There is a big discussion in the sales and marketing community on lead nurturing. Most equate it to a fancy term for drip email campaigns. This analogy would mislead you into missing the value of lead nurturing for your prospects.

Lead nurturing is especially powerful when you are attempting to nurture aged leads back from the dead.

Drip Email Campaigns

The concept of drip email needs little explanation. Debt and mortgage businesses have been using this technique for several years. It is very productive, for the effort put forth.

Similar to direct mail it is a game of large numbers. You buy or acquire a large list of leads and hit them with a series of messages on a time-released schedule of emails.

Unfortunately, these emails are getting less productive and increasingly snagged in spam filters. That is why you need to change the game.

Lead Nurturing

Lead nurturing still relies heavily on email and time-release of marketing material; however, it is much more of a multi-disciplinary approach.

Lead nurturing is about engaging your leads in a variety of ways. This is particularly important when you are working aged leads because you may not be sure which is the best contact method—phone, address, or email.

Setting up your lead nurturing campaign has three dimensions:

1. Schedule of release - Similar to drip emails you want to establish a schedule for your marketing. What are you going to do on day 1, 5, 15, 30, 90, 120, or whatever time scale you think is most productive? Set your campaign horizon longer than you might think. Debt and mortgage customers often respond months after an initial inquiry based on changes in their situation or the market.

2. Method of contact – Mix it up. You are never certain what channel will bring a response. Debt prospects might avoid the phone, younger prospects may prefer email, older prospects might take action on traditional mail–use a variety of methods, yet make them coherently linked.

3. Response to action – This is where the real magic happens with lead nurturing. Be ready to take action and change course based on a prospects action or response. If you get them on the phone you don’t want to have an email come out the next day that says, “I am trying to reach you.” If they call you, reply to your email, or you get them on the phone you need to have a plan and process to change your flow of messaging.

Lead nurturing can significantly increase your lead conversion because it seems like a much more natural and personal sales approach to the customer. Give it a try and turn off that spam campaign.

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Leads created on the Internet don’t need to stay on the Internet. In fact, you may find out that conversion increases when you use a multi-channel marketing approach. Direct mail may seem old fashion, but lots of mortgage brokers and debt businesses are finding it very productive.

Buy aged leads  - The advantage of using aged leads for direct mail is that they are already self-targeted. They have told you that they are in the market for a particular product or service.

Offer them outcomes, not products – This is so important. Most of the direct mail pieces I get are full of guarantees of lowest rates or payment. This always triggers my B.S. meter, which results in a quick trip to the trash. Make sure your direct mail copy is talking about outcomes (e.g., eliminating collection calls, reducing bill paying stress, avoiding loan payments after job loss).

Try to get them to opt-in – Permission and email marketing is still one of the most efficient and economical ways to market to prospects. Getting your aged leads to opt-in to your permission-marketing program immediately increases their value. It makes a purchased list your list.

Follow-up - Nothing builds trust and loyalty more than consistent follow-up. One good mail drop is more powerful than none, but if you really want to maximize the ROI on your aged leads purchase you will design a campaign that follows up. Look for multiple touch-point opportunities (i.e., holidays, birthdays, market news, changes in laws and legislation).

Simply the change of channel can be effective in activating the most stubborn of aged leads. Consumers are looking for interest and creativity. They are looking for mortgage and debt businesses that are willing to go above and beyond for their business.

What is your out of the box idea for today?

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Mortgage Brokers have one of the most ideal marketing environments in history. Are you taking advantage of these unique conditions to grow you mortgage business?

I know what you’re thinking…”Troy, what are you thinking?” But, really it is true. Here is my simple case:

• The mortgage market is more volatile than any time in history
• Volatile markets create questions, concerns, and fear
• These emotions drive homeowners and homebuyers to seek information
• Consumers looking for answers are very responsive to marketing
• Marketing is cheaper than ever, some marketing is even free

So, what should you be doing to get in on this mortgage marketing high?

• Use the news – they are marketing for you. Send clips to your database
• Alert your clients when rates change – start a daily or weekly email
• Give them a place to read more – start a blog or website with mortgage info
• Market in multiple places – try direct mail again
• Don’t have a lead database of prospects – buy inexpensive aged leads

Most importantly take action today! This mortgage marketing ideal world will only last so long.

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That means you get cheaper rates on advertising and premium placement. That goes for any medium–direct mail, online, newspaper. Take a look, ad space is pretty empty.

Stay in the Market

Follow the same advice Warren Buffett gives about being an investor, “Be a buyer when everyone is afraid and a seller when everyone is confident.” As fear sets into the market, companies start slashing their marketing budgets. This is the time to either get in the game or snatch up bargains on premium ad placements.

