Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / Ep #76: Getting High Quality, Facebook Consumer Direct Leads

Transcript

Ep #76: Getting High Quality, Facebook Consumer Direct Leads · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
0:04
the real estate agents is essential for success.
0:06
However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge.
0:11
With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it
0:15
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
Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals.
0:31
And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships
0:34
with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business.
0:39
To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy
0:45
of the case study today.
0:47
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.
0:56
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.
1:19
I'm brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute, your number one source for truth
1:24
in mortgage marketing.
1:25
Hey, listeners, Jeff Zimper, welcome to another episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio.
1:38
I am so glad you are here.
1:40
Hey, I'm recording this in the month of June.
1:42
What that means is we've arrived at the midway point of 2018.
1:47
Where are you?
1:48
It's time to take that mid-year assessment, which by the way, I got a quick tip for you
1:53
this month.
1:54
You can use the mid-year assessment as a good reason to reach out and call realtors and
1:58
schedule appointments with realtors.
2:00
Whether existing realtor partners you want to dive deeper with, ones that are kind of
2:03
on the peripheral, maybe you've done a deal here or there, but you haven't struggling
2:07
with getting some traction or engagement or you've got agents that you've not yet reached
2:11
out to, but you know you want to, right?
2:14
Here's a strategy for you.
2:15
Ring Ring.
2:16
Hey, Mr. Mrs. agent, Jeff Zimper here at ABC Mortgage.
2:20
And depending on the level of engagement you have with this real estate agent, the script
2:23
is going to change a little bit, but here's what you can try and do.
2:26
Hey, it's Jeff, you know, ABC Mortgage.
2:29
Quick call because it's the midway point of 2018 and I make it a best practice of mine
2:35
to reach out to my real estate agent partners and those that are actually on my shortlist
2:39
of top producers in the area whom I'd like to have a conversation with and you are on
2:44
that list.
2:46
So it's a midway point of the year and one of the things I do in business planning is
2:49
I do a look back and I look forward.
2:51
It's time to check in, right?
2:53
And so I'm doing some business planning for 2018 and for the rest of 2018 and you are
2:57
on my shortlist of agents that I'd like to have a deeper partnership with.
3:02
And I'm sure you're probably looking at the rest of 2018 and ensuring that you're going
3:07
to be on track to achieve your goals if not more.
3:10
And what I'd like to do is schedule a time to chat, have a coffee or lunch, whatever.
3:14
Then let's sit down and find out what your plan is for the rest of 2018, how I can help
3:19
you.
3:20
And then you might want to interject some of the ways you're helping other agents.
3:23
For example, Mr. Mrs. Agent, one of the ways I help agents is according to the NAR,
3:29
the average real estate agent generates 25 contacts per month, but only about two of those
3:33
contacts are actually ready to get active and buy or sell right now.
3:37
So one of the value propositions I bring to agents is helping to incubate, build a fence
3:42
around those leads so that when they are ready to get active in market, I drive them back
3:47
to you.
3:48
And that's one of the value added services that I provide to my real estate agent partners.
3:52
So hey, what do you do in next Tuesday at three o'clock or Thursday at noon?
3:56
I'd love to grab a coffee, learn more about you and your business and talk about how I
4:00
can help you achieve your goals through the rest of 2018.
4:03
So anyway, that's just a possible script you might want to consider using that, check
4:06
it out.
4:07
Now, as far as this week's show, I've got a very special guest, an old friend of mine
4:12
from way back in the day.
4:13
I've known Chris Johnstone for a number of years.
4:15
I had him on the podcast, about 16 months ago or so.
4:19
And I'm bringing Chris back because a lot's changed in the digital marketing landscape,
4:24
specific to Facebook.
4:25
And what we're talking about here in this session is it's a crash course in getting started
4:31
with Facebook advertising.
4:33
So there's a lot of buzz around Facebook.
4:35
You see other loan officers, maybe, you know, touting leads, generated and all this kind
4:38
of stuff.
4:39
And you may be one of those folks who's curious about, hey, how do I go, you know, consumer
4:42
direct?
4:43
How do I add some Facebook marketing advertising into my overall marketing mix?
4:47
How do I be smart with Facebook?
4:48
What type of ads should I run?
4:50
How do I follow up?
4:51
How do I get a good conversion?
4:52
Right?
4:53
What is the, what is the advertisements that are generating the most response?
4:58
That's what today's episode is all about.
5:00
Chris Johnstone in his company, connection incorporated.
5:02
He's been in the mortgage specific space, helping mortgage originators drive digital leads
5:08
and conversions for over 11 years.
5:11
And there's a short list of people that I personally trust in the digital marketing space
5:14
when it comes to specific to mortgage and real estate.
