You have many options to generate real estate loan leads, more than you would actually think. Among them, one of the most popular is to purchase lead lists. You can buy a large list of phone numbers and names from a lead generation company to make cold calls.
However, there are many drawbacks to this method:
- There is no pre-existing relationship with these prospects. They don’t know who you are or why they should trust you, so they are unlikely to convert into potential leads and clients.
- To gain traction, you will need to be persistent in your pursuit of leads. You could be subject to a spam report that could lead to costly penalties.
Smart digital marketing techniques are more effective and, of course, less expensive. Although it can be good to pay for certain services, buying a list will be less profitable for lead generation.
Also, combining both options, paid and organic, helps get the clients you need.
Here, we will cover the easiest ways to generate your leads and, more importantly, cost-effective and valuable lead generation strategies.
Before starting, we want you to keep this in mind: Young adults are the ones more interested in purchasing real estate today.
Start with Content Marketing
It is a great way to promote your services online by providing valuable content that anyone can access at any time.
Content can come in many forms, including an article such as this, a YouTube video, or even a podcast that people can listen to anywhere.
Every piece of content has the purpose of educating and engaging an audience. Let’s take, for instance, an article about how to finance real estate acquisition.
Your article could be found by anyone searching Google for information about “real estate mortgage/loan.”
The best part about content is that you can position yourself to be the first to know when someone is ready to move. You also position yourself as an expert on the topic and provide value to your audience.
It is much more likely that potential customers will remember and trust you if they are educated.
When done correctly, the content is great. But you will need to add or pay attention to these factors:
- Take time to work on search engine optimization (SEO).
- Answer the questions that your audience is asking.
- Engaging and actionable.
- Communicate information clearly and include your brand’s tone of voice.
- Present valuable information to your customer before they ask anything.
- It ends with a call-to-action (CTA), prompting leads to fill out a form with an email address to get in touch.
Also, keep your content updated on a regular basis, even if it’s only one article per month. It can take time to produce high-quality content, so don’t worry about how long you take to update but rather how good is the update.
Market Your Services Via Social Media
Social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter have made it more difficult for businesses to market themselves online in recent years. Facebook has, for example, reduced the number of people who can be reached organically by unpaid posts from businesses to promote their advertising platform.
However, despite all the changes and difficulties, social media remains a great way to connect with customers and potential ones.
Facebook is a great place to share, create and promote news, content, and special offers. It is easy to create a quick post or share the latest article or video from your company.
It is also a great way for you to show your trustworthiness as a lending party for real estate.
Prospective customers will search for as much information about your company as possible before asking you to help them with a mortgage. For it, a Facebook page with positive reviews, followers, activity, and good ratings will help prospects to trust your services and make them more likely to reach out.
LinkedIn is another platform that many businesses are not using as much as Facebook, but it is quite a good place to find real estate loan leads that are more sales qualified than just potential ones.
The reason? It has the highest organic (unpaid post reach) of all the major social networks.
It allows real estate lenders to interact with other loan officers, investors, and developers. A great way to build a strong referral network is to create a company page and do your own cold outreach.
Work on Your Local SEO
Local SEO techniques can be used to attract local leads, which are pretty much the sales-qualified leads you want based on the services you offer.
To find leads online, you need to use your website metadata for local searches. Search results will display the website’s title and description. This space should be used to your advantage since it will allow you to capture more prospects.
If you need an example, this is what we get when we take New York as the local city and search for real estate loans using: “real estate loans/mortgage in New York.”
These results are the first pages of Google for the keyword we previously mentioned. These lenders are on the first page because they use metadata better.
Your website’s SEO will be enhanced if you use keywords in its title and description.
Google My Business (GMB) is the best way for local SEO and boost your marketing efforts. You only need to register your business with Google.
Once your page is created, you can enter your operating hours, phone numbers, email addresses, service offerings, images, content, and many other details. After you are done, Google Maps will automatically add your business to its list.
You could now appear in search results for “real estate loans” in your local area.
Ask for reviews from clients who have used your page in the past to help you improve it. Ask them to send them a link on your Google My Business page, and get their feedback. Google will most likely recommend your business to its users if your company has received high-quality reviews. This is a great way to build social proof and get new leads for mortgages.
