the biggest player in the game as it’s a subsidiary of GoToMeeting. With this platform you can easily record your webinars, download the video file and upload it straight to Youtube when you’re finished to create your on demand webinar catalog online.
EverWebinar is also a great option. With EverWebinar you’ll be able to set webinars you’ve already run and recorded on a schedule. Have a really popular webinar that people loved? You’ll be able to create a page where people can sign up for it to play for them everyday at a certain time. You’ll be able to use your past webinars as an always on lead generation tool.
It’s Not Time To Trash Traditional Marketing. It’s Just Time To Update It
The key takeaway we want to leave you with today is that when it comes to your mortgage marketing, it’s not a matter of trashing the old and bringing in the new. You want to take the things that have performed well for you over the years and look at them in the landscape of how people interact with one another today. In many cases, that is in some form of online communication.
By taking your successful traditional mortgage marketing pieces and using technology to bridge the gap between online and offline, you are not only getting more use out of your existing marketing strategies but connecting experiences potential customers are having with you and your brand, making you a much more remembered person in their mind’s and someone that they are much more likely to think of the next time they decide they need assistance with a home loan.
Key Takeaways
Classic strategies like direct mail and print ads may seem old-school, but they still pack a punch when done right.
In-person networking builds trust and lasting relationships that digital tactics just can’t replicate.
Combining traditional marketing with digital tools like email and social media can skyrocket your results.
Regularly showing up in your audience’s mailbox or at local events keeps you top of mind.
Tailoring traditional strategies to specific demographics ensures your message truly connects.
Commonly Asked Questions
- What is traditional mortgage marketing?
Traditional mortgage marketing involves time-tested methods like direct mail, print advertising, in-person networking, and cold calling to connect with potential clients and build relationships.
- Why is traditional marketing still relevant today?
Traditional marketing remains effective because it builds personal connections, creates trust, and reaches audiences who may not be as engaged with digital platforms.
- How can traditional methods be combined with modern strategies?
Blending traditional tactics like mailers or event sponsorships with digital tools like email campaigns and social media helps maximize outreach and engagement.
- What are the benefits of in-person networking?
Face-to-face interactions establish credibility, foster trust, and create lasting connections that can lead to more referrals and repeat business.
- What’s the biggest mistake to avoid with traditional marketing?
The biggest mistake is failing to adapt the message to your target audience or neglecting to integrate traditional efforts with modern marketing tools for a balanced approach.
Modernize Your Traditional Mortgage Marketing With BNTouch