5:17
Chris is on that very, very short list, he's at the top of the list, actually.
5:22
And so that's why I feel totally confident in bringing Chris to you.
5:26
It's what I call truth and mortgage marketing.
5:28
And Chris is always just a great deep dive education on best practices and how if you're
5:33
interested in getting started with Facebook advertising yourself, how you can kind of dip
5:37
your toe in the pool, what to do, we'll walk through that on this episode.
5:41
And then if you're at that place in your business where maybe you know what, you have the resources
5:45
and you just want to outsource that and just, you know, have to deal with talking with
5:50
interested prospects and leads who are actually qualified, well, there's that option for
5:55
you here as well.
5:56
We do have is at the end of this crash course in Facebook marketing, which you'll hear
6:01
in just a moment on today's episode, we do have a special unique offer that Chris is offering
6:05
to my listeners.
6:06
And that is a free 30 minute one-on-one consultation.
6:10
If you want to dive into some Facebook advertising, some questions, figure out what's right
6:14
for you or not, that's the opportunity we have for you.
6:19
There's a link to this in the show notes for you to set up a 30 minute appointment with
6:23
someone on Chris's team.
6:25
The link is connectwithconnection.com, that'll be in the show notes.
6:29
And like I said, it is a very low key, totally 100% consultation, not a sales pitch or anything
6:36
like that.
6:37
Look, you'll get an education, listening to this, you'll get an education by scheduling
6:41
a call with Chris's team.
6:42
And if you choose to take any next step, well, that's your choice if it's right for you.
6:47
That's that.
6:48
So without further ado, enjoy this crash course in Facebook advertising and appreciate
6:52
you leaving a review on the podcast, on the blog, iTunes, love to hear your feedback.
6:58
And as always, you can connect with me anytime, info at mortgagemarketinginstitute.com.
7:03
So let's get into this week's show.
7:06
Chris Johnstone, welcome to the show.
7:08
Hey Jeff, thanks so much for having me.
7:10
It is a pleasure to reconnect with you once again.
7:12
It has been over a year, probably, I don't know, 16 months or something, since we did
7:16
the last podcast recording and a lot's changed since then in the digital world.
7:21
Well, it certainly has, it has been too long.
7:24
Yeah, so glad to have you back.
7:26
You are definitely one of those people, as you know, there's a lot of noise, right, in
7:30
the industry.
7:31
And I'd like to think that I'm hopefully bringing truth in mortgage marketing to my listeners.
7:35
And that's why I'm glad to have you back because I think you're one of those people who
7:38
tells the truth, right?
7:40
And isn't really just about, you know, oh, how do we sell something to mortgage space,
7:43
but you're really adding value to a lot of folks I know out there.
7:47
So I appreciate you being here with that said.
7:50
For those listeners who may not be familiar with you, your company, tell us real quickly,
7:54
what do you do?
7:55
So yeah, absolutely.
7:56
So we do digital marketing services just for mortgage landers.
8:01
We drive closed loans from Google and Facebook, basically.
8:05
We've got an incredible team of people here that only do digital marketing and only work
8:10
in the mortgage space.
8:11
So we just, we love helping.
8:14
And that's why, you know, I'm happy to give all this stuff away for free because, you
8:17
know, I just want people to get results if it ends up that we're the people doing the
8:21
work for you.
8:22
That works so great too.
8:23
Awesome.
8:24
Okay, cool.
8:25
So, and of course, you know, in the conversation here, we're going to provide some links in
8:29
the show notes to your website to some other offers.
8:31
We're going to have for you that are listening.
8:34
If you're interested in learning more about, you know, Facebook marketing, Google marketing,
8:37
things like that.
8:38
But with that said, okay, so we kind of set it up.
8:41
It's been a while since we talked, I don't know, 16 months or so.
8:45
It's changed.
8:46
That's important for mortgage loan officers to know when it comes to, right, the digital
8:51
landscape and looking at going consumer direct.
8:55
What do you think would be important for them to know that's, you know, on the horizon
8:59
today?
9:00
Well, I mean, for this conversation, let's speak specifically to Facebook because I
9:06
think that's where the primary changes have happened.
9:11
They have gotten exceptionally good at zeroing in on the target market and really identifying
9:21
when people move from just kind of kicking the tires and being interested in real estate
9:27
or interested mortgages to actually going down a purchase path and getting ready to make
9:33
that transaction.
9:34
So, we're finding that the leads that are coming through the funnels are actually a little
9:40
bit higher quality, but definitely further along the purchase path.
9:44
So primarily, we would have to throw in the past a very wide net, bring a lot of people
9:51
into it.
9:52
And now, because Facebook has gotten so good at tracking, which sounds kind of weird,
9:58
but because they know what websites people are starting to visit right before they make
10:02
their purchase path, we find that we can throw a smaller net and collect a better quality
10:09
lead through those funnels.
