Weekend Leads

05/26/06

Although a good portion of the lending industry spends some part of their weekend working, be it in the office or at home, very few lenders purchase leads on weekends. What this leaves is an underused wealth of leads that in some cases may be even easier to work than your average lead.

Since most consumers are home on the weekend, when you receive a realtime lead, there's a great chance that they're still at home and interested in discussing lending options. Rather than having to worry about them not being able to talk at work or dealing with other normal distractions on weekdays, you have a relatively captive audience and can have a more valuable conversation with the consumer.

The other benefit is that with the leads being undersold, there's a higher chance of being the first person to call and there will also be fewer people calling the consumer overall. Even if the lead is resold on Monday, you've already made contact with the person and have an advantage over anyone else that's interesting in doing business with them.

If you work on the weekends, adding Saturdays or Sundays to your delivery schedule can be a great way to supplement your business and get a jump on other lenders.

Mortgage Lead Tips

05/15/06

Despite claims by some lead companies that mortgage leads are a slam dunk for getting loans, there is a lot you can do to maximize your chances of doing a loan from a lead. A key point that many people forget is that a lead is not a loan, it's an interested person that you still have to sell on your services. With that in mind, here are some tips for getting the most out of your leads:

1) Remember that you're talking to a person, not a piece of data. After a few dozen phone calls, it's easy to forget that the person on the other end of the phone probably isn't expecting your call. Even if the last nine people you talked to were rude and wanted nothing to do with you, this call is a clean slate. As frustrating as bad calls can be, treat every call like it's your first.

2) Don't oversell the lead. Like any other form of sales, people are turned off by pushiness and an overzealous attitude. While you want to work with as many people as possible, it's a simple statistical fact that a portion of the people you call won't be a good fit with you for one reason or another. You're better off moving on to the next call than struggling to convince them of something they don't want to agree to.

3) Don't give up on a lead. While you don't want to oversell someone, you also don't want to waste leads. If the consumer isn't available when you call, try again at a different time of day, or send them an email and see if you can schedule a good time to speak with them. As people find themselves more and more busy, it can be hard to get in touch with them. A degree of patience can yield more success than burning through leads and giving up if you don't make contact.

Mortgage leads are a great tool, but like anything else, they require the right strategy to use. The next time you're on a cold streak, stop for a few minutes and review your processes. You'll probably find that simple adjustments will make all the difference in the world.

A Tax Leads Primer

05/04/2006

With tax season in the proverbial rear view mirror for most of us, the issue of tax debt can be a problem. Late spring and summer can be a prime season for tax consolidation leads as people get their tax debts in order. For those unfamiliar with tax leads, they aren't just direct debt to the IRS.

Along with debts to the IRS, tax consolidation leads can include levies and garnishments against a consumer's pay, as well as payroll taxes. In general, tax leads will be for at least $10,000 of debt, although leads for between $7500 and $9999 are available if there's a desire to work with them. Within the group of leads about $10k and above, approximately 50% are between $10,000 and $15,000, 30% are between $15,000 and $20,000, and 20% are over $20,000.

Another benefit is that tax leads are generally exclusive leads, as it's not a competitive market like refinance is. If you're already familiar with debt consolidation leads, working with tax leads can be a great way to supplement your business.

Are Exclusive Leads Worthwhile?

04/25/06

Anyone who buys leads has no doubt heard at least one pitch about exclusive leads. Sales people will tout extremely high closing rates, much more receptive consumers, and many other benefits of an exclusive lead, and to a degree, these benefits are true. However, there can a fatal flaw at the core of the concept of exclusive leads - they may not actually be exclusive.

The most common way for an 'exclusive' lead to not be exclusive is through the consumer's own actions. When someone is shopping around for a mortgage, it's not uncommon for them to fill out more than one form on the Internet looking for quotes. While the vendor you're purchasing the lead from may truly only be selling it to you, there's nothing preventing the other lead they filled out from being sold several places, sharply devaluing the exclusive lead you purchased.

