How to Create an Inbound Strategy for Mortgage Marketing

Knowing you need an inbound strategy for mortgage marketing is one thing. Actually creating one (and making sure it works) is another ballgame!

Lead generation for your mortgage business requires a multi-channel approach. An automated sales process with effective email communications is important to nurture leads in your sales funnel. Still, without an inbound strategy to send new leads to that funnel, the emails in your mortgage sales automation strategy won't have anyone to reach!

What do loan officers need to know about creating an inbound marketing plan for generating mortgage leads? We've pulled together some of our best insights below.

What Are Inbound Mortgage Marketing Best Practices?

To become a household name in the mortgage space, inbound marketing is vital. People need to know who you are and the services you offer, but they'll have a hard time finding that information without intentional efforts to put your knowledge out into the digital space. 

Inbound marketing requires a strategic content plan, and it's more than simply creating blogs and hoping people find them. In addition to creating relevant content that will attract your target audience, it's essential to do so in an authentic and engaging way. 

No one wants to be stuck in front of a screen in addition to being bombarded in their social media feeds in the mortgage world. Creating content in a way that is unique and useful for borrowers in an effort to educate, engage, and inspire will ensure that your inbound marketing efforts are well-received by your target audience.

Define Your Mortgage Industry Goals and Buyer Personas

Who will your content talk to? Who are your ideal mortgage leads for new borrowers? You won't know the ideal blog topics, keywords, or your target audience until you define who you're trying to reach with a content marketing campaign. 

Buyer personas represent your ideal new mortgage lending clients. Once you've identified these "characters" and matched them with your sales and marketing goals, you're ready to begin a content plan. Let your buyer personas drive who you speak to through blogs, social media, and paid ads to generate leads for your mortgage company! 

Research Keywords

What words do your target customers use to search online for the services you offer? Creating a blog that talks to a persona is good, but it won't be effective without plugging in critical keywords for the mortgage industry. 

Keywords help drive a successful search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. Use relevant keywords to help blog content rank higher on SERPs (search engine results pages) and drive more traffic to your website. 

Map Your Content Strategy to Generate Leads

Which types of content should be part of your mortgage broker lead generation strategy and marketing campaigns? How can you talk to buyers in different places along the sales funnel? Mapping out your content strategy helps you plan resources to create blogs, post on social media, and speak to leads depending on where they are in the buyer's journey. 

Most inbound marketing strategies include:

• Blogs
• Videos
• Social Media
• Paid Ads (PPC)

These tools drive traffic to your content and website, both organically (through searches) and inorganically (with paid strategies). A well-rounded plan includes a combination of organic and paid elements to increase your mortgage marketing reach! 

Implement the Strategy for Inbound Mortgage Lead Generation

Now that you have a plan for who you want to target and the content methods you'll use to reach them, it's time to create content! 

If writing blogs or posting to social media aren't things you do well as a loan officer, that's okay. Content creation and marketing are things you can outsource to a knowledgeable company like RentBridge. We can help you create SEO-driven content and build and implement a strategy that helps you generate mortgage leads for your funnel to grow your business! 

How Do I Know if My Inbound Marketing Campaign Is Working to General Mortgage Leads?

Once your inbound campaign is up and running, it's critical to monitor the performance. As search engines change algorithms and blog content becomes outdated, it's important to have a plan in place to adapt your strategy and optimize content to continue reaching your ideal new borrowers. 

To determine if inbound marketing in the mortgage world is effective, you'll need to take both a qualitative and quantitative approach. Tracking your inbound marketing campaign means looking at the number of leads that your business gets in addition to the specific content on your blog or website that has the best success in converting into valuable leads for you. 

Starting with a content audit is an excellent way to identify quick wins and give your campaigns a leg up from the very beginning. Tracking every aspect of your campaigns from their creation will give you the ability to see your progress (or lack thereof) throughout each campaign. Establishing KPIs gives you the ability to reference back and measure your success along the way. Do you know your KPIs? If not, go back to your goals and buyer personas and attach some Key Performance Indicators to those goals and identities. 

Generate More Mortgage Leads With the Right Inbound Strategy

Inbound marketing can seem like "the wizard behind the curtain" in terms of the methods that must work together to generate more mortgage leads for your company. How can you know if you've put together the right strategy? Are you still losing leads or failing to generate traffic? 

Don't panic if your marketing plan doesn't immediately double or triple the volume of leads your loan officers follow up with right away. Generating your SEO and online presence takes time, but it all starts with a knowledgeable strategy, excellent content, and an effective lead nurturing strategy. If you're not sure that our inbound plan is generating the leads you need, or you're ready to create your first campaign, RentBridge is here to help! Reach out, and let's talk about the content you need to improve mortgage lead generation.