How to Be Successful with Internet Leads A Strategic Guide of Best Practices from Low.com
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Lead Implementation and Campaign Strategy
Who is Low.com Fred Hsu is President of Low.com, Inc. and Co-Founder and Managing Director of Oversee.net, its parent company. Low.com is a leading financial services portal committed to helping consumers find the lowest cost, most reputable purchase, refinance and home equity loans. Through the use of landing page optimization technology, the company connects highlymotivated users with financial institutions, resulting in leads that generate among the highest percentage of closed loans in the industry. Fred and his team have brought science and mathematical expertise to the business of lead generation. Marketing Partnership The goal of Low.com is to transcend the traditional lender/vendor relationship and become the “marketing partner” of the providers on our network. If Low.com resigns itself to simply a “lead provider,” then we believe we are setting up the campaign for mutual failure. As a marketing partner, we will demonstrate how we have a vested interest in the success of your marketing campaign. Simply put, if you are not successful with our consumers, then you will not be motivated to buy our leads, nor will you prefer to remain on our network. Our goal is to grow your relationship with Low.com because: as your fundings increase, you will become more efficient in the conversion process, your margins will increase, you will be able to hire more loan officers, and the demand for Low.com leads will increase, thus creating a true win-win scenario.
Why Proper Implementation and Proper Tracking is So Vital As with any marketing campaign, you get out of it what you put in. More importantly, unless you track the results, you will never know what exactly you gained from the campaign. You could essentially be either flushing valuable marketing dollars down the drain, or not fully leveraging a marketing windfall, without even knowing it. That is why it is imperative to your bottom line to track and measure the campaign so as to fully realize ROI (Return On Investment). By tracking the proper metrics in a marketing program you assure yourself the opportunity to improve your management productivity, dramatically increase revenues and lower your marketing costs per closed and funded loans. Put simply, “You cannot improve upon that which you don’t measure.”
What Needs to be Tracked As a lender or broker, there are a few key Operating Levers that, if well monitored, allow you to optimize your margins. If you are able to be efficient in all of these key areas you will be able to successfully lower your costs and increase profits. Furthermore, with greater visibility into the key business levers, you will be able to identify the possible weak links, in the chain and consequently know the areas that will require the most immediate focus and attention. In other words, by identifying the business levers, you will be able to identify the key areas with which you will be able to gain leverage, or lose traction.
Examples of What To Track -Leads received and to which loan officer they were assigned (LO) -Consumer contacted -Borrower Interview -Credit Pull -Price Quoted -Processing -Underwriting -Loan Closed/Funded What are the “Operating Levers,” with which you can gain leverage or lose traction -Lead Distribution a. oTime until lead is in LO’s possession b. o Time in minutes to first contact attempt -Consumer Contacted oTime to initial contact oNumber of attempts to contact -Credit Pulls -1003 Completed -Processing -Loan Funded
a. b.
Best Practices with Relation to the Key Business Levers Lead Distribution The “best in class” practices for lead distribution obviously revolve around the concept, “the sooner, the better.” Low.com queues our leads in batches and distributes them every 5 minutes, thus virtually in real-time. This gives the provider the opportunity to reach the consumer while they are still at their computer. The companies with the highest over-all conversion ratios are the ones that have the capability to quickly, if not instantaneously, distribute leads received to their LO’s. The LO’s are then immediately notified – via email, for example – and then may immediately initiate contact with the consumer. This process, in order to be a best practice, must encompass a matter of minutes, NOT, a matter of hours. Consumer Contacted As we discussed, the time to the initial consumer contact is critical. To be in line with the best practices, your LO’s must be given the opportunity to contact the consumer as close to the time of lead delivery as possible. You may not necessarily need to be the first person to contact the consumer each time, but remember, these are motivated borrowers so if you don’t speak to them, someone else will. Also critical is the number of attempts the LO makes. Yes, these are motivated borrowers but they are also busy people. They may not be reached in the first call – or the second, third or fourth. But persistence is the key. Your loan officers should make no less than 6 attempts within the first 3 days. Leave a message only on the first call so as to not appear intrusive, but certainly follow up several times per day, both at work and at home. Once a consumer has been contacted, there are several co-branding opportunities that help to provide maximum conversion rates. When a consumer completes the form on the Low.com website, they are immediately paired with Lenders from our network. The consumer is aware that he/she will be contacted by Lenders from our Network. Not only is the consumer, then, expecting to be contacted, they are expecting to be contacted by someone from your company. Thus it is imperative to successfully
transition the consumer from our brand to yours. For example: “Hello, Mr. Smith. My name is ______ and I am a loan officer with XYZ Mortgage. You completed a form on the Low.com website. We are a partner with Low.com and I would like to talk to you about your mortgage inquiry.”
