Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / Ep 155: How this Loan Officer Gets a 5X Return on Google Pay-per-Click Leads

Transcript

Ep 155: How this Loan Officer Gets a 5X Return on Google Pay-per-Click Leads · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
0:04
real estate agents is essential for success.
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However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge.
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With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents,
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it can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections.
0:20
Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read.
0:25
This has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals.
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And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships
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with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business.
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To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy
0:45
of the case study today.
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You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million
0:52
in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can, too.
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Don't miss out.
0:57
Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today.
1:17
Welcome to Mortgage Marketing Radio.
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Brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute, your number one source for truth
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in Mortgage Marketing.
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Hey, Listers, what's up?
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This is Jeff Zimfer.
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Welcome to this episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio Podcast.
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So glad you've tuned in.
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Happy New Year.
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If you've not heard the sound of my voice in the month of January 2020, but welcome to
1:41
a new year, a new decade.
1:43
And if you're back, I'm glad you're back.
1:46
If you're here for the first time and you're liking what you're hearing, hey, would you
1:50
do us a favor, leave us a review wherever you're listening to this podcast.
1:53
It always helps us get feedback and tell us what you're learning.
1:57
What's the benefit you're getting from listening to the podcast?
2:00
Here's the latest podcast shout out from Brittany Gag.
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Hey, Brittany, what's up?
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Brittany, I appreciate you leaving a podcast.
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Here's what she says.
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Best loan officer podcast, Jeff never fails at delivering great content interviewing the
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best loan officers and branch managers in the business.
2:15
This podcast is unmatched, wow, thank you.
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Every single episode has a takeaway that can be implemented in anyone's business plan.
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I've connected with a handful of top producers through the show that have become good friends
2:26
now.
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This is my number one go to podcast and it should be yours too.
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Thank you, Jeff, for pouring your heart into helping others succeed and connect.
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Thank you, Brittany.
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As you know, I'm a fan of yours.
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And if you haven't gotten your podcast swag yet, hit me up on the Facebook message me.
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Let me know your t-shirt size mailing address and we'll get you off the podcast swag box.
2:46
New t-shirts, new logo coming for 2020.
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And by the way, as it heads up, case you guys didn't know, be on the lookout for a couple
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of things I've got coming that I'm really excited about.
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Number one is I'm launching a new weekly live show.
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We're changing the title of the podcast.
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It is going to now be mortgage marketing live.
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And if you're watching, you can see my little mic flag that I've got here, this big square
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that's now taken up residence over my microphone.
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We'll see how this thing plays out.
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But I'm changing up the format of the show a little bit.
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We're still going to be interviewing obviously successful producers, but also we're going
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to be diving deep into some other relevant topics that you, the audience, the listener have
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told me you want to learn more about around the umbrella under the umbrella of marketing,
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digital marketing, online off marketing and that kind of stuff.
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But going Facebook live once a week, also streaming that over to YouTube.
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And then once I get the approval from LinkedIn, that'll be streaming on LinkedIn as well.
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I don't know what's taking so long, but I know some people that are huge players with
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huge video presence that still haven't gotten approved for LinkedIn live video.
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I think it's completely random.
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Anyways, look for that to come.
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More announcements about that to come as well.
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And look for coming soon, the release of the new book Disrupt or Die.
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How to Survive and Thrive the digital real estate shift for both real estate agents
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and mortgage professionals and a great opportunity for you to team up.
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And maybe if you're down for it, do some co-branding together with the book.
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So that'll be coming your way soon.
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And then lastly, before I forget, as always, our episode is sponsored by the
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mortgage marketing pro membership where you can go deep and wide,
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reach more agents and less time, have more success, get more referrals
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through teaching agent classes and lots of other self-paced modules,
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tutorials and learning modules in there for you to become a modern mortgage originator.
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Mortgage Marketing.Pro is where you can check it out soon to be released here in 2020.
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And you can go there to learn more.
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So all right, without further ado, let's talk about this week's episode,
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the show we recorded this before the holidays.
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So it's, you know, I'm glad I'm able to finally release it.
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We did have a few technical difficulties with the audio.
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So we kind of just jump right into the conversation.
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You'll hear me jumping right into the conversation with two guests.
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Number one is Michael McHallister, who is the founder of Empower Funnels.
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And what they specialize in is generating leads for you, the mortgage loan
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originator, using Google PaperClick ads.
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So I wanted to do this episode for some time because I think it's important for,
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if you're talking about Legion, Facebook gets a lot of the love.
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We've got to make sure we look at Google PaperClick ads.
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And we're going to talk about differences and why you might want to consider one over the other.
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So and Michael, by the way, is a former mortgage originator who struggled with
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Legion's first hand and has created this company Empower Funnels that is helping loan
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officers create high intent-based qualified leads to grow their mortgage business.
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And I wanted to have Michael on because I've heard about Michael over gosh, the past year now.
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And I know he's worked with multiple companies that include like Caliber,
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movement, fairway, Geneva, shout out to Emmett.
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Thanks for giving me some insights into Michael and his company.
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And then of course, our special guest that we have on, I brought a loan officer on that
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is a client of Michael so you can hear directly from the loan officer how he's leveraging
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Google PaperClick to generate leads and not only like, you know, originate loans but also
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utilize to those leads to then partner with real estate agents.
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And our special loan officer guest is Brett Brent Vandergrind,
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so that comes loans out of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
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So I think you'll enjoy the conversation, you'll learn a lot about Legion,
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what Google PaperClick ads are, how they differ from Facebook and do they have a potential
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place for you in your business? Well, that's for you to decide. But without further ado,
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let's get into this week's show.
