The Best Mortgage Marketing Plan for 2024
What You Should Know
- Start by establishing an online presence through a website and social media accounts.
- Optimize a landing page to convert leads and use paid ads to quickly boost business.
- Buy mortgage leads from WOWA.ca to get leads without any effort on your part.
- Engage your audience through frequent social media posts and email newsletters, while gaining referrals through word-of-mouth and reviews.
As a mortgage broker or lender, competition for customers is fierce. With so many options available for borrowers to choose from, it’s important to develop a comprehensive marketing plan to set yourself apart from your competitors. But where do you start? What strategies should you employ? In this guide, we’ll take a deep dive into the world of mortgage marketing, providing you with the insights and tools you need to build the ultimate mortgage marketing plan.
Step One: Create a Strong Brand
First impressions matter, and one of the first things that potential customers will notice is your brand. Do you have a modern, updated logo, or does it look outdated or generic? Would your brand cause customers to trust you, or would it cause them to walk away? With so much money involved in the mortgage process, it's essential that you gain your customer’s trust, and your image plays a large role in that.
You should also consider what makes you unique from other brokers or lenders. This will help form the basis for your logo design, website design, marketing messages and more. You can also research competitors to see how you can stand out from them.
Free Logo Generation Services:
Step Two: Establish Your Online Presence
So much of today's world is online, and the mortgage process is no different. Most potential customers search for lenders or brokers on the internet, so having an established presence will be critical. In fact, the CMHC’s 2021 Mortgage Consumer Survey found that 76% of consumers researched their mortgage options online, with 43% of consumers searching only online. By not having an online presence, you’ll be missing out on a potential customer base.
Website Hosting
What does it mean to have a strong online presence? At the minimum, you should have a website and social media accounts on all major platforms. Building a website for your mortgage brokerage doesn’t need to be complicated. You can set up a website with the help of providers like WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace, with easy-to-use templates.
Best Website Hosting Services In Canada
Note: Hosting plan prices are in Canadian Dollars as of December 2023, for the cheapest plan offered.
Some providers may include a free custom domain as part of their hosting plan, or you could purchase your domain name separately from a registrar. WordPress themes and website HTML templates can be purchased for around $50 or less, meaning that you don't need any coding experience to create your own website.
Domain Names
If your website hosting plan doesn’t include a domain name, you’ll need to purchase a domain for your website. Domains are registered in yearly terms. When picking a domain name for your website, keep in mind that it should be easy to spell and pronounce to avoid confusion. It’s also a good idea to keep it on the shorter side, rather than trying to stuff in keywords into the domain name.
One thing to consider is choosing between a .com and a .ca domain name, or top-level domain (TLD). While both are quite common in the Canadian mortgage marketing space, there can be benefits to one over the other.
A country-code TLD like .ca projects an image of being local. It shows that you are a local Canadian brokerage or lender, which can be seen to have more credibility with some consumers.
However, .com domains are more common elsewhere, and those not familiar with .ca might instead have the opposite intended effect. In some cases, it could even be beneficial to purchase multiple TLDs in order to maximize organic search traffic.
One thing to note is that only Canadians can register a .CA domain. This includes Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and businesses in Canada. Domain name registrars also often have lower rates for new domain registrations in the first year, with a higher cost for renewals or transfers.
Best Domain Name Registrars In Canada
Note: Domain prices are for renewals in Canadian Dollars as of August 2023.
You can use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to make sure your website is appearing at the top of search engine results, such as Google. This means using keywords that potential customers might be searching for and writing content in an SEO-friendly format. Doing this will help ensure your business is one of the first ones people see when they start their research on mortgages or search for mortgage rates.
Once your site is live, you’ll want to use social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Linkedin to create content and start connecting with potential customers. Use these platforms not only as marketing channels, but also as customer service outlets. Of borrowers that used a social media account for their mortgage research, the most popular ones were:
- Facebook (19%)
- YouTube (17%)
- Instagram (10%)
- Forums/Online Chats (9%)
- Linkedin (9%)
- Twitter (9%)
Source: CMHC 2021 Mortgage Consumer Survey, % of consumers
Step Three: Use Paid Advertising
Once you have ensured your website is optimized for your target audience, it's time to consider paid advertising. This could involve paid search and display campaigns that can help boost traffic to your website and social media accounts, such as Google Ads and Facebook Ads. Another way is to directly purchase leads from other companies.
Purchasing Leads on WOWA.ca
Display ads on websites are usually pay per click (PPC) or pay per view, charged through cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM). For example, a website might charge $1 per ad click, or $10 per 1,000 views. There’s no guarantee that these ad clicks or views will turn into leads or customers. An alternative to these is paying per lead. Leads are individuals that have shown interest in your service, making them potential customers. Since you’re only paying for leads, you’re paying for actionable results.
Some websites, such as WOWA.ca, operate on a pay-per-lead (PPL) model. This means that you can have ads on these websites and only pay for each lead that you receive, rather than each click that the ad gets or each ad view. This model can provide good value, as you won’t be wasting your ad budget if your ad clicks aren’t generating leads efficiently.
