Webinar Recap: How Technology & Transparency Are Changing The Mortgage Industry

This week, we had the pleasure of partnering up with Insellerate and RateMarketplace for a panel: “The Big Shift: How Technology & Transparency Are Changing The Mortgage Industry.” 

Over the session, the panel experts covered how technology in the mortgage industry has evolved, why consent-based marketing is a necessary practice for lenders in 2021, and how to connect to more leads using a full tech stack.

To watch the webinar in full, just click here, or keep reading for the key takeaways from the event.

1. The way we buy/sell leads in the mortgage industry has shifted immensely
   
   Remember when everyone was faxing leads? Lead providers would take the piece of paper itself, copy it, and package it, so that they could then send it out to the various lenders, and that was the matching technology back in that time. As you can imagine, there were challenges there. Did you receive the fax? How many pages did you get of the fax? What happened to the pages after you actually printed out the fax? There was so much uncertainty, that we really didn’t have any idea of what was eventually happening to those consumers.The next form of sending leads then morphed into email, followed by the server-to-server HTTP post, ensuring that the information being sent was actually encrypted or protected — and that was the peak of consumer privacy. Today, technology allows us new intelligence built into CRMs that tell you if you’ve seen a lead before, and shows lead attributes that help you decide whether to accept or reject that lead.“It’s not just about how many leads you can generate, but it’s also how you can work with your partners utilizing technology to be able to understand the end to end flow. We obviously know what’s happening on the top end of the funnel to generate the lead. But it’s really important for us to understand what’s happening in the funnel, contacts, applications, funded loans. That information helps us make decisions.”
2. You need an omnichannel tech stack to stay ahead of competition
   
   Back in the early days, marketing was really about display, advertising, search, and email. Now, there are many different channels. When you layer in social and native ads, you want to understand the content of the information that’s being displayed and the marketing messages that are going out to consumers. How do you make that connection based on the information of the consumers you’re marketing to, and what they’re looking for from a product standpoint? When you’re looking at marketing companies that are able to provide a quality lead, and you have a technology stack that’s in place to be able to communicate effectively back to your providers, this will help you not only increase volume, but also increase the quality of the leads that you’re buying.“Unfortunately, we’re at a stage where you will lose if your technology is not competitive with the rest of the market.”
3. Lenders need to call leads faster and use tech to stay top of mind
   
   According to an MIT study, if you call a lead within 30 minutes versus 5 minutes, you’re 100 times less likely to get a hold of them. Not only do lenders not call prospects quickly enough, they don’t stay in front of people enough. It’s crucial to understand the data you’re interacting with. You can achieve this by automating emails, texts, social media ads, and website cookies to track and understand your audience’s behavioral data and purchase intent. “Very simple technology can do great things for you. Whether it’s through your own website cookies, Google ads, or Facebook & Instagram retargeting, it’s easier than ever to use technology to stay in front of your audience longer.”
4. Don’t focus only on new customers – focus on getting repeat customersThe average lender only gets 19% of their customers to return for a second transaction — meaning that 81% of the time, lenders are striking out on what should be easy return business. To get a loan a second or third time is immensely more valuable than a low loan from a new customer.“You’re always going to get more market share from new customers, but you should have a big contingency that your current customers are also your market share. They’re also the ones you’re going to be getting more business from.”
5. Put good tech systems in place and the business will followLenders, it’s no longer about whether or not you have a great personality and get people to send you business. It’s about putting good systems in place. Do you have good digital marketing campaigns in place? The mortgage world is no longer offline or online – it’s all combined and must be treated as such.An important aspect to remember about digital marketing and lead generation is compliance. With increasing privacy laws around contacting consumers like the TCPA, it’s crucial to only contact consumers who have given prior express, written consent. “Solutions like ActiveProspect’s TrustedForm are the industry standard for documenting this consent to protect you in the event of litigation in the future.”

Wrapping it up

There is no individual piece or solution that will lead you to long-term success — it’s putting a full stack together that will do the trick. The mortgage business isn’t transactional. It’s about having conversations and creating comprehensive solutions that will help lenders be more productive in the digital era — ultimately empowering you to close more loans.

To learn more about how ActiveProspect can help you build a tech stack for your mortgage business, contact us today!