Again, the important thing is to transition the borrower from the Low.com brand to yours. This imparts trust and improves credibility on what otherwise may still be perceived as a cold call. Credit Pulls The companies that do the best with our leads often have several unique practices that differentiate them from the average provider. Namely, those that can go farther into the loan application process during the initial call are most likely to secure the loan. For example, your loan officers should have the capability and training to pull the consumers credit and view it on the initial call. Furthermore, your organization should subscribe, if you do not already, to a credit re-scoring service. The loan officer should then have the skill and training to identify, while on the phone with the consumer, line items on their credit score which may be disputable. With the credit rescoring service, the experienced loan officer may then be able to estimate an amended credit score and offer the consumer what may be an improved rate on their loan based on an improved credit score. Best practices also include the ability for the LO to then take payment for the appraisal over the phone. After winning the trust of the consumer via your LO’s experience and expertise with relation to their FICO score, they may then be able to procure a credit card payment for the appraisal, then taking your company even farther into the loan application process than your typical provider. 1003 Completed As your LO is conversing with the consumer about their credit, possible rescoring and the appraisal fee, they should also be able to conversationally obtain the information needed for the 1003 loan application. Again, the further that your LO’s are going to be able to go during the initial call, they will provide Exit Barriers, or reasons to dissuade the consumer of doing business with anyone else. Processing The key to processing, as is the case with all of the key business levers, is to know how long the average application resides in this step. If it is a longer amount of time than should be needed, and especially if as a result of this you notice a significant amount of drop off, you then know by monitoring this that this is an area in need of improvement. You may need to hire more processors, underwriters or improve the skill-level of those therein. But, by measuring the time in processing you will know the impact that this stage has on your conversion. Loan Funded When you are able to then successfully measure and track all of the business levers mentioned previously, an increase in fundings is nothing other than a natural by-product. For there to be a strong, safe house, it must first be built on a solid foundation. The business levers are the solid foundation upon which high conversion rates and thus funded loans are built. The “KEY” Metric Contrary to what may seem common sense, it may be a surprise that the Funding Ratio is probably the least significant business lever to track. The reason is, the funding ratio is a factor of doing all of the other business levers successfully. In other words, if you are maximizing: time to contact, contact ratio, credit pulls and conditional approvals, and you are maximizing the efficiencies thereof, then a favorable funding ratio is nothing but a natural byproduct. What is, then, the Key Metric according to Low.com? This is answered in two parts: Firstly, it is the period of time between when the lead is received and when the LO makes the first contact attempt. The second is the number of attempts made to reach the consumer. The average Low.com consumer is indeed a motivated borrower. These are consumers who voluntarily went to our website, completed a detailed, thorough online form and submitted the form with the expectation that they would be contacted by a loan officer about their loan. That being said,
they are also busy people that require in most cases several attempts before establishing contact. We know from the consumer feedback that we receive from those that complete the form on our site, the single-most frequent complaint that they have is that they were never actually contacted by all of the companies with whom they were paired. Therefore, if Low.com were to pinpoint a key metric that has the most affect on the success of a campaign, it would be
st
the time from lead receipt to the 1 contact attempt, and the number of attempts in the first critical 24-72 hours by your loan officers. (For the other best practices, please see the Loan Officer Training Card in Appendix A).
How To Implement a Successful Lead Management Campaign Now that we have detailed What to track, it is important to know How to track it. In Appendix B we have created a visual methodology for lead campaign management. It is separated into three main phases: Business Innovation, Process and Structure, and Value Delivery. You will notice that, by design, there is a certain amount of overlap.