WOWA.ca’s mortgage lead generation service can provide mortgage leads for a wide variety of mortgages, including residential mortgage leads, mortgage refinance leads, private mortgage leads, reverse mortgage leads, and commercial mortgage leads. Costs range from $25 to $75 per lead, and is available for markets across Canada.
According to the CMHC, 30% of mortgage consumers used an interest rate comparison website to get information about their options. By having your rates shown on WOWA’s mortgage rate tables, and with access to over 5.5 million annual users, buying mortgage leads from WOWA.ca is a quick and easy way to quickly grow your mortgage business. Leads are directly sent to you, giving you their phone number and email address, which means that you can start receiving and converting leads into paying customers even without a website or fancy landing page.
Advertising Details
WOWA.ca is currently offering the opportunity for long-term partnerships with mortgage brokers with a competitive per-lead pricing model.
| Price Per Lead | $30 - $95 Based On Province and Type of Lead |
| Placement/Listing Fees | Depending on the Province ($0 to $1,500 per month) |
| Lead Qualification | Lead Must Have Valid Phone and Email |
| Available Markets | All Canada |
| Custom Logo/Ad Design | YES |
| Eligible Products* | Mortgages, Refinance, Second Mortgages, HELOCs, Private Mortgages, Commercial Mortgages |
Display Ads
Display ads are advertisements on websites, such as banners along the sides of a webpage, or even placed directly inside the content. Display ads have an image, rather than being text-only, with viewers needing to click on your banner to be taken to your website or landing page. This means that you not only need to have a target landing page where you’ll then need to convert your leads, but you’ll also need to design a graphic for your ad. If you have a poorly designed ad, you’ll be wasting your ad dollars on viewers that won’t click on your ad in the first place, let alone get to your landing page.
One downside of display ads is that users may have ad blockers installed, which can block your ads from appearing on their devices. This could prevent you from reaching a significant portion of your target audience. This issue wouldn’t happen with your ads on WOWA.ca, or with search engine ads.
Some popular display ad networks for advertisers include:
- Google Ads
- Media.net
- Microsoft Advertising (Bing Ads)
Search Ads
Search engine ads, or search engine marketing (SEM), allows your website to appear at the top of search results, where it will be more likely to be clicked on than organic search results. Paid search traffic is powerful since it allows you to target users that have already searched for terms related to your services, which means that they are more likely to convert to customers. For example, you might target the keyword “how to get a reverse mortgage”. Users that click on your search ad are looking to get a reverse mortgage, so you’ll be able to direct them to your website and convert them into leads.
The most popular search ad network for advertisers is Google Ads. Trailing behind is Microsoft Advertising (formally Bing Ads).
Social Media Ads
Facebook Ads is one of the most popular social media advertising platforms for businesses of any size, but did you know that most social media platforms offer solutions for advertisers? Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn all offer marketing opportunities for mortgage companies.
Social media ads can not only provide clicks and leads to your website, but they can also grow your social media account’s follower base. This way you can grow an engaged audience of customers and potential leads who are invested in what you have to offer.
Some popular social media ad networks for advertisers include:
- Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp)
Step Four: Use Free Marketing Strategies
While paid ads can quickly boost your visibility, there are also a number of free marketing strategies you can use to reach a wide audience while allowing for your paid ads to be more effective.
Google Business Profile
Creating a Google Business Profile allows you to add information about your business, such as location, contact details, and hours, to Google Search results and Google Maps. It also allows for your Google Reviews to be shown when someone searches for your business on Google.
Create Videos
Engaging videos, such as short explainer videos on commonly asked mortgage questions, are a great way to show potential customers your experience and knowledge. These can be short videos on Youtube, or even on other platforms such as Instagram Stories or TIkTok.
Answer Questions Online
Along the same lines, helping readers online can bring trust and traffic to your business. Answering questions on websites like Reddit or Quora can be a free way to market your business.
Attend or Host Local Events
Mortgage marketing isn’t entirely an online affair. Attending local events is an effective way to network with potential customers face-to-face, allowing you to build rapport in the local community that you operate in. You may even consider hosting free events, such as a seminar on the home buying process, and inviting people in your area.
Step Five: Boost Your Referrals
A good deal of your business will be through referrals. Encourage your current customers to share their experiences with friends and family. You can also offer rewards or discounts to those who refer new business. Follow-up emails or calls can be used to ask customers to share their experience and thank them for their loyalty. A customer relationship management (CRM) software can help you track leads and clients.
One way to keep in touch with past clients is with email marketing. You can send personalized emails, such as birthday wishes or anniversaries, or even the anniversary of closing dates for their home purchases, to keep them engaged and consider you for any future needs. Email newsletters are also a great way to stay in touch with potential customers. You can share informative content, such as market trends and helpful advice related to the mortgage process, or even success stories of people who have purchased a home through your services. This will help build trust by showing potential customers that you know what you’re talking about and how they could benefit from your expertise.