10:12
It's fantastic.
10:14
So you said something there interesting about tracking and Facebook knowing what websites
10:18
people visit before making a purchase.
10:21
So I'm curious to unpack that a little bit in that if we're looking to identify consumers
10:28
that, you know, might be ready on that journey for potentially buying, are you saying that
10:34
Facebook then has gotten better at, let's say, this group of consumers in Seattle, right?
10:43
We can actually get granular to the point of like identifying real estate or related websites
10:47
that these people may have visited.
10:49
That's right.
10:50
And what you do inside the Facebook platform is just to give it a category of interested
10:56
in real estate, or they even break it down into subcategories as far as, you know, interested
11:03
in moving or looking to purchase a home.
11:06
And how does Facebook discern between, you know, air quotes, interested in real estate,
11:11
which could mean a lot of different things to, right, narrowing it that even further that
11:16
maybe we know they visited realtor.com or Zillow or something like that.
11:21
Yeah.
11:22
And Facebook is making that determination for us.
11:25
We're just telling it the category that we're looking for.
11:27
So when you tell Facebook, okay, I'm looking for somebody that's interested in moving
11:31
or that's going to purchase a home, there's a completely different subset of websites
11:36
online like Zillow and realtor.com that they know that they're going to get purchase
11:41
information.
11:42
So in today's world, they're able to differentiate between house-based websites that are designed
11:47
around, you know, decor and all of those wonderful things.
11:51
Those people are looking to decorate a home, not purchase a home.
11:54
And it's now granular to the point where they can tell the difference between those
11:57
two people.
11:58
Now a little bit of an advanced tip and something that we've been doing at the agency for the
12:04
last six months, which has really made a difference in the quality of the leads that we're
12:09
generating.
12:10
And again, this really speaks to Facebook's advancement is we're opening up our lead generation
12:18
fondles to everybody inside our Facebook ads.
12:22
So on particular accounts where we know that we can go after a very broad scope.
12:30
So we can target people that are interested in real estate, mortgages, and these are typically
12:33
for our mortgage clients that say, hey, look, I just want purchase business.
12:37
I don't want a specific subset in the marketplace.
12:40
I just want people that are looking to buy a home right now.
12:43
We'll go into Facebook, we'll set a target area, we'll target the language that people
12:49
are speaking, and then nothing else in the targeting options.
12:53
We don't include interest in real estate or interest in mortgages or even exclude because
12:58
you can exclude your ads so that, you know, realtors don't see them or your competition
13:01
doesn't see them.
13:03
We leave all of that open.
13:05
And then we write dog whistle copy, you know, that comes from Gan Kennedy.
13:10
And it's essentially being so specific with your offering in the advertisement that only
13:18
the people that are really good lead are going to click on it.
13:22
And we then use the Facebook pixel, which is just Facebook's way of tracking who actually
13:28
fills out the form of the conversion piece.
13:32
And they optimize the campaign to find more of the people that are like the people that
13:38
are filling out the form.
13:40
So we go with a very broad net, a very specific advertisement.
13:45
And then we just let the Facebook algorithm figure the rest out.
13:49
And what we've found is that we're able to generate a quality lead that is the same
13:57
as when we go really, really detailed with the targeting.
14:00
But the cost for that lead is actually less because we've, we're not now competing in
14:06
a very specific category, we're competing with, you know, open traffic that Facebook
14:11
allows us to buy for less cost, but they still bring us the same quality lead that
14:16
come through the funnel.
14:18
Interesting.
14:19
You go back to something you mentioned, which is using language as an identifier to identify
14:24
people possibly moving versus some of those other categories.
14:30
So I want to make sure I understand that.
14:31
Are you saying that Facebook can identify certain sentences, right, that people are, what
14:39
are they doing?
14:40
How does, how does that show up?
14:42
So that's more of us identifying the people through the advertising copy.
14:47
So to give you an example of that, a good advertisement, I can say a good advertisement,
14:52
but an advertisement that we would run inside an account would start something off like,
14:57
have you put an offer in on a home only to find out that there's already a pending offer?
15:03
Our mortgage pre-qualification service can make sure that that never happens again.
15:07
Plus, we would love to pair you with a realtor that can send you updates the moment
15:12
a home hits the market that matches what you're looking for, sign up for our free service.
15:18
So there's only, you know, maybe 1% of the people that see that advertising, it will resonate
15:24
with.
15:25
But that 1%, the people that actually fill out the form, once Facebook sees a certain
15:32
number of those people fill out the form, they create a customer avatar based on the
15:38
people that are filling out the form.
15:40
So Facebook will exclude the other 99% and just start showing the ads to the people that
15:47
are like the 1% if that makes sense.
