By: Tom Ward, Majestic Mortgage Corporation, Mudellien, IL
Tom Ward is the CEO/Founder of Majestic Mortgage Corp. As the CEO of Majestic Consulting & Marketing, Tom has created www.MyRateAlert.com/deis, a unique email, interest rate notification system for your clients. Tom also holds seminars throughout the country on profitablility, so please visit his website at www.ProfitsByPermission.com for further information.
Karen Deis' recent comments in this newsletter on purchasing "exclusive" leads (are they really exclusive?) raised a very interesting point about leads in general, particularly in light of the clamp down on telemarketing and threats of similar action on e-mail.
Here's a hot item: 16.9 MILLION people signed up for the Federal government's Do-Not-Call list as of 10:30 a.m., July 3rd. As this is written, the Federal Trade Commission is opening the door for homeowners east of the Mississippi River to sign up, too.
Telemarketing is a valid form of marketing. But more importantly, people just don't like it. (People don't like SPAM e-mail either, but e-mail acceptance is another subject.) Marketing to cold call leads is becoming less and less productive.
Just what is the value of a lead? Just as important: What is a lead?
Classically, the definition of a "lead" means someone in need of, or ready to do business with you. They have to be persuaded to become a customer. By this, a raw list of names cannot be defined as leads. Think of this when buying leads. How qualified (need, readiness) are the leads?
Granted, some list purveyors sell leads, defined as people who have inquired about a mortgage in your market, to one of their harvesting websites. As Karen pointed out, the marketing ploy to get these people into the harvesting website can be problematic if it is a promise of a ridiculously low rate.
But going deeper than the quality and exclusivity of purchased leads, originators often overlook the hidden math on list acquisition - the return on investment.
The most frequent response to our question about return on investment is: "If you get just one more loan, that will pay for this service." I had one list service representative tell me that.
Read More