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I was able to do that by simply asking for some connections of some real estate agents,
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had my list of, you know, those I wanted to talk to.
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Michael's system got me a bunch of leads in Minnesota, which is another state where license in.
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And we started handing these out and, you know, when you hand them a lead and it's pre-approved
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and they just have to go show them homes and close it, you start getting that, you know,
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reciprocated business right back to you. So it was huge.
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I don't know how to quantify that necessarily without really diving into some more of our numbers,
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but when you can hand an agent, you know, a loan, it doesn't matter where you're located,
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you hand them a loan, they're probably going to want to keep that relationship going.
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So it's really, you know, kind of flip the scripts for what we've always done and how easy it was
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to get in with some of these agents in different markets. Okay. All right, so we didn't really prep
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you for this in terms of numbers or whatnot. And again, you don't have to share anything,
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you're not comfortable sharing, but I'm naturally curious then because you just kind of articulated
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how you can, you're leveraging the paper, paper click to generate opportunities for real estate
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agents. That's awesome. It helps solidify relationships there, create new conversations.
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Can you give us a sense of like ROI, return on ads, spend, whatever, you know, in terms of like
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the average investment you're making. And just because that's the big curiosity factor,
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people want to know like, you know what I'm saying? Well, yeah, and I had this, you know,
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some other systems I had tried look back at the end of the year. And it's, you know, I spent
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X amount of dollars, which is outrageous. And we closed just enough to make it break even.
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Well, when you calculate your time that you're spending on that, you're, you're really losing
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quite a bit of money. So for us, and I know Michael will hit on this as well, our ROI, we've got
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a lot of room for improvement just because we've scaled it up relatively quickly. And I think we're
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leaving a lot on the table there. But for rough numbers, Jeff, we're looking at anywhere from
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between maybe 500 to $1,000 that we spend on, you know, empower the ad spend itself, our follow-up
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systems, for every thousand, we'll even say $1,000. For every thousand dollars, we spend if we're
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bringing in $5,000 in revenue, which is roughly our, you know, our income per loan.
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If we've got a way to have that kind of automated, and we've got the people in place, if it makes
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total sense for us. Now, that's not our goal. We would like to see that number down to about $500.
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For every 500 we spend, we have a loan, you know, spit out at the end. There's things where we're
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doing to kind of improve that. But it's, it's definitely a good starting point. And it's, it's
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profitable. So. Okay. Nice. I like that. Now, Michael, don't, I appreciate your patience, right?
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We'll get to you in a second or whenever you feel it's right for you to jump in. But, um,
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and this might be the time because people listening to this, right? As I'm sure you're well aware,
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Michael, um, you know, Facebook gets all the love, uh, or this, you know, I mean, the attention,
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at least in our industry. Um, there's a lot more noise, if you will, about running Facebook ads
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and all that kind of stuff. Um, and it sounds like, uh, Brent, you might have spent some time in
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money on Facebook ads before, before coming to Michael. Definitely spent my fair share.
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What, what's a couple of things that are very apparent about the differences, either about the
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types of leads generated or the ROI or whatever, what really stands out about key differences?
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So I think a lot of the, uh, and I'm not going to, you know, say every Facebook ad or course is bad.
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But what I experienced was it's easy to get people to click on a link and you can talk about,
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hey, we'll get you a thousand leads for, you know, pennies per lead. But, um, with Michael's system,
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they're a lot more intent driven. So they're filling out a long form. They've googled, you know,
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key phrases regarding buying a home or needing a mortgage, where a lot of the Facebook stuff,
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at least in my experience was, you know, they happened to click on something before they knew it,
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they had gotten on our list. And a lot of them were, uh, probably poorly qualified, I guess,
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I would say, you know, they might have been intrigued by work, credit, okay, or no-down payment
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available. Those aren't really, you know, the loans we're looking for. The stuff we're seeing on
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Michael's side, they're a lot more, uh, ready to buy a home, they're farther down, you know,
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the process, maybe farther down in the funnel, you might say. And, uh, what we're running into is
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maybe they've already talked to their local bank or another mortgage company and we're competing for
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that, which is okay. Um, they're still exclusive leads to us. So that's great. But they're definitely
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interested in buying a home, they, for the most part, know why they're, they're being contacted.
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Okay. So Michael, you want to expand on that? Because I understand the, you know, the concept of
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higher intent. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, I've, I've always deferred, uh, to Brent, obviously, and I
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think it's great that, uh, you've got him on here, answering some of these questions. But, um,
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when it comes to Facebook versus Google, um, that's like one word, right? A one word summary of
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the difference is going to be that word of intent. I mean, at the end of the day, the problem that
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you face on Facebook is that buying a home is the American dream. Everybody wants to buy a home
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at some point. Now, whether or not somebody has positioned themselves to be able to legitimately
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inquire and see what's required next to like what the next steps are to buying a home,
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that's the question that's going to determine their level of intent. So on Facebook, you run
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into this challenge where you can target, you can try and target people that are within, um,
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within their buying window, but Facebook makes that harder and harder constantly. Facebook has
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made it pretty clear that they don't like mortgage advertising and more like, um, and, and the
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reason why is because if mortgage advertising, advertising fair lending laws, that's really
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where a lot of the hot water that they've landed in, um, aside from obviously your Cambridge
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Analytica scandal or whatever, but that's where a lot of their hot water, uh, has come from in their
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advertising space, which is why you'll find it's getting harder and harder and they're constantly
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removing your targeting metrics. You used to be able to target likely to move. You can't do that
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anymore. You kind of have to create your own audience and stuff. Um, so anyways, as good as you can
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get with targeting, it's never going to replace finding somebody who is searching for that for questions,
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their answers to their questions right here and right now. So how much house can I qualify for?