15:49
It does.
15:50
And if I'm following the flow here, then perhaps a benefit to that if I'm correct is rather
15:55
than getting 1,000 leads that you have to sit and soar through and burn your time.
15:59
You get 100, but they're much more highly qualified.
16:03
Exactly.
16:04
Yeah, I like that.
16:05
Because you and I both see people touting and advertising, you know, hey, this jet loan
16:09
officer generated 1,000 leads, you know, he's like, no, man, that sounds like a lot of
16:15
work.
16:16
Yes.
16:17
Yeah.
16:18
So we start the sorting of the lead quality, you know, right in the ad copy.
16:25
And we're very much against the, you know, I generate as many leads as possible for the
16:31
least amount of cost.
16:33
Right.
16:34
We're very much, let's get the highest quality leads through the funnel and then work
16:39
on making it as positive on the return on investment as possible.
16:43
But we try and stay away from, you know, the cheapest leads.
16:46
Let's get the highest quality leads first and then work back with this.
16:50
Okay.
16:51
That's great.
16:52
That was a nice crash course education there.
16:53
Thank you.
16:54
I want to think about, you know, the listeners I've got, I probably have people in two camps
16:58
roughly.
16:59
I got, you know, the one loan officer who's, you know, says, hey, man, this Facebook thing,
17:05
you know, I want to start kind of dipping my toe in the water and test it out.
17:08
And then we've got the other side of the camp, which is, you know, they're in a place
17:13
in their business where they can, they want to just outsource it all, right?
17:17
And realize that that's probably the better decision for them.
17:20
Let's take camp one first for a moment.
17:23
And what advice would you give them if I've got a lot of officers sitting here listening
17:27
and they're like, okay, I want to start just kind of running my own ads to test out some
17:31
stuff to see if I can generate some leads and maybe hand off a few leads to realtors.
17:36
Any kind of advice, best practices, you know, creating that ad, anything there?
17:41
Yeah, for sure.
17:42
So, so there's a number of things.
17:45
So I'll cover three core points that will probably give the best value to the listener.
17:52
The first point is that it is easier to generate real estate leads than it is to generate
17:57
mortgage leads.
17:58
Get people that are interested in real estate and then pre-qual them after you've made
18:02
that initial introduction.
18:04
It's a lot, well, I mean, if you're going to be running real estate ads, you need to
18:09
have a partner that's on side with you on the real estate side of things.
18:12
It only does it give you a lot of pressure.
18:16
Not to interrupt, but a question on that, why is it easier?
18:19
Because everybody wants a house, nobody wants a mortgage.
18:21
There you go.
18:22
Thank you.
18:23
Cool.
18:24
So, and, you know, and we see that on Instagram, the engagement on just the real estate photos
18:30
that we're putting out there is much higher.
18:32
We get a much better social spread on those advertisements as well.
18:36
So, you know, partner with a local realtor if that's the path that you want to go down
18:40
and then advertise the offers.
18:43
I know everybody knows that, you know, we'll send you a list of homes that match your
18:49
search criteria and the find out what your home is worth offers have been around since
18:54
well, the beginning of real estate, but they still work.
18:58
Don't let the fact that an offer has been working for X number of years deter you from
19:04
using it.
19:05
Go out with an offer that actually gives people value.
19:09
Or to set them up on that home search service and make sure that you're connecting them
19:13
with the realtor.
19:14
So, number one, you know, pick your marketplace, get a partner, make sure that everything
19:18
is compliant, okay?
19:21
When you go into the targeting options to run the ads on Facebook, you go to the Facebook
19:25
ads manager, go in target people in your local marketplace.
19:30
The number one mistake that I see when people are running their own advertisements is they
19:34
try and use all of the fancy features that Facebook has to get as targeted as possible
19:39
and to get their audience as small as possible, which makes sense.
19:43
You think, you know, the smaller the pond, the easier it is going to be to fish.
19:49
And in reality, you want to take your targeting options as broad as possible.
19:55
We typically like to see an audience size of at least 200 to 250,000 people.
20:01
And then again, let that Facebook algorithm do the heavy lifting and figuring out who
20:08
your audience is.
20:09
I always like to see people start off with lead ads on Facebook, where people are actually
20:16
filling out the form on Facebook, so you don't have to mess around with setting up a lead
20:20
generation page or chatbot or any of the advanced things.
20:24
Those will get you off the ground quickly, which I think is important for somebody who's
20:28
just getting started with Facebook ads, dip your toe in the water and make sure.
20:35
So number two, set the targeting in your area, but don't narrow it too narrow, and just
20:41
write a decent advertisement.
20:43
I've given you a great script earlier in the call.
20:46
And then number three is understand that it's not going to work the first time.