The other main path through which an exclusive lead can be purchased more than once is a dishonest vendor. Unfortunately, lead sellers will sometimes sell you an exclusive lead, and then sell that same lead to someone else at a discounted rate to make extra profit on the lead. There's little you can do to combat this, other than work with vendors with whom you have an established business relationship and good trust in.

While exclusive leads can be a great tool, there are lot of potential pitfalls involved. Unless you're looking to gamble with your hard earned money, it may not be worthwhile.

Fighting Mortgage Industry Spam

04/21/06

As a greater percentage of the population has moved online, there has been an increased focus on the issue of stemming the flow of spam, and the mortgage industry has become especially aware of the problem. With recent cases involving mortgage spammers reaching into the millions of dollars in fines, and CAN-SPAM compliance becoming an absolute necessity, it's important to know the facts about spam to protect your business.

One of the most important things to know is that not all email marketing is spam. While consumers may not like receiving any offers, they frequently forget where they've signed up for offers or submitted their email address. This is where CAN-SPAM compliance is crucial - as long as none of these rules have been broken, the email is a legitimate offer and annoying as it may be, is not illegal. If you're unfamiliar with the details of the CAN-SPAM Act, it's a good idea to review it via the above link.

Once you know what is and isn't acceptable email marketing, the next and biggest step is to make sure that along with keeping your own marketing efforts compliant, you need to make sure your vendors are compliant as well. If you purchase mortgage leads, what does your contract with the lead company say about spam leads? Are you allowed to terminate the contract if you receive spam leads? Are they upfront with you about being committed to staying CAN-SPAM compliant and only supplying you with legitimate leads? While you may not always be liable for contacting a lead that was generated through spam, it can lead to other effects such as bad publicity, complaints on online forums, and damage the reputation of the business you've worked hard to build.

The Internet is a powerful tool, but it's important that we all do our part to keep it safe for consumers. Fighting spam today will lead to a better mortgage industry tomorrow.

Real Time, Batch, or EOD - Which Leads Fit You Best?

04/17/06

It's a safe bet that if you took ten loan officers and asked them what their strategy is for working with mortgage leads, you would receive ten different answers. Some will say they prefer to be the first person calling a prospect, some prefer to come in after a consumer has received an offer or two, and others like to wait a few days before making contact.

Real time leads are the freshest type of mortgage leads, generally reaching the lender within minutes of a consumer submitting their data. For loan officers who want the first crack at a lead, these are definitely the way to go, as in many states, it may be at least 24 hours before the consumer receives another call. Real time leads are the most expensive class of mortgage leads, but when quality is high, they're well worth the investment.

Batch leads are somewhat of a middle ground in leads, as they're a collection of data from the past 24 hours. For lenders who like to work within the context of a competing offer from the day before, batch leads will be the tool of choice. The leads are still reasonably fresh, but it's a safe bet they've already received a call or two from lenders who received them as a real time lead. Batch leads are also cheaper than real time leads, but as they're sometimes less than twelve hours old, can provide a great value.

EOD leads are a bit different from real time and batch, in that the lead will be at least 48 hours old, and almost certainly will have received at least two calls already. However, there's still a good opportunity for business in these leads - some consumers will not have been services by one of their previous calls, and others will still be open to new offers to compete against what they have on the table. Although the success rate will generally be lower than that of real time or batch leads, the cost is approximately 25% of a real time lead. What you lose in closing rate you make up for in volume.

When you break things down, the type of leads you utilize become a matter of personal preference. As long as you buy from a reputable lead generator that takes quality seriously, you'll find that real time, batch, and EOD leads all provide unique opportunities to serve consumers.

Student Loan Leads 101

04/12/06

If someone told you there was an unsaturated section of the lending market, you probably wouldn't believe them. However, such a thing does exist - student loan consolidation. Within the debt consolidation market, student loan leads have been somewhat of a quiet corner without many of the competitive aspects of the debt market. The vast majority of student leads are exclusive, giving lenders the opportunity to work with consumers in a less pressured fashion.

