Do you want to help your mortgage business grow? Save money and improve your productivity? Gain an edge over competitors?
When you purchase mortgage leads from a trusted source and combine this with organic marketing strategies, you can achieve all this.
However, not all mortgage leads that you can buy online are equally good. Some are not reliable, others are so competitive that you have to compete with many other brokers for them.
Whether you want to buy a few leads or plan on using lead-buying as a long-term strategy to grow your business, here are some mistakes you need to watch out for.
- Buying from an Unreliable Source
Where do the leads come from? How are they obtained?
Answering these two questions can help you improve your conversion rate.
The truth is that not all leads sold online are worth their money. Leads scraped from low-quality sites or obtained through marketing tricks are poor quality leads.
They require a lot of work to convert and may not even be relevant to what you need—they are just being marketed as such.
You need to know how a leads seller acquires leads. A transparent seller will explain this clearly on their website. If you don’t find any such explanation, don’t hesitate to ask.
You need to feel confident in the source of the leads before buying them. Otherwise, you may as well throw your money out the window.
- Buying Third-Party Leads
Third-party leads are leads not directly obtained by the seller. While it wouldn’t be fair to say that third-party leads are bad, they may not be fresh or relevant. Also, the seller may not be able to guarantee that they have been obtained ethically.
Think of it this way—if a lead gen company generates a lead by tricking someone who didn’t willingly share his or her information and mortgage requirements, that person isn’t going to be overly excited when a mortgage broker comes calling, right?
Another reason to buy leads directly from the source is the cost. Sources that sell leads directly tend to offer better prices.
That’s because they don’t have to add the middleman’s share to the final price.
- Not Prefiltering Leads Effectively
Filtering leads saves you time. It allows you to zoom in on those leads that work best for you. Not having the option to filter leads will usually hurt your conversion rate.
You want to be able to filter leads based on their personal financial standing. Factors like a good credit score and high yearly income often prove decisive in securing a deal.
The type and amount of the loan are also important, as is the down payment. And, of course, you need to know the type of property the client is searching for and its location.
Accurate location filtering enables you to compete in a wider area. Like many other brokers, you may find yourself closing a significant portion of your deals without even meeting your clients.
Accurate prefiltering is important—you need to be able to do it fast and effectively before you actually get any notifications. Being bombarded with irrelevant leads that you have to manually sort through is no mortgage broker’s dream.
- Not Buying the Right Type of Leads
Shared leads are those you share with other mortgage brokers. They are cheaper, but you have to compete with more brokers to convert them.
This means you’ll have to act fast and make a better offer than your competitors. If you’re confident in your marketing skills, shared leads can prove useful.
Exclusive leads, on the other hand, can help you minimize the competition. You’ll still need to use all your marketing smarts, but you can work at your own pace without feeling that a bunch of other brokers are breathing down your neck.
While exclusive leads don’t guarantee the sale, they can create better conditions for you and give you a head start.
- Buying Leads in Bulk
Not having full control over how many leads you can buy isn’t cost-effective. It may also have a negative impact on your workflow since you may have to work extra hours to process them all.
Yet you may come across lead sellers that force you to buy say 50 leads in return for a higher sum than allowing you to buy leads individually, one by one.
Another problem with bulk leads is that they often come unfiltered. Before you can convert them, some of them will cool off.
Bulk leads may look cheaper, but when you factor in all their drawbacks, you realize that having the ability to buy just the right amount of leads at the right time is more cost-efficient.
Stay clear of any link-buying scheme that forces you to overbuy leads or that just doesn’t give you enough control over the number of leads you can buy. It’s bound to increase your conversion costs, and probably your workload, too.
Over to You
Being picky when you purchase mortgage leads is good for you—it will save you money and optimize your conversion rates. At the same time, it will help you minimize stress.
With so many things to watch out for, it may seem that finding the right mortgage leads seller is quite a task. But searching for more clients for your business doesn’t have to be a struggle.
LeadsFilter makes it easier for you to find hot leads that can drive the growth of your business. Whether you buy leads constantly or have never bought any so far, it can help you reach the right people at the right time. New to buying leads? Learn more about LeadsFilter and what it can offer you.