Beyond Lead Gen – It’s About Borrower Intelligence

The mortgage market continues to hum along thanks to many reasons, including historically low interest rates, a robust economy despite a global pandemic, and other good fortune keeping the wind in our sails. It’s sort of reminiscent of the legendary salmon runs in Alaska streams and rivers, where bears line every inch of small waterfalls and the surrounding banks. The poor salmon often just leap right into the mouths, never fulfilling their spawning journey. Such is the circle of life.

That feast does ultimately come to an end, as will the current ‘all you can eat’ buffet in the U.S. mortgage marketplace. Volumes and profits are off the charts good at present. Unfortunately, lenders cannot rely on a ‘refi run’ every Autumn at the same time. How amazing would that be for certainty, stability and ease of predicting staffing needs, etc. (OK, back to reality). The point being – our feast will end, and it will again be painful, just like all the prior times when the market flipped.

In the mortgage cycle of life, this is the time it seems that lenders get motivated to pull out all stops and get creative on-demand generation. Executives then have to reach for a different playbook – labeled ‘How Do We Source Leads Now?’ This start-and-stop use of tech, tools, and resources has zero continuity and usually creates significant pipeline gaps as the lender adjusts. Here’s the thing, when you stop thinking about lead and demand generation in its traditional form, there already exists ways to spread that salmon run throughout the entire year. It’s called Borrower Intelligence.

What is Borrower Intelligence?

Traditional lead generation is more like salmon fishing with a shotgun, maybe increasing your odds due to a wide pattern, but may be doing more damage than good – spending a lot of extra time in salvage mode. Borrower Intelligence, on the other hand, gives you the ability to execute laser-sharp focus to catch the trophy fish.  

Borrower Intelligence based platforms let you nurture all contacts and leads at the right time and for the right reasons – helping identify qualified leads at that point in time. The platform continually monitors leading indicator data sources when consumers are either eligible for loan options or are already actively in the market based upon actions they are taking now. This intel and activity is tracked and sent to you, or to designated loan officers, in real-time, so you are among the first to recognize the opportunity – ahead of competitors.

When fishing for any species, you don’t want to run out of bait just when the feeding frenzy starts. You run that risk with traditional lead generation methods. How? Emails and other solicitations that have bad timing are wasted, and you significantly increase the odds of being unsubscribed or just arbitrarily deleted each time forward. All leads, regardless of their source, can be hard to come by and expensive. Don’t shotgun them. Use Borrower Intelligence to reach out smartly, with needs-based offers that are based on fresh intel and behavior. Sales Boomerang was built to equip clients with quality leads and intelligence that can be acted upon as life happens for consumers. Examples of alerts that can be pushed to you related to anyone in your database (lead, prospect, customer, turn down, etc.):

• Mortgage inquiries
• Credit score improvement
• Home just listed for sale
• Tappable home equity
• Set rate targets
• Life event milestones

Effectively cultivating and managing leads is purely about timing and messaging – both must be spot on. You should not have to rely upon guesswork or predicting consumer behavior, hoping to catch them in their time of need. This is especially true when data sources and platforms today capture consumer activity, and in many cases, the intent of that behavior – such as listing a house for sale.

Shifting the Paradigm 

This industry needs to migrate away from being proud of having 120,000 CRM contacts and 15 percent email open rates. With the convergence of Big Data and technology – such as Machine Learning, it should be about actual engagement and conversion rates. It is OK to have just 30 percent of the normal number of prospect contacts in a month, provided your timing and messaging is so strong that you are experiencing a better quality of personal interactions, which increases conversion odds.

Consistency in sales and marketing is paramount. With such a Borrower Intelligence based platform, your strategy and approach become quite simplified – ‘We will reach out to prospects when our intel says its time.’ With this methodology, you never have to worry if you are doing too much or too little prospecting of your database. You can rest assured that you are maximizing every opportunity, while your competitor’s shotgun blast approach is just noise – likely loud and annoying.

In closing, we are big proponents of champion-challenger models. Consider a beta test between your current lead generation model and one based upon Borrower Intelligence. Results speak volumes.