Differentiate

Of course, once you get those great deals on marketing don’t be another face in the crowd. Show up with something different. Make sure that consumers immediately know why you are different and why you are here to help them in hard times.

Recessions are great times to build your brand and reputation. You will be emblazoned on consumers minds as the strongest, most stable, and most customer focused of any brand–because you stuck out the tough market.

Be Exceptional

Well if you heed this advice and stay in the market you will be exceptional. But, don’t rest on that inherent benefit of marketing in a recession. Take the opportunity to seize market share and demonstrate what exceptional is all about in your space.

Hot transfers are increasingly appealing to mortgage and debt businesses. After all you are buying a live, qualified, and ready to buy customer–well, maybe not always. Did you know that all hot transfers are not the same?

Like Internet leads, the marketing methods behind the lead often produces a different lead. And like Internet leads, you should be asking two very important questions: “Where did these leads come from and how did they get on the phone.” These two questions certainly will change your sales approach, and may affect your conversion opportunity.

Most hot transfer companies are call centers that generate your hot transfers from outbound calls. Often these outbound calls are made on Internet leads, often aged Internet leads. These outbound calls are cheaper and easier to generate than inbound calls.

Inbound calls typically require more expensive marketing, targeting the consumer via radio, TV, or even direct mail. As a result, the consumer is possibly more motivated to be transferred and less likely to have been called by multiple lenders. My premise being that if you are going to spend $60-100 per hot transfer you might prefer this marketing approach to generate that transfer.

Let’s look at the alternative–outbound calling. Hot transfers that are the result of outbound calls are, as I mentioned earlier, often sourced from Internet leads. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but you need to know what you are getting and feel that those transfers are priced fairly. Here are some of the characteristics of an outbound generated hot transfer that might make it less valuable:

Outbound hot transfer leads are likely to have already been called by multiple lenders
The consumer may no longer be interested or motivated for a mortgage or debt call
The hot transfer may have been generated and transferred by a press 1 voice broadcasting campaign (not a call center agent).

These less consumer friendly and often confusing practices may yield you a hostile customer–the screamer.

All of this is not to say that hot transfers are a bad product. In fact, for many debt and mortgage businesses that lack the experience in managing and converting Internet leads they can be a smart option. However, make sure you understand what you are paying for and what cost per closed deal you need to back into. My advice would be to only spend $60-100 per transfer if they are inbound transfers and to only buy outbound transfers if you can get them in the $30-60 range and ideally get them from US call centers.

TrueProspect is the only company that comes to mind offering inbound debt and mortgage transfers and so they might be a good place for you to start.

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Of course, I would argue that aged leads are the best sources of affordable sales marketing. However, I would encourage the smart mortgage or debt business to balance their marketing sources. Creating an effective blend and diversity will serve to smooth out volatility in any marketing channel.

Inherently there are peaks and valleys in any marketing source. Whether they are seasonal, economic, or business cycles there will be variations in your market channel performance. However, shutting channels off and on are expensive and inefficient. The smarter strategy is to nurture multiple channels of leads.

Here are a few strategies I suggest:

Online Leads

Regardless of your preference for real-time or aged leads you should have Internet leads in your marketing mix. There is no more efficient way to get a steady flow of high-intent, opt-in consumer inquiries for mortgage or debt. The added advantage is you can specifically screen for your target customer or product profile. In this tight credit market that means having to say, “no” less often.

If you want to really maximize the return on this channel you can add lead nurturing to the mix. By purchasing cheap aged leads you can build a long-term database of prospects. Continually marketing against this database with valuable email newsletters, market updates, and quick, personal check-ups will yield many more deals than one power-dialing session through the lot.

Pillar (Partner) Business

Establishing a close network of referral partners with the professionals in related industries: real estate, accountants, attorneys, and financial advisors is a smart sales multiplier. These channels can give you a small volume of very good clients. Creating a network of highly ethical and value focused professionals will help you lock-down the customers in your area. Building that network outward can even scale you beyond the borders of your local community.

The secret here is making everyone of those clients precious. Going beyond to create a phenomenal client experience with other clients will yield you a steady flow of this high-quality business. Doing it consistently, and reciprocating on referrals will grow your volume in this marketing channel.

Direct Mail

Using the postal system has fallen out of favor. The performance of direct mail has consistently fallen over time. This affect is attributed to saturation and the increased use of the Internet to find mortgage and debt solutions. However, if you have noticed your own “junk mail” has probably reduced significantly during the recession. This is bringing new opportunity to this method. Used in a good way to raise the awareness of market shifts and your ability to help can yield some pretty attractive numbers.

I recommend using it in conjunction with a client-loyalty program and in a smart way against your aged lead database of prospects. Often sending direct mail in relation to an online inquiry that seems to have gone dead can reawaken the client–there is something about mail that make you feel like there is a “real” person involved versus a straight telemarketing play.

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