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How much down payment do I need on a $400,000 house or what's the minimum credit,
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credit score requirement for a conventional loan because they heard from their buddy that FHA loans
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are bad for whatever reason. Like there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people that are
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searching for this stuff every single day and yet we've got a lot of marketers on Facebook trying to
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trying to stimulate engagement or trying to manufacture intent with buzzwords or flashy graphics
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and stuff like that. Um, and it's the problem that you run into with Facebook is that you have, um,
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if your ads are too enticing, you're going to have low quality leads. If your ads aren't enticing
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enough, you're not going to get enough speed conversion. So it's a tough game to play for sure
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when you're not setting up camp where people that are in your target market are searching.
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Do you think the path to, um, you know, loan app in our case mortgage or path to actually
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transacting on purchasing, purchasing a home is, uh, it's a longer path to get there on Facebook
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versus somebody doing a Google search or is it similar? Uh, no, I think it's definitely longer.
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I, I've talked to a lot of people. I mean, I've been doing this for a couple of years now and as a
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loan officer previously, I was generating Facebook leads and Google leads myself, um, but pretty much
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consensus from when I talked to somebody that's, that's converting on Facebook. It's really hard
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for them to quantify an average purchase window because the intent wasn't there in the first place.
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So on the, by, you know, on an off chance, you generate somebody that's highly qualified.
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There's typically a reason that they haven't been searching for it, which is why they clicked
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on your ad and weren't searching on Google. Um, and so for that reason, yeah, we, we qualify our
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conversions with our customers within a four month window only. So anything outside of a four
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month window is gravy. That's awesome. We'd love to see our customers convert that, but that's
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usually more a testament to their follow-up abilities than it is to our lead gen. And so when we're
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looking at conversions, we are only interested in how many of these leads are converting inside
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that four month window from when the lead was generated. Okay. And, and what is, I know it varies
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quite a lot, but is there an average conversion ratio on a Google versus Facebook? Yeah, I mean,
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the variations are going to be, are going to be wild. And so what I would say is that somebody who's
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bought into the, to the system that, that we implement because we control so many variables through
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automated follow-up and conversion coaching and stuff like that. I think Brett can, can speak to
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what his numbers are like, but two to four percent is what we would expect to see. We have some
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customers that have seen upwards of five percent for an extended period of time, but those guys
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are typically spending the minimum recommended ad spend and just going all in on it to get those,
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five deals, three to five deals that they're looking to get versus somebody who wants to scale it
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up a little bit and use it as just a supplement in their business is going to see more like that two
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to three percent range. And, and some of our customers have even seen less than that. I think Brett,
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when we first, when we first talked about increasing his ad spend, probably a year ago, he was looking
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at like one and a half to two percent. And, and when we talked, there was a lot more interest in
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how do I scale this up than how do I get a higher percentage of conversion because that's just
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what made sense to his business model. So different loan officers are going to have different ideas
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for that. Some loan officers are all about scale. How big can I blow this up and those guys are
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going to be more comfortable with a lower conversion rate, which will lead to them focusing their
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activities on things that are lower conversion higher scale, whereas some loan officers want to
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squeeze every last, last penny that they can out of their marketing dollars, they've invested
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and are going to focus their activities that way and see a higher conversion rate.
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I should jump in there too quick Jeff on the conversion part of it because we spent a lot of time
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before we had talked to Michael and implemented some automation where I had a, a loan partner on my
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team. He was physically calling every one of these leads every single night before he left. He
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would hit the phones and it was, it was definitely a burnout type of a situation. So my recommendation
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is you need to 100 percent need to automate the initial follow-up and I know Michael would set
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that up for for anyone listening, but you automate the initial follow-up and then when they engage
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with you, that's where you customize and spend your time trying to convert them from asking
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questions to take an application to obviously closing their loan. So we've done a lot of the
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automated follow-up on our end. You know, Michael's hit on that too, our pull-through rate could be
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higher, but we don't want to spend man hours working internet leads, you know, that's really not
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what we're about. So only talking to people that want to talk to us has been huge. We've implemented
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some videos where we've had some kind of evergreen or can type responses based on the parameters
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they fill out on the lead form. That goes out to them, you know, the appearances that we've
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spent a lot of time analyzing their form when in reality, we recorded, you know, maybe 30 videos
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one time and the system just kind of reads what to send out. So videos have been huge, you know,
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put in video in there, customizing what we can, knowing your numbers on that and then just
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automating what you can. So what's again, back to I guess the timeline question, right?
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I know we've kind of touched on this with a Facebook thing in that it's, you know, Facebook is
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an intent base. Nobody really goes on Facebook to search for homes. It just happens to show up in
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their feed or somebody buys a home, their friend or whatever, you know, and I mean all that stuff.
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What is the kind of average timeline you see on somebody, right, clicking on your Google
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PPC ad, getting into your funnel? And again, I know for things very, but in general, right? I mean,
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we're looking at like 90 days, four months, is that where you have that window there?