20:51
You know, the likelihood of your first Facebook ad being a massive success, and you
20:58
converting one out of the first 10 leads that you generate, I'm not trying to be negative
21:05
or anything like that, but when you're advertising on the internet, you are absolutely playing
21:10
a game of math.
21:12
And it's not logical for somebody to see a Facebook ad, click on it, submit their information,
21:18
and then eight minutes later, fill out a long form mortgage application with somebody.
21:23
That's what people expect to happen on the system, but if you put yourself in the shoes
21:29
of the end consumer, that doesn't make sense.
21:33
So understand that you're going to generate these leads, and there's going to need to be a follow-up
21:38
process on the back end that helps you establish yourself as an expert, build a relationship with
21:44
those leads, refer them to the proper realtor, and then have that person come back to you.
21:50
And we have automated software that does the tech messages, the emails, the wringles,
21:55
voice mails, to nurture that relationship for you, but if you're just getting started,
21:59
just understand that the most important part of the follow-up and where the money really is in
22:04
the system is in the fourth and the fifth and the sixth phone call that you're going to make to the
22:09
lead, and you have to have a critical mass within your system in order for the mass to work.
22:16
So a good rule of thumb is 100. You've got to put 100 leads through your system.
22:22
Before you're going to be able to get down to the four or five quality leads that you're going
22:27
to be able to work down the process of turning into an actual funded loan. So go into it knowing
22:34
that it's better to set a budget of five or ten dollars a day and allow that to drip over time
22:39
and stay with it long term, then try and run, you know, two hundred dollars a day, do it for five
22:45
days and say this doesn't work and check it all out. Thank you for sharing that, by the way.
22:52
The wide net, you talked about the 200, you said 200,000, 250,000 was a good
22:57
range of audience to start with. Correct. At some point, once the algorithm does some learning
23:03
and you find tuning your process, does it make sense to, you know, start to reel that in?
23:09
So, well, here's the great thing about it is that you can actually then expand your audience
23:15
after that because once Facebook understands who your perfect customer is and you've given it
23:24
that information by either, you know, watching the people that are filling out the lead forms on
23:28
your website or watching the people that are filling out, you know, your Facebook lead form,
23:33
it knows the 1% that you're going after. So, you can take that audience size from 250,000 to 500,000,
23:41
it's not going to advertise to 500,000 people. It's just going to advertise to the 1% of the people
23:46
that match the people that have already filled out the form. And again, because you're telling them,
23:53
hey, I'm going to be a lot broader than all of these other advertisers. They can take
23:58
remnant traffic that they're not selling to somebody else, give it to you at a discount,
24:03
but you're still only advertising to your perfect customer. And that is part of how we're able to
24:10
drive our costs per lead down over time for our clients, but still maintain the same quality of
24:15
lead that are coming through the bottle. Do you ever see the situation, you know, Morgan's
24:20
loan officer in a particular town or area and they're pulling the, pulling the, you know, targeting
24:27
elements off of Facebook and they're not in that 250,000 audience. And what do you do here?
24:33
Yeah. So, in that case, we'll typically tell our client, look, as we launch this system out for
24:39
the first 30 or 60 days, your cost per lead is going to be a little bit higher because we have to buy
24:45
into a smaller audience. There's nothing that we can really do. But once the learning is completed
24:53
and that Facebook pixel really knows who it should be targeting, the optimization and dropping
24:59
the cost per lead works the same. Okay. Cool. Thank you. Okay. So, in terms of the flow of the lead,
25:05
it comes in. I'd like to know where you stand on keeping people on Facebook to complete a form,
25:12
right, versus sending them to a separate lead capture form off of Facebook. What have you seen
25:19
for better conversions? What's your advice there? So, great question. And this again comes back to
25:25
the conversation of lead quality. So, when you drive somebody through, like when you open up ads
25:32
manager, it gives you the options for all the different campaign types that you can run.
25:36
Once it's traffic and once it's conversing, if you pick one of those two campaign types,
25:41
you're going to be directing people off of Facebook to a landing page. Don't send them to the
25:47
homepage of your website. Craft a landing page that has a specific offer that matches exactly what's
25:53
in the advertisement. So, we have a mortgage offering that generates mortgage leads right now.
