Smart Mortgage Marketing

If you operate a mortgage website for business and marketing purposes, but you don’t know how to access your website analytics … you’re operating under a severe handicap. Here’s how to avoid that.

What Is Web Analytics?
Web analytics is an Internet marketing term with many uses and interpretations. Basically, it refers to information about your website visitors. When people visit your mortgage website, and then go on to interact with the website in some way, that information can be collected as data.

In other words, website analytics programs allow you to monitor the activity of your mortgage website’s visitors. Obviously, this kind of website data can be very useful in your online mortgage marketing program.

Even if you don’t have a “store-bought” website analytics program installed on your mortgage website, you probably have a website log that can give you some basic information. Most web-hosting companies offer site logs with basic analytics than can tell you where your traffic comes from, home many visitors you get each day, etc.

But if you really want to know what’s happening on your mortgage website, you should install a more powerful analytics program.

Analytics Programs for Mortgage Websites
If you’d like to go the free route (which I always prefer), you could try Google Analytics. This program used to be called Urchin, but Google bought it a few years ago and renamed it. Google Analytics will give you such information as:

• Number of visitors per day
• Location of your visitors
• Key phrases people use to find you through search engines
• Top sources of traffic
• Top entry page
• Top exit page
• And more

This kind of data is sufficient for most mortgage websites, as it gives you the “intel” you need to make smart decisions about your website’s growth. And, of course, you can’t beat the price.

But if you want to get more advanced with your mortgage Internet marketing (and have the budget to support it), you might look into such products / companies as WebTrends and ClickTracks.

What have you done to expand your online presence lately? How have you further your online mortgage marketing goals by increasing your Internet reach?

These are very legitimate questions for the modern mortgage broker or mortgage company, but oddly enough many in the mortgage industry cannot answer these questions. In other words, they have not given the proper consideration to their mortgage web presence.

The Mortgage Web Presence, Defined

A mortgage web presence is not the same thing as a mortgage website. By itself, your website is just one of many elements that contributes to your overall web presence — or lack thereof. Other elements of the mortgage web presence might include … are press releases, online articles, mortgage blogs, sponsored search / pay-per-click marketing, etc.

Why do I put so much emphases on the mortgage web presence? Because I’ve been watching the mortgage and real estate industries closely for over six years, mostly from a marketing perspective. And I truly believe that those mortgage professionals who adopt a “publisher’s mentality” to grow their web presence will capture the lion’s share of business in their market areas.

I am so convinced of this that I’ve written a 45-page training guide to show you how to build an effective mortgage web presence. Learn more about the guide.

Summary: The more you know about your competitors, the easier it will be to distinguish your own mortgage company through your mortgage marketing efforts.  

You wouldn’t rush into a major sporting event without studying the other team. Nor should you  conduct a mortgage marketing program without studying your competition.

For example, do you know the three top-ranked mortgage websites in your geographical area, or in your particular mortgage niche? You should. Otherwise you don’t have a good picture of the competitive landscape (in this case online).

You should also know how your mortgage company’s website compares to those three top-ranked websites. Unless, of course, you’re not interested increasing your website traffic. If you are interested in better ranking and traffic levels — and you should be — try to figure out how those other mortgage websites reached the top of the search engine rankings, and how you might duplicate their success.

How about website resources, content, tools and the like? Do your online competitors offer helpful content and resources to their visitors … things you don’t have on your mortgage website? If so, you have work to do, if you want to make your website equal to those of your competitors (initially) and (eventually) better than your competitors.

The goal here is to have a good idea what other mortgage companies are doing online and how they are marketing themselves …. ideally, so that you can do it better.

Understanding your competition is the first step to success with online mortgage marketing.

This mortgage company Internet marketing tip is for the “advanced pupils” out there — those mortgage companies who already have a company website but want to capture more Internet leads.

If you fall into this group, you might consider launching a second mortgage. After all, Internet marketing is a numbers game. And if you have two highly visible mortgage websites instead of one, you could potentially generate twice the Internet leads as well. That’s a significant increase in the number of people who find your mortgage business through search engines.

Better still, if you integrate some form of website lead generation in place, the additional mortgage website would add to your business growth.

What Kind of Website?
If you decide to pursue this Internet marketing strategy, you will first have to decide the theme and focus of the second mortgage website. For example, if your primary site is like most mortgage company websites, why not make website #2 more consumer- and education-oriented, sort of like the About.com of your local real estate market. It could be a “one-stop-shop” for mortgage-related information, specifically geared toward home buyers and homeowners in your market area. That’s just one of many ideas for a second site.

You may not realize this, but you have a powerful mortgage marketing tool at your disposal, right this very moment. No, it’s not some kind of software. In fact, it’s not even something you can purchase. It’s you!

Surely you have seen the ads for mortgage marketing products that promise to boost your mortgage business to the next level. In truth, however, not one of these products actually has the power to do that, not by itself anyway. There is only one mortgage marketing tools that can have such a positive impact on your business … and that tool is you.

You Are Your Best Marketing Tool

Here’s the simple point I’m making. If you go shopping for a mortgage marketing tool to elevate your business to some higher level, you are going to be disappointed and frustrated. All marketing starts with starts with great products and big ideas — mortgage marketing is no different. The “tools” only help you communicate those things to your audience.

Top 5 Mortgage Marketing Tools

Now we know that you are your best “tool” for marketing purposes. So what are some of the other top marketing tools? Here are four more things you should have in your toolkit:

1. Persistence - Repetition plays a big role in mortgage marketing. First you experiment with a certain marketing technique to see how it works. Then you modify that technique as needed and compare the results to the first attempt. Then you repeat the process, continuously. This process requires patience and persistence — two mortgage marketing tools you’ll certainly need.

2. Imagination - Without imagination, the best you can do is mimic the marketing strategies of other mortgage professionals. But mimicry will only carry you so far, especially if you copy a strategy that is either ineffective or widely used already. Imagination, on the other hand, can help you identify and harness the next big idea in mortgage marketing. And big ideas can yield big results.

3. Enthusiasm - Communicating with current clients and potential clients is a major part of your marketing program. If you communicate with passion, professionalism and enthusiasm, your message will become “contagious.” And what better tool for mortgage marketing than an army of advocates? Spread your message with enthusiasm, and people will help you spread it without even being asked.

4. Adaptability - Communication methods change frequently and constantly. The Internet, for example, has opened up a new spectrum of possibilities. (Witness the current explosion of mortgage websites and blogs.) As the communication landscape changes, you must be able to change with it. You must be able to adapt to new mediums and methods. So make sure adaptability is one of the mortgage marketing tools in your kit.

The Common Thread

What do all of these mortgage marketing tools have in common? Well, as we mentioned, you can’t buy any of them in a store. You are either born with these things, or you work hard to acquire them as you go along. But if you refer back to the beginning of this article, you’ll remember the good news — you already have the most powerful mortgage marketing tool. You have yourself. Everything else can be learned.