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I was going to say right at about 90 days, if I had to guess and I don't have the numbers in
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front of me, but we'll get the ones that are, they found a property, they need to get pre-approved,
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you know, they're going right away. We've got others that are, you know, four to six months,
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we end up closing them, but really that 90 days, correct me if I'm wrong, Michael, but that's kind of
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how you measure a lot of that too, or maybe 120 days, but it's on 90, I would say it would be the
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average for what we're seeing. Yeah, and I ask that because from what I hear from people I've
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talked to on the Facebook side is, and we kind of talked about this, but it's quite a bit longer
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on the face, and I don't know, does it all come back to intent?
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I personally, I think that's exactly what it boils down to. I mean, like,
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some of it's going to be intent and then some of it's going to be quality of the leads.
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I mean, at the end of the day, and what I mean by that is like their qualifications, right?
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So which also can be kind of tied into intent as well. I mean, it all kind of ties together,
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but on Facebook, like I said, if you generate somebody that does qualify, well, the intent wasn't
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there in the first place, versus if you generate that lead on Google and they do qualify,
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they're hot, they're ready to go. I think Brett can speak to us to this. Like he said, I mean,
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you're never going to get a lead on Facebook where they've identified a property,
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and they're looking to get pre-approved. That's never going to happen on Facebook,
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because that's not because, and I mean, I shouldn't say never, maybe one in a million
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chances that happening because they run across the right out at the right time. Whereas what we see
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on the Google side, we see Facebook situations all the time where somebody will, somebody is
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renting a home from their landlord and their landlord told them that they're going to put it
20:56
on the market, but that they want to give them first dibs. And so the first thing they're doing
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is going to Google to find out how much house they can qualify for to see if they can buy it.
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They click on our ad, the loan officer responds, they figure out they can't get approved,
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and they're submitting an offer two days later. That's just not something, those kind of scenarios,
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while they're not extremely common, they're going to bring down that average close time quite a bit.
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And those are the types of scenarios that, like I said, I mean, barring some crazy statistical
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anomaly, you're just not going to see on Facebook. What are the types of ads that you're seeing
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that are working on Google or Andor? Are you choosing the ad copy based on the type of client you
21:39
want to attract? To be honest with you, we go pretty generic with the ads. We're not, I mean,
21:45
we will run some experiments where, for example, we have a client that claims to be a VA loan
21:52
specialist, right? And so he'll close any loan, but he really likes VA loans. I think there's
21:57
a lot of loan officers out there that would say the same thing. So we'll run some VA-related ads
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in his account to supplement or even to prioritize over the existing ads that we're running.
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But the thing is, is what we've been able to identify is that even companies like Veterans
22:14
United, who market 100% of veterans, and I don't even know if they write loans aside from VA
22:21
loans, if we type in how much house can I afford? On Google, Veterans United will typically show up
22:27
in the top four with an ad that has nothing to do with VA loans whatsoever. And so when we look
22:33
and we see stuff like that, we see that the more general approach of just positioning ourselves
22:38
to answer whatever question that they asked on Google is the most effective way to generate the
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lead. So again, that question almost always is going to revolve around specific qualification
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questions or general qualification questions. So specific would be down payment, credit score,
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income, etc. And people are literally typing in to Google, I make $90,000 a year and have a
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$670 credit score. How much house can I qualify for? We see those types of searches all the time.
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In fact, 95% of the leads that we generate are one in done as far as search firms go, meaning
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they're unique searches that have never been searched before and come through our lead funnel.
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And so for example, that one off, I make $90,000 a year and have a $674 credit score or whatever,
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how much do I qualify for? Well, we may have one lead that search that specifically and nobody will
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ever search that exact search term ever again, they'll just search some other variation of it. And so
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when we see that that's the trend and when we see that that's the case, we know that our best bet
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is to position our ads as, hey, here's a resource for you to get your mortgage questions answered
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or here's a resource for you to see how much house you can qualify for or how much house you
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can comfortably afford. Yeah, so are you deciding who to serve your ad up to based on the key words,
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the search terms that they punch in? Yeah, so more so, more so the opposite actually, what we're
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doing is we're casting a pretty broad, a pretty wide net, but what we do is every month we're,
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well, more often than that up to this point, but now we've got it dialed in pretty good to where
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we're doing it once a month or so. We're going back and we're reviewing the search terms that led
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to leads and we're making sure that we use what Google calls negative keywords to identify keywords
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that we absolutely do not want to show up in our searches. So that way is what allows,
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that doing it that way is what allows us to capture all of those one off like crazy search terms
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that you would never be able to identify. Specifically, I want somebody who searches for this
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by casting a broader net and then just making sure that we kick out, for example, we have a negative
24:52
keyword for every credit score under 580. So we literally, we literally went from 300 to 579 and
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included every single number in that range as a negative keyword. So if somebody searches,
25:07
I have a 560 credits for how much house can I qualify for? Our clients ads aren't showing up for
25:12
that. So, so negative keyword management. I mean, we have a list of over a thousand negative
25:17
keywords where we've said if the keyword, if the search includes this, even if it pertains to
25:23
what we're bidding on, we don't want to be in contention for it. And I think that's a big part
25:27
of what allows us to be super competitive on the Google search side is that actively managed
25:34
strategy where we're identifying the words that we absolutely do not want to include,
25:39
instead of trying to guess and poke and stab at the words that people are searching for.
25:44
Sure, plus those are lower cost to get those as well, right? Yes. Because they're less competitive.
25:49
Like if you said earlier, like if I'm going to search for how much house can I afford,
25:52
that's one of the most competitive search turns there are. So the odds of us winning that as
25:57
an average Joe L.O. We're not going to beat the veterans United of the world or the others.