Advertising Using Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
When done properly, pay-per-click advertising (PPC) can be extremely efficient.
PPC ads are, clearly, not free, but they are quite cost-effective and not expensive at all. They also come with fewer risks, and although they can be a bit complex, it isn’t impossible to work around them.
If done correctly, PPC ads could make your business a success and bring in a steady stream of leads for very low fees as you only pay for the ad once someone clicks on it.
PPC is available on social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. But Google Ads is the most powerful.
Google Ads lets you target any keyword or market on Google for a fee. For example, let’s say you want to target “best real estate lenders” as a keyword. This means that if someone searches for it on Google and happens to be in your target market, your ad may appear at the top search results.
Search Engine Journal shows that over 27.5% of users will click the first organic (free/no ad) result they see in search results.
But ads can make things more interesting. Google Ads will typically show only two to three ads per search, but it will capture approximately 44% of all search traffic.
You could capture tons of sales-qualified leads if you find a keyword that 10,000 people per month search.
The problem is how to pay for these leads. The more competitive a keyword, the more costly it is.
Clicks for some keywords can run up to $30. This is a lot considering you have a limited marketing budget. You can still assume that other companies are competing for the same position, even though it is expensive. However, if they are betting for it, it is because they know that this keyword is profitable.
A Google Ad campaign can bring in endless real estate loan leads if it is set up correctly.
Website but With Mobile Optimization
Today’s consumers are more likely to search online, but mobiles are definitely at the top of what they prefer instead of using their computers.
This is why it’s not enough just to have a site. To provide the best user experience (UX), your website should be optimized and make sure it works properly for all devices.
This means that it loads quickly, is visually appealing, makes great use of images and videos, and optimizes for mobile viewing.
This is how you can convert your visitors into qualified leads when paying attention to the details:
- The homepage must engage them, as it features the most recent offers and promotions.
- Website interfaces should be consistent and include clear calls to action to encourage requests for loans.
- Customers will be less likely to abandon their requests if you set a booking or live chat option.
- Visitors should also be able to access the site from their mobile devices, as mentioned before.
Pay Particular Attention to Landing Pages
Optimization encompasses many things, which we’ve already mentioned. But there is one more: The landing pages.
Many tend to underestimate the importance of a good landing page. However, for lead generation, they are everything since sales qualified leads land there.
If you quite don’t understand how landing pages can be key for your lead generation process, everything lies in how they are like the front of your store or business.
However, more than being introductions, they are used in different ways depending on how you’re using your strategies and which ones they are.
Landing pages should contain pop-up pages, CTAs, and subscriptions to newsletters. You can also display the best offers and future discounts. You can remove things if you don’t have enough space.
You can find templates that will help you design this page or your entire site if you are having trouble setting it.
Email Marketing Works for You
Email marketing is an effective way to reach your target audience. You are now able to show them content and nurture them since you have their email addresses. This is the first step in becoming leads.
Emails can be more than just information. They can also serve to call for action.
For example, you could send out an email newsletter every month with your latest offers.
Include a button in your email with the following words: ‘Ge a Quote Now’ or similar options. This button will direct customers to either your website or specific landing pages. From there, they can contact you.
Your email can generate real estate loan leads for your business in any way.
Before you can do any type of email marketing, you must first grow your email list. This is best achieved by using a Lead Magnet.
Create Partnerships
Expanding the network of your real estate mortgage company in your area is crucial since this network is what often leads to partnerships and, with them, more qualified leads.
A partnership describes collaboration among active service providers within the travel industry. All parties share a common goal that revolves around lead generation.
These collaborations have many benefits, including the sharing of risk, resources, and competencies and the ability to collect leads from each side.
To form partnerships, you must first reach out to other industry leaders and real estate agents that know people who might need a mortgage.
It is important to ensure that your partner has the same qualifications. This will ensure that the partner is able to generate leads.
There are many options to contact and find a partner, including usual networking events or conferences.
A Referral Program that Motivates Them
Word of mouth advertising has been and will remain important for two reasons:
- People trust those who recommend them products or services more than finding them themselves.
- You build trust and awareness when other people refer you.
Technology has changed how people spread information about businesses. It has made it easier for them to decide whether or not they can trust the company.
