I’m a New Mortgage Broker and I was curious if anyone had any advice for me with Social Media Strategies and Marketing?
Thanks
Welcome to the site Michael. To be successful markeitng your business on social media you need to lead with value. I see a lot of people in the industry make some lame posts to the effect of "I am a loan officer call me if you need a loan" or "I am a Realtor call me if you want to buy or sell"
LAME
It's important to remember that nobody cares. Nobody cares that you're doing loans. It's up to you to show them your value. You do this by providing content with value. As a loan officer there is a lot of things about the lending process that you know that the general public doesn't. Provide content that teaches them this knowledge. From there the leads & followers will pour in.
I have found mortgage brokers through local real estate investor groups on Facebook.
Also, real estate agents really like to be wined and dined, so you could always go that route and join some real estate investor meet up groups in your area to make some good realtor contacts. Maybe you could even offer to take some of the low dollar stuff that their main contacts might not want, just to build some goodwill and network.
I'm not a broker, but these are some of the ways that I have been referred to mortgage brokers (realtors/ Facebook groups/ meetup groups/ and of course BiggerPockets).
Also, I would try and determine your target market. In other words, don't just go for everyone, especially if you plan on advertising on Facebook. Try going for a segment of the market (old, young, rich, middle-income, investor, etc). Going for a segment will help direct how your advertising will look and will help you determine quickly what is and isn't working for you.
@Scott D Burrows Hey Scott thanks for taking your time to respond this is all great information. I’m going to apply all of these principles to my marketing campaign. The things you said will come in handy I’m sure
Hey Michael, congrats on the new role. There is a Facebook group called Cincinnati Off-Market Property (as well as Columbus and Cleveland), that you need to join for sure. A lot of high quality investors and real estate professionals in general you would add value to. Those groups are active daily, with a lot of interaction.
In Columbus, we have countless area-market pages for listings/agents (such as Dublin and Hilliard OH Homes for Sale and Rent page), so those too could be valuable to make a presence on.
Also, Consider establishing your own personal (Broker) content-consistent Facebook page/profile that will drive clients to you from the Cinci group, etc. It would add credibility to you and your online presence. If you have a website, make sure your FB connects to it.
I do like Scott's take on segmenting, that is highly valuable for your budget and effective overall. You want a targeted segment with much more frequency (hit them ads more often). If you ever need any guidance, let me know, I am an SEO/PPC Analyst and Web Developer (Digital Marketer in essence).
Going to push back against the advice above to target real estate investors when you're first starting out as a lender. Working with REI takes highly specialized knowledge that it takes a couple years to develop.
I'd suggest the other direction. Learn a few local/state down payment assistance programs. Become an expert at first time homebuyers. MGIC (one of the larger PMI companies) has a whole bunch of LO resources to check out.
Find some young real estate agents; their buddies they graduated college with will be buying their first home. Get some butts in seats for FTHB Q&A sessions, stuff like that.
Old mortgage industry wives tale. Depending on who you ask it took place in the 90s or 80s or mid 2000s. Designed to convey a message more than contain literal truth. Here it is, and since I'm telling the wive's tale I'm going to say it took place in 1984 when rates on a 30YF were at dystopian 15% to 20% levels:
Bank branch manager, after lamenting decreased volume due to higher interest rates (ring a bell?) on top of it being the slower winter months to boot, declared to the team that they would henceforth "specialize" in FTHB as the solution. Everyone laughed, said she was an idiot, there's nothing to "specialize" in, FTHB are just normal easy vanilla loans, that's as stupid as a doctor saying they "specialize" in the common cold. Branch manager insisted, and trained every cashier on a few quick bullet point factoids about homeownership to mention when customers were in the bank doing routine banking stuff.
On top of that, the branch manager put a big giant 25 foot sign outside the branch declaring that "We Specialize in Helping First Time Homebuyers!" with "FREE no obligation consultation" in smaller print below. Branch manager got her "told you so" moment, because wouldn't you know it: mortgage volume tripled by year's end.
I’m a New Mortgage Broker and I was curious if anyone had any advice for me with Social Media Strategies and Marketing?
Thanks
Welcome to the site Michael. To be successful markeitng your business on social media you need to lead with value. I see a lot of people in the industry make some lame posts to the effect of "I am a loan officer call me if you need a loan" or "I am a Realtor call me if you want to buy or sell"
LAME
It's important to remember that nobody cares. Nobody cares that you're doing loans. It's up to you to show them your value. You do this by providing content with value. As a loan officer there is a lot of things about the lending process that you know that the general public doesn't. Provide content that teaches them this knowledge. From there the leads & followers will pour in.
Congrats on passing the SAFE exam and opening up your own Mortgage Brokerage. In my humble opinion, opening up a Mortgage Brokerage was a much more involved process than opening up a real estate brokerage, but well worth it in the long term. A lot of great opportunities will open up for you.
I see the 10 year yield continuing to drop in 2019. The timing is great to be a mortgage broker.
@Michael Starks #1 tip- Consistency!! You can't just post once in a blue moon and expect to grow your social media presence. Provide value and build connections.
Paid traffic can help you build a funnel, but of course you have to be willing to put a little bit of capital in. Though in the grand scheme of things, it's a very efficient way to market
I’m a New Mortgage Broker and I was curious if anyone had any advice for me with Social Media Strategies and Marketing?
Thanks
Oh, here's a "bonus" one for you. Facebook decided that I'm a lawyer for whatever reason, so now I see facebook ads for "get more law firm clients! Click here for free webinar" ambulance-chaser ads instead of "get more mortgage clients! Click here for free webinar!" ads.
That paragraph isn't useful or interesting, the following is...
Assume an "assumed IQ scale" of 1-10. All the webinars are obviously pitches to pay for their services, but usually have teaser info to entice you. The mortgage ones assume an IQ of 60, so their "free webinar" teaser info is level 6 (useless, waste of time), and you have to pay for level 7 or 8 (maybe useful, but I don't like writing checks for no reason, so I'll pass).
The lawyer ones seem to be assuming an IQ of 80 (still below average intelligence), so they hand out the level 8 info as the teaser (which is sometimes nuanced and interesting stuff), which you'd have to pay for if it was being marketed to you as a lender.
So I guess my oddball tip is to start clicking "like" on any lawyer-targeted ads you see, so that facebook sends you more lawyer ads. And learn from the lawyers. I've picked up some cool stuff I will be looking at implementing later this year.
The mortgage-targeted "free webinars" and advertisements are a waste of your time.
Facebook deciding that I'm a lawyer was accidental, not intentional on my part. But I think I might try to convince Facebook that I'm a doctor in private practice; maybe there they will assume an IQ of 90 or 100 and hand out level 9 or 10 information as the "free teaser," stuff that even lawyers would have to pay for.
BTW writing things like "That paragraph isn't useful or interesting, the following is..." is the sort of tagline from one of the free lawyer webinars, but that you will not find in free lender webinars.