26:03
Well, yes and no. I mean, we definitely see a lot of volume coming through there. We just
26:07
have to pay more for that volume, which means if our average lead cost is 750 to 10 bucks a lead,
26:13
that might be a keyword that is a good high intent keyword, but we're paying 12 to 13 bucks a
26:18
lead for it. Instead Google, there's a really common misconception when it comes to Google that
26:24
Google is just selling ads to the highest bidder, but that's really it's not the case. Google has
26:29
become the number one search engine in the world, not by pandering to the highest bidder, but by
26:34
being obsessed with user search experience. And so part of that is rotating ads, getting local ads
26:40
in when you've got national companies like Quick and Loans and Lending Tree bidding on a national
26:44
campaign. If we can manage an individual campaign at the South Dakota level, well, we're
26:49
automatically going to be more competitive for that than a Quick and Loans or a Veterans United
26:54
all else equal. So there's a lot of factors that go into that. I wouldn't say, I mean, you're
27:00
really common, like you're really common high cost keywords are going to be like mortgage rates
27:08
today or something like that. But a lot of that comes from a misunderstanding of what user search
27:13
experience is and not because there's so many people bidding on those keywords that more has to
27:18
do with restricted search volume, meaning lower people less people searching for those keywords,
27:24
than it does more people bidding for those keywords. If that makes sense.
27:29
Yeah, I'm curious how much of your targeting is based on local. Like, you know, what I'm reading is
27:34
that the growth of near me, people adding that to search terms is really exploding. And I'm
27:39
wondering, like, if it's a near like Sioux Falls or whatever, are you guys incorporating that in
27:43
your strategy? So the way that we the way that we limit locality, it doesn't necessarily have to
27:51
do with the user's search so much as it has to do with their actual location. So at the moment,
27:57
they're searching based on an address or geo locating. Yep, yep, exactly. And the reason why is
28:03
because like the near me thing, for example, well, yeah, if somebody is looking to, if somebody is
28:08
looking to start working out at a gym and sign up for a new gym membership, well, they're going to
28:14
add near me to their search, obviously, right? Well, 10 to 15 years ago, if somebody had mortgage-related
28:20
questions, they might search best mortgage lenders near me or best mortgage lenders in Sioux Falls,
28:25
South Dakota. They might search for something like that. Whereas nowadays, we live in an age,
28:29
I call it the age of WebMD, where people are more interested in having their symptoms diagnosed
28:35
online than they are actually talking to a doctor, which is why those keywords like mortgage lenders
28:41
or best mortgage companies in Sioux Falls, those keywords aren't the way to generate leads online
28:47
and aren't the keywords that the best companies are bidding on is because that's not what people
28:52
actually search for anymore. What they're actually searching for is again, those qualification-related
28:57
questions. And so nobody's going to search how much house can I qualify for in Sioux Falls,
29:04
right? Or maybe they maybe they do, and if they do, we'll be in contention for that. That's fine,
29:09
but typically when they're asking those kind of questions, they're asking them from a standpoint of
29:15
mortgage, like trying to understand better, like the qualifications for getting a mortgage and not
29:20
necessarily wanting to talk to a loan officer that's directly in their locale. Hmm. Interesting.
29:27
Do you think that changes for a real estate agent? For example, like real estate agent near me?
29:32
Yeah, I do. I don't fit. And honestly, your your PVC campaigns for real estate are not typically
29:37
going to be oriented around real estate agent near me. A lot of the times, that's going to stem from
29:43
people homes for sale near me, and then inquiring through an IDXI or a Zillow or something like that
29:50
and ultimately becoming a lead for that reason. I think that the search, the trend in search is
29:56
exists on the real estate side as it does on the mortgage side where people don't necessarily
30:00
search for a real estate agent to talk to. They search for real estate related searches and then
30:05
get intercepted and a quality salesperson converts them into ultimately being a deal for them.
30:12
All right, so this is here's a self-serving question. I like to occasionally play around with
30:16
these keyword research tools. Yeah, I know the Google got one and all that kind of stuff, but one
30:21
that I like, I think lately anyways, is Neil Patel's Uber Suggest. I don't know if you've seen
30:25
that, but so I just happened to type in right here like homes for sale near me. And so this is
30:31
obviously got surge volume for I think the last 30 days or something. But how can my, you know,
30:37
me as a listener as a loan officer, if I want to even if I'm producing content, right? I want to
30:41
maybe get some, you know, show up in, you know, local content or whatever. How can I better understand
30:46
how to the search term thing? How can I better understand the types of content or things that people
30:52
are looking for so that I can let's just say produce content around those things that are
30:56
searched more often? Yeah, I think, I mean, I think your keyword research tools are going to be
31:01
solid, but but what they're not going to encompass is those one-off searches that we talked about.
