Mortgage Prospecting and Your Client Base

Mortgage prospecting requires a mortgage broker or loan officer to generate new clients using effective direct response marketing techniques to generate mortgage leads, and prospect for clients using referral generation strategies.

The most overlooked opportunities in mortgage marketing and prospecting is not advertising for new business, but in a broker or mortgage companies current client base.

Most mortgage broker prospecting techniques focus on new client acquisition without any thought to their current data base.

The cost of a new client is very high for most mortgage brokers generating leads or mortgage prospecting outside of their client base. The cost of advertising, time spent qualifying, and other variable costs considerably add up.

You should spend time and money getting new clients using direct marketing techniques: Direct mail (mortgage marketing letters), display advertising, radio, TV, and the internet.

But mortgage prospecting by simply marketing to ones client base can dramatically cut down your expenses, and increase your closing ratio.

It's no secret that in order to get client to do business with you they have to know, like, and trust you (in most cases). Gaining ones trust and making sale takes time, if you are mortgage prospecting for new clients outside of your client base.

But prospecting to your current client base makes more sense because they already know, like and trust you, and are therefore more likely to give you a referral or get another loan with you.

So the first thing you should do is market to your current client base at least once a month. Start 'touching' them at least once a week is ideal.

Why is this important? Because studies show that you lose 10% of your influence with a customer for every month that you do not contact them.

Also, by 'marketing', and 'touching; I don't mean sending out a blatant pitch. You should stay in contact using a variety of means. For example:

• Newsletter (print)
• Greetings (Holiday's, Birthday, Anniversary, Etc.)
• Email (newsletter via email and/or updates and helpful information)
• Seminars, teleseminars, or webinars
• Parties

This list goes on.

Like I said above, you should go after new clients using direct response marketing and prospecting techniques, but you should also spend time marketing and nurturing your current customer base.