Customer referral programs have become more powerful than ever in lead generation strategies for the same reason. They are easy to track, quantify, and measure, so you should set one immediately.
How can you make it work? It all depends on what you offer and the services provided. It is possible to create personalized referral codes for each prospect and client so that they can get it immediately and feel motivated to recommend you to others when they request a loan.
How does the code work? Your loyal client gets a discount, and a new client gets a discount on their first request. This cycle will result in a new client.
Clients will feel more comfortable sharing referral codes, links, and programs by emailing, texting, or any other means.
Social Media Ads Can Be More Effective
It is difficult to market to your audience and leads more effectively with PPC ads.
While you will use keywords that are relevant to your service, it can be overwhelming to fill in the gaps of general searches that may not be directly related.
Some users may search for keywords only while they are trying to find other things.
You don’t need to wait for people searching your keywords to find you online when you use social media ads. Your ads will be displayed to the most qualified people, saving you time and allowing you to identify qualified leads.
How do you get started with social media ads?
It is simple to set up and easy to implement.
Targeted leads can be reached on many social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as Pinterest and LinkedIn.
Each platform has its own system for placing paid ads.
We have compiled some information about the most popular social networks that you can use to save you time:
- Facebook.
Facebook is a versatile platform for social media advertising. It offers many ad formats as well as the most efficient and effective targeting options for your audience.
You can target people by their location, job description, or interests. Targeting browsing habits and other information can be done as well.
Facebook will give you the highest return on your investment than any other platform, as it will allow you to drive the most successful campaign possible through its settings and structure.
This efficiency will allow you to stretch every dollar and make each dollar count.
- Instagram.
Instagram is known for its heavy use of images and videos. We are sure you already know this.
This is a great way to advertise visually appealing, and it’s a good option if you want to reach younger people below 30.
These ads are similar to organic posts, and you can blend in with a user’s timeline. You can include hashtags in your ads to increase engagement and interest.
- Twitter.
It’s very similar to Facebook in that there are many advertising formats available to interested leads.
You can promote your account or any individual tweets that you have shared.
These ads seamlessly blend with the timeline to provide users with an enjoyable experience.
Twitter makes it easy to engage with users through its ads. The platform is well-known for its concise format and messages.
This allows you to focus on the most important parts of your ad, and it helps your audience understand your company and service.
Relying on Guest Post Strategies
Many people often underestimate guest posting. But, in fact, it is one of the best ways to generate high-quality leads.
This strategy works because you can bring together people from related businesses who are interested in your services or loans but have not been able to find anyone providing them or someone they can trust.
You might accept guest posts on blogs related to your industry. Ask the owners or authors for more information. You might find specific guidelines on guest posting for some pages.
If you want it to work, you should follow these guidelines to respect what the blog owners expect the content to be.
Send out a list of pitches and make sure they are well-received.
Who will write the blogs? There are two options. You can either write it yourself or hire someone to do it.
Focus on Your Reputation & Reviews
Your website must be successful in attracting clients and leads using content and other strategies. You will need clients and people who leave reviews about your services or loans. This alone will prove ten times better than any other marketing strategy.
People search online for real estate loans and lenders before deciding who will be the right choice.
Before they visit your site, they will search for you on Google.
It is important to have a good reputation on review sites where people will also be willing to share their experiences and opinions with you.
But how can you do that?
Your service is the most important. You are not worth anything if your loans, in this case, aren0t top-notch and under the best deals and terms compared to your competitors. This applies to all aspects of your business.
Marketing is affected by everything you do, from how you handle estimates to how you invoice. It is also important to get back to people on time.
It’s a smart idea to ask your clients for feedback via follow-up calls and email. This will allow you to incorporate it into your business processes.
You must monitor your content and make sure your profile is up-to-date with the best testimonials included.
A page of testimonials can be a great way for your business to grow.
To build trust, you can use testimonials from clients who have helped improve your website content. These testimonials can be embedded on your website via a back page with additional testimonial content.
Include a photo of your client to increase credibility. This is a great option, especially if it is well-thought-out and executed. Of course, always ask if you can do so before jumping to adding someone’s photo.