25:58
And the core of the offer is giving away a free mortgage buying guide that includes the rate
26:05
calculator, a home budget work sheet, and an access to a real time rate. We package that together
26:12
in a PDF and when they land on the landing page, it has the picture of the little mini book
26:17
and then an opt-in form on the left hand side. The leads that come through that form are roughly
26:24
double what we pay to generate somebody through a lead form on Facebook. But the quality is about
26:32
twice as good because somebody that has gone off of Facebook, especially on a mobile device,
26:38
and taken the time to actually type in first name, last name, phone number, email address,
26:45
that person really wants that information and they're interested in the offering continuing
26:51
through on the process. When you use a Facebook lead form, they click the button on the ad,
26:56
Facebook pre-fills all of their information right on the Facebook lead form and they just tap
27:02
the button a second time and it submits the information into the form. So, some people go through that
27:07
process and they go, oops, I didn't mean to click that button and they fill that form. It's not
27:13
really a high quality lead. You're still figuring that in your metrics, so your cost to lead is a
27:17
little bit lower, but you're giving people through that funnel that aren't necessarily perfectly
27:21
qualified. So, Facebook lead forms definitely bring in the lowest cost per lead and then
27:30
basically the landing page funnel are using service like click funnels or lead pages or
27:38
any one of those software programs out there to create those lead generation pages,
27:42
you're going to have a higher cost per lead. That's kind of like your lowest converting funnel
27:47
that comes through. Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I did want your listeners to know
27:54
there is kind of like a middle ground there. And we have other funnels that are using surveys.
28:00
So, we experience the power of surveys in our SEO product. So, what we do is we get lenders
28:09
ranked locally on Google and then we use a survey process on the backend to get their customers
28:13
to leave five star reviews. So, the lender ends up, you know, ranked really well in the map
28:17
placement and they're the best reviewed person in that local marketplace. So, as we figured out
28:22
that survey process on that side of the business, our account managers came back and said, hey,
28:27
they're using this survey thing on the Google side of things. Why don't we try that on Facebook?
28:33
And so, we use almost like a short form loan application, but it's one question at a time
28:42
and it's seen as almost like, you know, take this quick quiz to get mortgage ready.
28:50
And those convert much better than the landing page and the leads are a much higher quality
28:57
than what comes in on a Facebook lead form. So, we're finding very nice, happy medium using
29:05
that survey process and funnel that we built as well.
29:10
Yeah, I've seen that before, you know, kind of the lot of the big boys use that, you know,
29:14
those kind of interest rate aggregation sites and things like that where they kind of gamify
29:19
that loan process. Yeah, well, it works. Yeah, I was going to ask you a question on, you know,
29:26
the cost for leads lower on a Facebook lead page versus sending them to an external landing page
29:33
is Facebook doing that just because they really want to drive keeping people on Facebook.
29:39
So, I think it has more to do with the ease of the entry into the funnel and the fact that
29:45
their information is already prefilled out on the form and all they have to do is tap the bottom.
29:52
So, you know, the easier you make it for somebody to go through the funnel and submit their
29:57
information to the more people that you're going to get through. But I do know, you know, Facebook
30:03
does absolutely want to keep people on the platform. But I don't think that they're not penalizing you
30:11
because you're sending them off site. No, no, absolutely not. Facebook knows they're going to come back.
30:17
Yeah, right. Who knows? What is the visits that I miss two billion, but, you know, my gosh,
30:22
it's crazy. Okay, so we've got that lead and thank you, by the way, for that awesome kind of,
30:27
you know, walk through on that process. What are a couple of key points you want to make sure
30:31
listeners know about, again, we've got our, our, you know, our avatar, which is, you know,
30:37
Joe mortgage person, Sally mortgage person, they just listen to your crash course. They,
30:41
they're putting their first Facebook ad up there. I'm assuming that you have seen people drop the ball
30:47
once they've got the ad up and it'll lead capture form for a variety of reasons. Do you have any
30:52
comments or best practices around that? Absolutely. And so I've been online lead gen in the
30:59
mortgage space for 11 years now. And absolutely without a doubt, your response rate and the time
31:07
it takes for you to get back to the lead is crucial. You've got to be within a five to 10 minute window.
31:14
Your conversion rates will drop dramatically if you can't make that happen. And the only way
31:20
that I've been able to see long-term success with making that type of contact is through automation.
31:27
And it's either through, you know, we have software that does this for our clients, but you can use
31:32
the service like slide aisle or something like that, where as soon as somebody fills out the form,
31:40
there's a ringless voicemail that goes out 10 minutes later, a nice friendly text, hey, I called left
31:45
your message. If you have any questions with my contact information, and then an email that follows
31:50
up, you know, 20 minutes after that, that actually fulfills the obligation, builds trust, has a
31:55
testimonial in the footer of the communication that you're sending to those people and then drip
32:00
out to them. So Jeff, I know that you know these statistics, but it may be useful for your viewers.
