Mortgage Lead Generation - How Do I Generate Leads?

by Brandon Cornett

Lead generation is one of the hottest topics in the mortgage industry, and for good reasons. After all, mortgage leads are the first step in the business relationship. Without them, you have no business.

Mortgage lead generation also represents a confusing topic among many mortgage brokers new to the industry (and even some of the veterans). If you talk marketing with a group of mortgage professionals, one of the first questions to come up will be: “How do I generate quality leads?”

Rethinking Lead Generation
In this article, I will attempt to change the way you think of mortgage lead generation. Back in the “old days,” buying mortgage leads was a popular strategy. It still is, to some extent. And while a lot of mortgage brokers still use this approach today, it is by far NOT the most effective way to go about lead generation.

Think about it like this. When you purchase mortgage leads, you are purchasing the names and phone numbers of people who (A) don’t know you, (B) haven’t asked to be contacted by you, and (C) may already be working with a mortgage professional by the time you contact them.

Simply stated, you will be cold-calling strangers in an age when cold calls are viewed as an annoyance (an annoyance that’s dying out as the result of legislation). There are better ways to approach mortgage lead generation!

Make People Want to Contact You
One of the best ways to generate mortgage leads is to make people actually want to contact you. In the previous scenario (cold calling), you are contacting strangers who probably don’t want to receive your call. And since we live in an age of skepticism, they will also have a level of distrust right from the start. Not a good way to begin a relationship!

So wrap your mind around this concept. Instead of contacting strangers to offer your services, what if they contacted you and asked about your services?

For one thing, they would be much more inclined to listen to what you have to say. They would be more trusting and receptive as well. In other words, you would have a much easier time building a business relationship with them. Now that’s a much better way to generate mortgage leads, don’t you think?

The trouble is, many mortgage professionals think this is “wishful thinking” … an impossibility. If you think like that, it will be impossible. But I can tell you firsthand that this strategy works, when properly executed. In fact, I make my living largely from people who contact me for my marketing services. I make no unsolicited calls or emails whatsoever. You can do the same within your mortgage business.

How to Generate a Response
Sure, having people call or email you is the ideal scenario for lead generation. But how do you go about it? How do you motivate people to initiate that critical first contact? Well, there are several things you need to do. Here’s a summary:

1. Be Visible
People cannot contact you if they don’t know you exist. So you must strive to make your business visible, online and off. Internet visibility is a big part of this, which leads us to the popular topic of search engine optimization. After all, the more visible you are online, the more likely people will be to find you.

But there are other ways to increase your visibility as well. You can publish articles in your local newspaper, syndicate articles and press releases online, be active in your community, conduct free seminars, and many other aspects of PR. Visibility and awareness are the first steps to generating mortgage leads.

2. Be Valuable
The mortgage companies who succeed with lead generation are those that understand the concept of “perceived value.” When a consumer perceives a product or service as being valuable to them in some way, they naturally want to acquire that product or service. From a mortgage perspective, this perceived value might comes from many elements:

A mortgage person with unique knowledge of a certain niche … or one who offers special programs or loan packages … or one who simplifies the qualification process of allows online qualification … you get the idea.

These are all ways a mortgage professional can increase his or her perceived value, which is the value your audience perceives you to have.

3. Be Trustworthy
Generally speaking, people distrust strangers. We covered that already. So if you cold call strangers, you face a hard, uphill climb in terms of lead generation. So the key is to inspire trust within your target audience. This will help you overcome the natural skepticism people have and make them more likely to contact you.

So how does one generate trust? Well, customer testimonials help. So do professional certifications, long track records and professional / industry endorsements.

You can also create trust by sharing your expertise with people. Publishing a mortgage blog is a great example of this. If you publish a mortgage blog over a long period of time, and people find that blog online, they will feel as if they already know you somewhat.

If you publish quality, mortgage-related content to your blog, people will also realize that (A) you know your business, (B) you are active in that market and up to speed on industry developments, and (C) you obviously like to help people. Suddenly, you’re not such a stranger … you’re a perfect candidate to be their mortgage adviser.

Lead Generation Success
Is all this effort worthwhile? Let me ask you this. What would it be worth if you never had to email or call a stranger again? What if they contacted you instead? That’s a goal worth striving for, isn’t it? That’s the kind of thing that can happen when you change the way you think about mortgage lead generation, and I hope I’ve put you on that path with this article.