Since this is the mortgage industry, it can be a bit hard to request testimonials or reviews, but you could ask your current clients if they could leave one about your customer service or conditions for the loans they have accessed.
The Local Lead Generation Process for Your Real Estate Loan Business
All right! So, everything is about building properties and generating leads. But how does the process actually take place? Are there other steps I need to know?
The steps I mention below are what students from our local lead generation program follow to generate leads for businesses like yourself. So I’ll help you see what we do. And how if you join our program, you can simply generate leads for your own business (unless you want to start a side hustle and build a laptop lifestyle business).
Essentially, our lead generation can be divided into four steps:
The first is prospecting. You need to take the time to do market research on a niche (industry) and determine how many phone-driven businesses are there.
Keep in mind that this is local research as you need to know how many companies need leads. For example, you may search for “plumbing services Youngstown OH.”
You will find dozens or even hundreds of businesses trying to get themselves in front of the customers by ranking on Map Listings, organic results, and even Ad.
The second step, building. When you find a niche (plumbing, tree services, a software company, real estate…), you will need to start building your digital properties. You don’t need to be an expert in HTML or coding. It can be easy with the right tools.
The third step is now taking time to rank your lead gen website. With the site done, you need to work on SEO strategies and start dominating those Google search results. If you’re new to SEO, it stands for Search Engine Optimization.
To keep it simple, it consists of the entire process of growing a company’s visibility on search engines like Google and generating organic traffic. And remember this, local lead generation is part of the strategies.
Moving on to step four, once you rank the site, you will start getting your ROI and profits. You only need to rent it out to a local business interested in the leads the site generates. You can offer a couple of free leads to their move on with the actual pay per lead.
To review steps 1-4 above, I described it to a normal student who is building a lead gen business to help local service providers generate more calls. But replace the student with you as the business owner. And replace sending the leads to a business to simply siphoning the leads to your personal business.
By the way, fun fact, about 20% of our students in our local lead gen program are actually business owners who went through the program. And they use the skillsets we teach to generate leads for their own business.
An Example of Lead Generation: Home Advisor
You must be thinking, “if lead generation sounds so good so far, how come I haven’t seen any company?” That’s the thing; there are many out there. You just don’t know they are dedicated to it.
HomeAdvisor is one of the best examples you can find on the Internet as it is a top lead generation company that has spent millions building its brand but also earned even more zeros for this same reason.
They started small as everyone else but invested in building their brand awareness to make people who are looking for home services go to their website and find what they need. They are over 75% of people’s first choice when they need those services.
If you don’t get HomeAdvisor that much or need a refresh, users need to submit their information to request a service and get a professional or expert who can provide it.
HomeAdvisor’s job is to share your information, which makes you a lead, with local companies so they can contact you and offer the service you’re requesting. For sharing this lead information, HomeAdvisor gets paid by the companies. This happens for every single lead they send to multiple businesses.
Business owners who don’t have marketing skills or don’t even know how to have any online presence will always rely on those pages to list their services. They will save time and effort, but companies like HomeAdvisor can make them spend lots of money as leads aren’t exclusive (one lead is sent to multiple companies after all).
Using Facebook Ads aka Paid Ad Platforms: Do They Generate Leads?
They DO generate leads. If not, no one would use them.
However, you need to remember two facts:
- Paid ads or platforms can be expensive.
- They don’t generate “natural” leads.
Whenever someone sees or clicks in one of those ads, over 80% of them did it by accident or are trying to close/report it.
Why? Because they aren’t looking for those services. At least not at the moment.
What those ads do instead is interrupt their time on the platforms. Users aren’t there to find companies or businesses unless they are searching for a specific company’s user, and for that, there’s a search bar. This is why it is hard to convert them to actual customers who will show interest in the companies’ services. Also, you’re limited by a budget.
When using lead generation, everything is organic. You aren’t forcing others to pay attention to your business but rather being there when they need you. This is why Google’s organic traffic will always beat paid ads, and the reason companies continue investing in it, which is a lot cheaper as well.
What Is Local SEO?
Don’t worry… I didn’t get it at first either. Following the short explanation, local SEO focuses on scaling businesses’ visibility on search engines. However, this is only for those who serve their communities face-to-face.