32:08
So your response rate after the first day of following up with an online lead decreases by roughly
32:18
70%. So if you can get them in the first 10 minutes, that's your best opportunity. Your first day
32:24
is the majority of the opportunity and then after that, it dwindles down until, you know, you really
32:30
are kind of working the bottom of your funnel. Still very profitable to do that, but pick the
32:34
low hanging fruit first. Now the other half of that is that most sales professionals, and I forget
32:41
where this statistic comes from, but the majority, it's like over 80% of sales professionals,
32:47
will not follow up a third time on a lead. But all of the conversions happen after basically the
32:55
seventh touch point. So the majority of the opportunity in working these online leads comes after
33:03
six or seven follow up pieces. Most people never get to three. So there's an entire industry
33:12
built around lead gen in our space, the, you know, the zilos of the world and all of those two.
33:17
There's a tremendous amount of money being invested in leads that never get called.
33:24
And that's a huge problem that, you know, we're solving with automation, but I don't want your
33:31
listeners to fall into that trap in getting, you know, really excited about the metrics on Facebook
33:37
and dropping the ball on the back and of the important part, which is follow up with the leads,
33:42
help those people. Don't look at it like how am I going to convert this person,
33:47
call them on the phone and seriously ask them, you filled out a form, did you mean to fill it out?
33:52
Yes, how can I help you and do that? You know, I mean, not magic by the process, but follow up
34:00
to the point where they know that you're professional, they know that you're serious about it,
34:03
and then help those people get to the next level. You'll convert the leads from Facebook.
34:07
It's very profitable when you do it long-term, so make sure that you don't skimp on the follow up.
34:12
Hmm, very, very important there. Follow, follow, follow up. It's, it's the F word, right?
34:18
But it's your right, it's where the magic is. And of course, some automation to help because
34:23
obviously we're all busy loan officers, so we can't necessarily respond within five minutes.
34:27
That's where the automation piece comes in because that essentially buys you time until you can
34:32
integrate that actual live outbound call, is that correct?
34:36
Yeah, and what we're finding that with the automation, because we spent a lot of time with
34:41
the actual scripting experts, so, you know, I created the base of it with Carl White and then
34:46
actually worked with copywriters that are better at this stuff than myself. And we get on average
34:52
about 40% of the people that come through the funnel are either texting back, calling back,
34:58
or emailing back as a result of the automation. So it's almost kind of taken that outbound calling
35:05
completely out of the trends action. So you can just generate the leads on Facebook, let the
35:10
automation system follow up on the leads, and they just become inbound inquiries. But they feel
35:16
like you're doing all of the manual labor and the cold calling and all the cold emailing that,
35:21
you know, a lot of people are doing manually right now. It just sits on autopilot and you just
35:25
handle the inbound. Interesting. Okay, that's good stuff. In the final minutes we have, I wanted
35:31
to maybe pivot a little bit and just more so this is kind of myself education. It's a question
35:36
just for me, but it probably a benefit that listeners do is, so we've been talking about leadgen ads,
35:43
right, on Facebook. I'm curious to see if you're if you have visibility to because there's obviously
35:49
other types of ads boosting posts or whatever. Do you have any quick takeaways, you know, advice
35:55
suggestions for those that those law officers that are looking to, you know, they're they're they
36:01
want to get on Facebook, produce content. I mean, that's just like 17 questions in here. So I want
36:07
to pick one, but general advice for if I'm not yet going to run an ad, right, but maybe I want
36:15
to boost a post. Maybe I'm maybe I'm that law officer that has a a weekly video tip or something
36:20
like that. Any advice for increasing reach and engagement with that kind of stuff? Sure. So a
36:27
boosted post is fantastic. Target your local marketplace. And again, you know, if you want to
36:35
to drill down to people just interested in mortgages, you can, but it's my recommendation that you
36:40
let Facebook figure that stuff out. Title your video accurately with the actual topic that you're
36:45
talking about. And then let the viewers choose who's going to view it. If you're consistent,
36:51
over time, Facebook will learn who wants to watch the videos and just show the videos to those
36:57
people. And it doesn't take long. It's less than a month. We're on a $5 a day and just run that
37:01
content. Now here is the magic. And you know, this is advanced for some users, but this is exactly
37:09
what we do for some of our clients. Think of your content that you're putting out there as a filter.
37:17
Make it very, very good. Make it very high quality. You create a Facebook audience just on the
37:25
people that viewed the video. So inside Facebook ad, you can create a custom audience. You select the
37:31
video. Just to clarify, can you do this in the boosting option? Or do you have to get into the
37:36
the power editor? So you can do that within the boosting option. Okay, cool. So you boost that video,
37:43
then you go in, you create a custom audience of just that video and people that have watched a
37:49
certain amount of it. So in all of our marketing, if somebody watches more than 25% of one of the
37:55
videos that we produce, we put them into a custom audience and show them a different set of
38:00
advertisements, because we know that they're interested in our content and our offer. And then we
38:05
drive them to a lead generation page that's specific to get them to opt in. So you're building brand,
38:12
you're building audience, you're building awareness, super simple to run a boost at post,
38:17
then you can go in after that and fill in the more advanced side of things where you can create
38:22
a custom audience and just go add people that are actually watching your videos.