31:05
So really, I mean, this for it's tough for us to say because they're tough for me to say because
31:11
we found it like we figured this out almost on accident, right? What happened was I like I didn't
31:17
necessarily understand when I first built my first Google ads campaign as a loan officer three
31:21
years ago, I didn't necessarily understand the difference between broad match phrase match and
31:26
exact match, which we won't necessarily dive into, but basically it determines the level at which
31:31
the search has to match what you're bidding on. I didn't understand that. So all of my keywords
31:36
were broad match. Well, it wasn't until a couple months down the road that I realized holy crap,
31:41
the keywords that I'm bidding on are not necessarily what they're searching for. They're just
31:46
categorizations of the searches. So I found this function within Google called search terms,
31:52
and then that's where it told me exactly what people are searching for. And the only reason
31:56
that we know so much about search behavior is three years of data pouring in, pouring over those
32:03
results. Like I said, I tried the keyword search tools. I tried specifically Google's keyword
32:09
planner. I don't know. Three years ago, I didn't know if Neil Patel, so I didn't try that, but there's
32:14
another, I think word stream has one or something. There were a couple of the couple keyword research
32:19
tools that I use. And those keyword research tools didn't really help me help us help me and help
32:26
our company arrive at the conclusions that we've arrived at through three years of data. I would say
32:32
more than anything, just understand, understanding the age we're in. I think that this
32:37
conversation alone for a long after that's interested in this. If you really take this conversation
32:42
to heart and don't brush it off, it's just a podcast conversation. If you're interested in
32:46
targeting through SEO or PPC, and you really listen to what we're saying here, and how people search
32:52
on Google and the fact that if somebody wakes up in the morning and they're bleeding from the ears,
32:56
they no longer search for the closest doctor to talk to. They type their symptom in the WebMV
33:00
and try and get WebMV to tell them what's wrong with them. If you truly internalize that,
33:06
then you'll start to understand what it is, the kind of content that you should be producing or
33:11
the kind of ads that you should be running. How do you address the perception? Maybe it's my
33:17
perception. Maybe it's based on just kind of general noise out there that succeeding with Google
33:23
PPC is expensive. That's the only way we've been able to do it up to this point. We can show
33:33
we typically on a demonstration, if we've got somebody that says, hey, I was told that you
33:38
can't do this unless you have this much to invest. I mean, there was a book that was released a
33:43
couple years ago that was really popular among people that were marketing and mortgage
33:48
that said specifically like outright, if you don't have at least $3,000 a month in Google PPC,
33:54
don't bother. I mean, the best thing that we can do, I mean, I started this system on 700 bucks
34:00
a month and our minimum recommended ad spent for our clients is 750 a month and for that,
34:06
they expect to receive 75 to 100 leads. So the best thing that I could say is results. I mean,
34:11
as far as understanding why behind the results, I would just backped a little bit to some of the
34:17
things that we've talked about earlier in the call, the fact that Google doesn't necessarily want
34:22
a painter to the highest bidder, search volume and not the number of bidders for a keyword is going
34:29
to drive the cost more. So I just did a demonstration when the couple of loan officers out of a
34:36
major mortgage company that you're very familiar with just had a call with them and they showed
34:43
me their Google ad to count and they were paying an average of like $6.50 to $7 bucks a click.
34:49
We've got loan officers that have been with us for four or five months that have never
34:53
have never had a 30 day period where they paid more than that per lead. So our average cost per
34:59
click is going to set somewhere around the $50 bucks 60 category and Google does not have like a
35:07
minimum threshold as far as how much you have to spend to be able to get those kind of results.
35:12
So that's the best that I could do other than showing the results because it's
35:18
lip services lip service. I would add to that too guys. I've always heard the expression from a
35:24
famous mortgage coach that we're not selling pencils here. If we close a mortgage loan and we've
35:31
got $5,000 that we've netted for revenue and you look at what we spent to drive that business
35:36
in the door. I mean you can take some time and kind of find two things but after 90 days I mean
35:43
with Michael it was hey we've closed X we spent Y we should keep doing this and that's you know
35:49
ultimately I think it's hard to want to invest money you know especially going into maybe the
35:53
perceived slower time of year or you're already too busy you don't have time to do you know this much
35:59
more but if you look at what you can spend and what what it could net you at the end and those
36:04
numbers make sense and I go back to knowing your numbers because I'm guilty of this as well we
36:09
spent you know a ton of of of funds on other avenues and at the end of the day we broke even well
36:16
nobody wins in that scenario so just echoing I guess what Michael said if you look at what you
36:21
spend what you close say 90 days in us it was a no-brainer but it's going to be a little different
36:26
for everyone every market's going to be a little different so tracking that I can't emphasize that
36:30
enough is a big key to it. Can you tell us a little bit about the process I mean I'm pretty familiar
36:37
with how it works on Facebook in terms of somebody clicking on an ad right the channels or the funnel
36:42
they go through on that does it differ at all on using Google? Not much to be honest with you I mean
36:48
it's going to like you the big difference is going to be that your ads are going to look like
36:54
native search results so when you search on Google you're going to see you know typically you'll see
37:00
three to five at the top of the page that have a little the only identifiers that they say the word
37:04
ad next to it. So those are what we would call native ads that's that's going to be the key
37:10
difference in my opinion is that they're native within those are results that they're already
37:16
pouring through. Outside of that you're going to click on you know just like anything or just
37:21
the other channel they're going to click on that ad and then they're going to go to a landing
37:26
page and then from that landing page we're going to pull them through a lead form redirect and do
37:30
a thank you page and dump the dump the lead into an automated follow-up system. So I think it's
37:34
pretty similar other than on Facebook you do have that lead ad functionality and Google is
37:39
starting to roll this out too I'm not sure how effective it's going to be I honestly won't
37:43
dabble with it until we see some bigger players dabbling with it but on Facebook you have that
37:48
option where if somebody clicks on the call to action instead of taking them to a landing page
37:52
it like pre-filled their information name email address phone number whatever which again it sounds
37:58
great as far as driving your cost per lead down but it just removes an extra layer of intent that
38:03
we kind of want those leads to have in order to in order to quantify it as a good lead.