Lead Campaign Management Methodology
From Bottom
In the Business Innovation phase you should designate a project manager for the implementation. The project manager, along with the project team needs to: 1) Create a Program Game Plan 2) Identify Strategic Requirements (system requirements, software, hardware, additional staff, additional training for LO’s/processors/underwriters) 3) Identify Acceptable Sales and marketing costs (What is an acceptable “Cost of Revenue?” What is a successful campaign, what is a failure?)
In the Process and Structure phase the Project Manager and project team will need to: 1) Identify the Implementation Process 2) Identify the key metrics for your organization that you will track 3) Identify and Implement additional products (i.e. lead management tool that integrates with your LOS) Lastly, in the Value Delivery process you will begin to see the “fruits of your labor,” as the
measurable results will begin to take form. The project team should: 1) Identify results and trends within the key business levers and optimize results 2) Identify your average cost per fund and establish ROI
To be successful, this needs to be an iterative process. In other words, as soon as the last phase has been completed, you should then begin the process anew to further optimize all of your business levers. This is what will give you the ability to essentially maximize the business levers thereby increasing margins, funded loans and your bottom line.
Online Leads: Best Practices
QUICK INITIAL CONTACT BE PERSISTENT AND AGGRESSIVE CONTROL THE LOAN APPLICATION PROCESS FROM THE GET-GO RECYCLE YOUR LEADS
Upon receiving a lead: Make quick initial contact . Immediately call the borrower at work and home . Immediately send an email introducing yourself and your company . Place a follow up call to remind the borrower of the introductory email (Leave a message if necessary) After initial contact: Be persistent and aggressive Place at least 3 calls per day for the first 3 days oTry the following times for better odds of reaching the borrower at work: 7:00am - 9:00am -Before standard office hours 11:30am - 1:30pm -- During standard lunch breaks 5:00pm - 7:00pm -After standard office hours . If no response after 24 hours send “unable to contact” email . Contact borrowers on the weekends Once you make contact: Aggressively move down the loan application process on the first call . Bridge the gap between Low.com and your company . Constantly sell yourself and your company . Be the borrower’s advocate by building rapport, confidence and trust . Provide loan options and/or rate quotes that meet the borrower’s needs on the first call . Educate the borrower about comparing competitors’ fees and services Recycle your leads: Easy and cost-free way to gain additional business . Many borrowers are “still in the game” weeks or months after your initial contact . Maintain regular follow up call & email schedule for those leads that didn’t make the pipeline REMEMBER… Low.com consumers are: Highly motivated borrowers whose needs specifically meet the product offerings of your company BORROWERS WHO WANT AND EXPECT TO BE CONTACTED BY YOU!
Online Leads: Best Practices
QUICK INITIAL CONTACT BE PERSISTENT AND AGGRESSIVE CONTROL THE LOAN APPLICATION PROCESS FROM THE GET-GO RECYCLE YOUR LEADS
Upon receiving a lead: Make quick initial contact . Immediately call the borrower at work and home . Immediately send an email introducing yourself and your company . Place a follow up call to remind the borrower of the introductory email (Leave a message if necessary) After initial contact: Be persistent and aggressive Place at least 3 calls per day for the first 3 days oTry the following times for better odds of reaching the borrower at work: 7:00am - 9:00am -Before standard office hours 11:30am - 1:30pm -- During standard lunch breaks 5:00pm - 7:00pm --
After standard office hours . If no response after 24 hours send “unable to contact” email . Contact borrowers on the weekends Once you make contact: Aggressively move down the loan application process on the first call . Bridge the gap between Low.com and your company . Constantly sell yourself and your company . Be the borrower’s advocate by building rapport, confidence and trust . Provide loan options and/or rate quotes that meet the borrower’s needs on the first call . Educate the borrower about comparing competitors’ fees and services Recycle your leads: Easy and cost-free way to gain additional business . Many borrowers are “still in the game” weeks or months after your initial contact . Maintain regular follow up call & email schedule for those leads that didn’t make the pipeline REMEMBER… Low.com consumers are: Highly motivated borrowers whose needs specifically meet the product offerings of your company BORROWERS WHO WANT AND EXPECT TO BE CONTACTED BY YOU!