What does this mean?
Experts and professionals like painters, plumbers, and dentists (but not only them) offer their services to their local customers. Why? Because they can’t deliver them unless they are located in the same area of their customers.
To make sure those businesses get more leads, you need to rank them locally by claiming the business listing on Google to place them on Map Listings. Local SEO also involves online reviews, citation management, and how you manage your entire online presence in the local area.
If you are going to bet on lead gen, you need to adapt yourself to today’s world: The Internet.
Keep in mind that although traditional channels and methods like billboards, warm calls, and pamphlets still work, they aren’t part of your tools. Whenever someone needs a service, they go to Google and search for it.
“Dentist in Miami” or “plumbing services in Orlando,” etc. And you can keep coming up with services or professionals people need and look for. Thus, you need to make sure you’re using Google to get the companies in front of their clients.
Users will always click on the first search results (those near the top), and many of them will be either Ad links (people paid to place their websites there), Map Listing, and then you get websites. Almost all of them are your goal and where you should always aim to place yourself.
Can My Real Estate Loan Business Utilize a Local Lead Generation Strategy?
If you want customers, you better know you need it. Following the previous explanation, lead gen is all about placing businesses in front of their customers, choosing them over their competitors.
Put it simply – it’s all about closing deals and having clients for those companies to make money. The main difference with the usual methods companies use for this is how lead generation approaches different channels to get them in the right place of the market to get customers.
Those channels are all focused on the Internet as most people are searching for products but also services across the net. The issue is that the Internet is way too broad, and businesses don’t know how to place themselves. They usually try, but they get one common result: losing money and time.
How Powerful Are Organic Real Estate Loan Leads from Google?
For companies looking for customers, it’s everything. For you? Pretty much the same. When you build a business with digital properties, you get to make thousands of dollars a month.
This isn’t a “get started today and get rich tomorrow” thing, but it is HIGHLY scalable, and ROI + positive results are guaranteed. Learning a fairly decent and very needed set of skills to create your digital properties and start ranking them on Google is required.
I have invested in several online businesses over the years, and if there’s something uncertain, whether you will get your ROI or not, even more than the actual profit.
However, this business moved my earnings from five figures a year to a month in ONLY passive income while sitting comfortably at home.
On my laptop. Anywhere. Anytime.
You can look at one of the first sites I built back in 2016, and it continues making me over $1.000+ every month. The best part is that I don’t need to touch it or the rest I’ve built over the years, just like this digital property.
What Makes Lead Generation SO Alluring?
Here it goes: you can work from home.
The main issue with regular business opportunities is how much you need to invest in staff, equipment, or rent to have a place to sell your products or offer your services.
We all know the hassles of traditional businesses that involve regular expenses, which are extremely high. Can you afford it? I don’t think so, and even if you can, is it worth it? Now, it isn’t only about the money. You also need to put in a lot of work, and it isn’t only during the first couple of months or years. Usually, it is as long as you continue running it.
You can save yourself those headaches and bone-breaking tasks and expenses with lead gen since it is more about generating leads with digital channels—mainly websites.
Websites can be VERY cheap to build, and with many tools online, you get to do it in a couple of hours instead of days. Any virtual or digital business is scalable and won’t need constant maintenance.
So, let’s summarize this:
- You save money in regular expenses with traditional and most online businesses as what you need is yourself and digital properties (websites).
- You can bet on passive income.
- There’s no need to hire more people to get started.
- You can generate leads in multiple industries, which allows you to work on any niche you want.
How Can I Get Started in the Local Lead Generation Program?
Anyone can start and learn. That’s the beauty of this business model. I knew nothing about SEO, Map Listing, and everything I’ve mentioned so far. It is all about learning the skills, gaining experience, and deciding to take the step.
Remember that this business model will never get old as business owners are always looking for leads. They need to do business and scale their companies. Why not do the same while helping others and still making money?
You can start with this local lead generation course highly recommended for anyone wanting to grow in the business. It is a close training that will take you through each step and make sure you are able to get your ROI, profits and take control of your life.
You will be added to an incredible lead generation family ready to help you 24/7 when asking questions on the group. Anyone is welcome who’s willing to put in the work. Click here to watch the lead gen webinar.