38:08
So speaking of that are you then purposely driving people through you know kind of that question
38:12
air lead lead funnel process where you ask them several questions which is kind of like an
38:16
intent qualifier process for you. Yes yeah exactly and I mean there's a couple different reasons
38:22
that we do that but the number one reason is going to be because we've identified that all of the
38:26
companies that are really good at this on a high level are doing it and so we're just going to do
38:30
our best to model what they're doing. Yeah it's what the big boys are doing. Exactly. So then the
38:35
post opt in if you will add click process it involves the multiple mediums like it would on
38:42
Facebook right you're going to be texting people putting a call in the cycle at some point emailing
38:47
and then you know most of that's going to be automated but obviously some of the outbound might
38:52
might be just what pick it up the phone or if you automate it all that. We've automated it all I know
38:57
talking to Michael there's clients of his that have you know pounded the phones and they're
39:01
they're probably getting a higher pull-through rate for us and what we're doing we wanted to automate
39:06
as much of it as we can so we are really not corresponding with these leads unless they're
39:12
reached out and talking to us so I would say the majority of them probably 90% if I had to guess
39:19
would respond via text I get quite a few emails as well that's probably 80% text 10% email 10%
39:27
phone call as far as response. You mentioned video earlier how are you delivering those videos in
39:33
that touch process. So I use bomb bomb and a lot of it goes out automatically via text.
39:40
Okay so it's a text bomb I'm not an email. Right and then if I need to customize something for
39:46
them a little bit rather than exchanging emails I'll do a quick video and just walk them through
39:51
basically what they spelled out on their form hey you're looking to buy a you know $300,000
39:54
home your first time home buyer that's great it's like you've got 5% to put down you know credit
40:00
scores look great and you know just giving them a little bit of a personalized attention which
40:05
takes me maybe a minute and then you know taking the conversation from there. So obviously there's
40:12
a CRM involved here right Michael and I'm just curious so you guys have your own that you use or
40:17
you or maybe Brent you have your own how does that work in terms of clients can they use
40:21
both you know pretty much every any CRM. Yeah so this is my only only hesitancy about bringing
40:27
Brent on the show is that Brent is our leverage our the only one I promise
40:34
but no it was Brent doesn't leverage the CRM that we use Brent but Brent also has been sending a
40:40
lot of money on this for a long time and as a happy return of customer when he when we first started
40:46
we did not have our systems dialed in to the level that we do now so it's just always made
40:52
10% for Brent to stick with what he's doing he still is doing all the channels that we're doing
40:58
we just have our we just use a white label version of an agency software where it makes it
41:04
really really easy for us to toggle between our clients as well as it's really really easy for
41:10
our clients who have who have zero technology background to manage and view all of the leads
41:17
and all the interactions within the same place so the toggling is important because the one-on-one
41:21
coaching that we provide for our clients that to help them move the needle on their conversion
41:27
if we have you know we have 65 loan officers across the country that are working the same system
41:31
and 64 of them are all using the same CRM thanks Brent no I'm just getting 64 of them are all
41:37
using the same CRM what we're able to do is we're able to identify those loan officers that are
41:43
converting at a high level and look at what it is that's going on and and how they're conversing
41:48
and depending on their settings we could even listen on their on listening in on some of their
41:53
phone calls and and provide some coaching and feedback for the loan officers that maybe aren't
41:57
converting as well or didn't have any experience coming into it so yeah we use a white label
42:03
version of an agency software I won't even drop the name of the agency software just because it's
42:08
only available to agencies we brand ours as Empower Contacters there's a few other agencies out
42:14
there that have something very very similar or the same but the point is it just needs to be a place
42:18
where not only can you manage the the initial interaction that automated follow-up but also
42:25
being able to track that lead through the pipeline at the point that that lead has engaged and having
42:31
a really easy place to see what all those conversations have looked like and then ultimately where
42:36
they went in the pipeline and whether or not they closed well it's a pretty strong case for his CRM
42:43
their brand oh that's awesome okay so what's your general we've got to wrap this up here for
42:50
sake of time I know you guys are busy but for those that you know are evaluating or considering
42:57
any like things that they need to be aware of and how does how does a loan officer know whether
43:02
or not they're ready to test out Google ads I think I think I don't think any loan officer
43:13
really should be test or should be playing with it with themselves I mean we do have a free
43:16
resource on our website the three steps to Google ads it's about as black and white as you can
43:21
get as far as hey here's how you could build this build this out yourself and dabble with it yourself
43:26
problem is is just you can spend so much energy and time doing that and not necessarily save any
43:33
money at the point that you now have to dial in those ads and you're spending 20 bucks a lead
43:37
incentive seven bucks a lead up front that sort of thing so I think I think there's a monetary
43:42
there's a monetary side of it you have to be prepared to spend five to eight hundred dollars per
43:46
closed loan and you should probably be prepared to invest that much like time three on a monthly
43:52
basis so you should probably be prepared to invest fifteen hundred to two grand a month that's not
43:57
because you can't do less than that on Google ads but that's because I got I we have to make some
44:01
money too obviously so it's you know combination of those two things so that would be one thing that's
44:06
the monetary side of it but on the flip side of that like you just in my opinion you have to have
44:13
the mindset very similar to what Brent had when he was talking about earlier where he just wanted
44:18
he just wanted a system where it was money in and money out he didn't necessarily have a
44:23
perfect bit like this crystal clear vision of exactly what he wanted his business to look like
44:28
and exactly what mark you what percentage of his business he wanted from what marketing channels
44:32
he just knew that if he that he wanted to be able to find a marketing channel where if I invest