As you may have already guessed, a student loan lead is a consumer with multiple student loans that is in search of consolidation. There's a lot of flexibility in this area - loans can be offered for up to 30 year lengths, monthly payments can frequently be cut by up to 50%, even 75% in some extreme cases, and rates can be reduced by several points. What this means to you, the lender, is that it's not hard to keep clients happy. Between the exclusivity of leads and the flexibility in meeting their needs, it's can be a drastic change of scenery from markets such as refinance, where consumers have heard dozens of lenders try to save them a quarter of a percent.

If you're looking to expand your business into new areas, take a strong look at student loan leads - with exclusive, high quality leads, the odds are good you'll find it to be a successful venture.

Achieving Full Market Penetration

04/10/06

The goal of any marketing campaign is to gain as much mindshare with your target audience as possible, but as any marketing specialist will tell you, there are many ways of going about this. Some prefer an email campaign, others prefer direct mailers, and voice broadcast can be cited as another way to reach consumers. However, many people overlook an option - rather than use one avenue to market, why not combine multiple methods to ensure the greatest possible penetration?

Using email, direct mail, and voice broadcasting for the same campaign can yield up to 40% more penetration than any of the three techniques alone. When you're targeting a geographic area, you can guess with reasonably certainty what day a direct mailing will arrive. You can then coordinate an email drop on that same day, as well as a voice broadcast that afternoon or evening not only notifying people to check their mail for your offer, but also working on the possibility of them wanting to discuss your offer further right then.

Utilizing three simultaneous means of contacting prospective consumers allows you to reach more people than any single technique can and greatly improves the ROI of any campaign. Making more money with less work - just about everyone will agree on that being a good idea.

Putting Aged Mortgage Leads to Work

04/05/2006

When most people think of mortgage leads, they think of a fresh lead, someone who has recently expressed interest in a loan. Although fresh leads account for a majority of the market, there's a sizeable group that prefers to focus on aged data, be it a month old, six months old, or even one to two years old.

One of the biggest upsides to aged data is the price. While fresh leads range anywhere from $10 to $40 and above, aged data can usually be purchased for anywhere from $1 to 10 cents, depending upon how old it is. While there is a tradeoff in the quality of the lead, since someone who was interested in refinancing six months ago may no longer need a loan, there are also benefits to this. For the portion of the leads that didn't complete a loan and are still interested, you're very likely to not competing with other lenders - you can work with the consumer and craft a good deal without having to worry about them receiving calls from competitors as soon as you hang up.

Another common use of aged data is as a training tool for new loan officers. The investment in aged data is exponentially lower than fresh leads, so a large company can let new hires learn from their mistakes on 20 cent leads rather than having to worry about them making $20 mistakes. In a similar fashion, many companies will load large quantities of aged data into dialer software and let their call center run through entire lists. As inexpensive as the data is, one doesn't have to fear about underutilizing it by just calling once - a much lower success rate is required for a solid ROI.

Aged leads will rarely provide the same success rate as a fresh mortgage lead, but in the right situations, it's another valuable tool to use in running a successful lending business.

Purchase Leads - An Underused Resource

04/03/2006

While many loan officers focus on a refinance market that most will agree has become rather saturated and a bigger challenge to work in over the last year, a growing number of them are turning to purchase leads as an alternative source of business. In many cases, purchase leads are pursued by only a single party, giving a much better chance of success than a refinance consumer who may receive dozens of calls within a week. So why are purchase leads still underutilized?

First and foremost, most loan officers will tell you that a new home purchase is more work than a refi, and they wouldn't entirely be wrong. Between coordinating with realtors, appraisers, and other third parties, more of the process is out of your hands than on a refinance deal. However, the majority of these problems are minor enough that when taken in the context of the process, they're certainly more tolerable than one might think.

Another common complaint about purchase leads is that the fallout rate is higher than other types of leads. Some consumers are just looking for information, some will say they've found property when they really haven't, and some aren't even really sure what they need. There is a silver lining to this problem though - even if they don't follow through the first time, the fact that purchase leads are underused means you can call them back in a month and see if they're ready to do a loan.

The next time you find yourself waiting for that $300k refi lead to come across your desk, give purchase leads a try - you may be surprised!

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