38:26
Interesting, very interesting. And then I know some savvy loan officers that are actually
38:31
applying that same kind of strategy with targeting real estate agents in their local market to build
38:38
their brand and awareness and kind of drip feed with content on them before they make that call
38:43
to trying to schedule an appointment with an agent. Oh, yeah. And also works exceptionally well.
38:49
Yeah, awesome. Cool. All right. So this has been a crash course in. Awesome. So I know we've got
38:57
a special offer for our listeners who want to learn more, take that next step. And I believe
39:03
what that is is for those that want to maybe have a one-on-one consultation with somebody on your team.
39:08
So right? Yeah, that's right. So what we've done is kind of set out a half hour because there's
39:13
different funnels for different, I understand there's people in all different loan types that you
39:17
want to go out and get, whether it's direct purchase business or refinance or BA or FHA or
39:23
homes for heroes or whatever you are doing, we have funnels for that. We've got funnels for all
39:29
of them follow up sequences for all of them. So we can get on the phone and answer your question.
39:33
You know, just what questions do you have about Facebook? What funnel really is a good fit for you
39:37
and then walk you through it. Here's the targeting. Here's the ads. Here's the landing page. Here's
39:40
how we're converting people into the funnel. Do you want to do this on your own or do you want to
39:44
have us do it for you? It's like super low key and you can sign up for one of those sessions by
39:49
going to connect with Connection.com. So our company is called Connection Incorporated. And so
39:58
you can just go to connectwithconnection.com. Pick a link on the calendar that works for you.
40:04
And I'll have one of my experts get on the phone with you and help you build out a Facebook
40:08
campaign that's going to work. Awesome. And I will put the link to connect with connection in
40:13
the show notes so people can easily access that. And a few listeners, I can tell you,
40:18
this is like I said at the start of this recording, truth in mortgage marketing. Chris is one of
40:22
the good guys out there. So like you said, it's really low key. No one's trying to force you,
40:28
pits you hard or anything like that. It's going to be completely consultative.
40:32
You get your questions answered and then the decisions up to you. So dig in. If you think there's
40:39
interest for you to pursue Consumer Direct on Facebook or other things you want to do on Facebook,
40:43
Chris is on that short list. And the short list is pretty dang short of people that I would trust
40:49
with my money with Facebook ads. So get after it. All right, Chris. Listen, I know you're busy. You've
40:54
got people to help. And I will let you go. But thank you so much for being here once again.
40:59
Oh, Jeff, it's my pleasure to thank you again. And we got to do the next one soon. I hope this
41:03
really helps a lot of people. I'm confident it will. And as always, listeners, thank you for
41:07
tuning in. If you like today's episode, remember to share the love. Give us a little rating on
41:13
iTunes, Stitcher, wherever you might be listening to this, even on the blog and look forward to seeing
41:17
you on the next one. Bye for now. Thanks for listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio. One more truth
41:24
in Mortgage Marketing. Get more free training and resources at MortgageMarketingInstitute.com.
41:45
Hey guys, what's up real quick? You've heard about the Mortgage Marketing Pro membership before.
41:49
And I just want to quickly remind you if that you're in a place in your business where you simply
41:53
need more purchase loans, you need to fill your pipeline with purchase business. Let's just face it,
41:58
agents are still a solid pillar of business and sources of purchase business for you. Well,
42:04
good news. Our Mortgage Marketing Pro membership helps loan officers like you close more loans
42:08
without the hassle of chasing agents or cold calling. Done for you agent classes, expert training
42:14
videos, a marketing automation platform that automates the entire process for you, everything you
42:19
need to build your personal brand in your local market, attracting convert agents into referral
42:25
partners. Plus, done for you proven marketing materials and plug-and-play content to make
42:30
promoting your class, getting agents butts and seeds, partnering with affiliates real easy.
42:36
But that's not all. You'll also get access to our weekly mastermind calls with top L.O.'s authors,
42:42
speakers and coaches to learn the best strategies to grow your business right now in today's market.
42:48
And as an extra bonus for limited time, for all new members, you'll get access to a database of
42:54
200 agents in your local market that have closed anywhere from eight to 50 transactions in the
43:01
last 12 months. And we'll provide that list uploaded to our platform for you so you can get off
43:06
to a fast start in reaching actually productive agents. So what are you waiting for? You can check
43:11
out more at MortgageMarketing.pro, see more of the success stories there. And if you feel compelled
43:17
to do so, book a call, we'll have a chat. We'll see if it's a fit. Don't miss out on this
43:21
opportunity to take your mortgage business to the next level right now. Head over to MortgageMarketing.pro.