44:36
this much and this much time I can expect to see this out the end the reason that's important
44:41
is because our best clients are going to be very very coachable our best clients are going to
44:45
understand that a real to referral is not going to convert anywhere near the same way as an internet
44:51
lead we we do things like secret shopping the biggest consumer direct mortgage companies out there
44:56
to identify one of the best practices for converting leads and and if you're talking about
45:01
fielding a referral from a real estate agent versus working that internet lead those two strategies
45:06
are going to be entirely different so the loan officer has to be coachable and understand that the
45:12
way that they've worked the business up to this point of the way that they've worked leads up to
45:15
this point may not align with the best practices for converting the leads and so if you can if
45:21
you're ready to let go of whatever you feel like those best practices are whatever you feel like
45:26
you want your business to look like and just plug into a system that's what I would say is what
45:31
ultimately determines our our best fit for us specifically on the oh god sorry you say I'll add to
45:39
you know we're we're talking you know Michael saying maybe two to three percent you know
45:45
close ratio of 100 leads so that means you've got to be prepared for things like you know
45:50
Mickey Mouse at Yahoo dot com people telling you to get lost or you know worse than that you've got
45:56
to expect that if you've got 100 leads you might only get applications on say 20 or 30 of them
46:03
and maybe only two or three of them close but if you've got it where they're reaching out to you
46:07
and you're just filtering through these that two or three loans at the end of the month is a lot
46:12
better than zero and you know basically doing do nothing I guess is what I'm saying yeah well you
46:18
said something early on that I happen to catch I didn't kind of highlight it there but if I heard
46:23
you correctly this is just one of your pillars of business you obviously you still work with
46:27
real estate agents really yep yep yeah I mean if you're gonna rely on this solely I
46:33
never think you should put all your eggs into one you know one bucket right so having these
46:37
leads to be able to hand out to agents that's huge you know we're not at a retail bank where we've
46:42
got you know customers walking in the door that need a mortgage so we had to figure out other
46:46
ways that we can generate business that we can refer out so that's been huge and then obviously
46:51
the you know the lifetime value of a customer you could figure that out somebody way smarter than
46:56
me could do that but that all plays into it and it's all you know positive ROI that you add on
47:01
top of what you're seeing and Michael real quickly so you're point about the difference between a
47:06
realtor lead or realtor referral and an online one I'm kind of reading between the lines there but
47:11
I think what you're saying is that I'll just in simple terms it's easier to convert the referral
47:17
than it is the online lead oh yeah one hundred percent I mean I like it if it's the different it's
47:23
the difference honestly between being an an order taker and being a salesperson in the context
47:30
of the leads obviously in order to get those realtor referrals you have to have been a salesperson
47:34
with that realtor but selling to a realtor and selling to somebody you've never met that inquired
47:39
on the internet that was just looking to get some questions answered online and they're just two
47:43
completely different ball games and so that's why that's why we do everything we can to control as
47:48
many variables as possible and provide that. It's a good point good point two different skill sets
47:52
love it all right well listen gentlemen I know you're busy so let's wrap it up this way for each
47:57
of you I'll start with you Brent in terms of anybody wants to connect with you where should we
48:01
send them to connect with you if they choose to. Yeah definitely so we're basically
48:06
relations in five states in the Midwest we're looking to grow that on the next couple of years here
48:10
so if you're a loan officer and you would like to talk about the broker channel and maybe
48:15
having some leads provided for you like we talked about today we'd love to have a conversation
48:21
give you my input and feedback on the system I'd love to answer any questions and if it makes
48:27
sense to talk further you know what we're doing we'd love to do that I'll give you my cell phone
48:31
here and then feel free to hook up with me online as well but 605 400 9541 and feel free to
48:40
to text your call me anytime and what about an online place you want a website email you can
48:45
hit up our company website it's sodakhomelones.com there's a spot there you can connect with me as
48:51
well got it sodakhomelones.com cool put that in the show notes and Michael how about for those
48:56
who want to check out in power funnels and what you're doing yeah come on check out our website
49:02
the call to action is going to be the schedule alive demonstration that's the best way for you
49:05
to check out what we do either myself or one of our conversion specialists will walk you through
49:10
exactly what we do how we do it if nothing else you'll leave much more educated than you came on
49:15
hopefully that's mpowerfunnels.com you can always email me directly at Michael at mpowerfunnels.com
49:22
if you have any questions best phone number reach me at my cell 2082782630 make sure
49:31
is your book in these demos that you're that you're mentioning Jeff's podcast though we've got
49:35
a special treat for you so cool yeah it is the season exactly exactly awesome all right well listen
49:43
I appreciate you guys educating us today and I learned a lot in terms of like Google and you know
49:49
took some of the mystery out of it and I think it definitely to your point about look at it if it's
49:54
the right time for you in your business you've got like the you know budget to invest and I do mean
49:59
invest and put at least minimum 90 days into that it's worthy to to test it out is another pillar
50:05
of your business so appreciate you guys both being here thank you so you bet and listeners as always
50:10
you know what to do if you like this episode or any of the others hey leave us a little love
50:14
give us a review on the podcast and we'll see you on the next one bye for now
50:19
thanks for listening to mortgage marketing radio one more truth in mortgage marketing
50:25
get more free training and resources at mortgagemarketinginstitute.com
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see more of the success stories there and if you feel compelled to do so book a call we'll have a
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chat we'll see if it's a fit don't miss out on this opportunity to take your mortgage business to
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the next level right now head over to mortgage marketing.pro