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Follow Closely: Skipping Even One Step is a Deal-Killer

Tuesday, 22 September 2015 by Bill Baskin
It’s amazing how people disregard any leads that aren’t brand-spanking new. If treated right, they can lead to significant customer acquisition. But you can’t skip a single beat. Back to my favorite saying: It’s not the leads, it’s you. But don’t despair, follow this step-by-step guide for major results. It includes both email newsletter and calling (with my favorite strategy), because remember – email for show, dial for dough! Both are crucial components.
Working aged leads: trickle email marketing. Consumers will come to you in various stages of the buying cycle. Some will have noticed a few bullet points on an advertisement and want to learn more but are not in a position to move forward, while others will have done their research and be ready to transact.

  1. I like Constant Contact for these campaigns.
  2. Only email to leads you purchased or generated. Review the CAN-SPAM act of 2003. Avoid spam complaints at all costs by following the FTC’s guide on the CAN-SPAM act.
  3. Never give sales people authority to send bulk emails, or you will become the biggest SPAMMER on the web! Have a dedicated admin manage all campaigns.
  4. Ideal email creative would be stories on how a reverse mortgage changed a borrower’s life. Think real testimonial stories, educational material, articles.
  5. Frequency: weekly or bi-weekly. Goal is to not be identified as SPAM, and over-delivery is a common error.
  6. Be consistently in front of the prospect, so when they decide it’s the right time, you are the lender who earns their business. You will generate business from leads that are even years old over time.

Working aged leads: telemarketing campaigns. The larger your sales organization and the bigger your marketing budget, the more money and data hit the floor unmonetized. Let’s face it, your sales team moves on from working fresh leads rather quickly to work the even newer ones. This inherently leaves a lot of revenue on the table from uncontacted leads and poorly worked leads. Create a strategy to remarket to your leads as they age. In addition to trickle emails, remarket by phone to these leads, and use the refreshed leads to supplement your sales team. You will see much better ROI over time if your do.

One strategy that has proven effective is to bring your own small telemarketing team in-house, armed with a predictive dialer. Dialers can be licensed by seat for around $200 monthly, with up to 3 agents rotating through a single license. This can be only one person or as many people as you can accommodate based on your ability to take transfers and the amount of data you have to work. I suggest paying these telemarketers an hourly rate plus a transfer bonus on every lead they transfer to the sales team, or a bonus on a closed loan from a lead they recycle. It’s also a good test bed for new employees, as some of your telemarketers can prove themselves here and then migrate to the sales department as they get licensing. Alternatively for smaller broker shops, you can buy a single seat license of a predictive dialer, which lets your loan officers each take an hour+ shift per day working the aged queue to find deals. The automation allows for many more dials per hour than they can make on their own. Most dialers auto-regulate the call speed to stay under the maximum 3% drop rate as required by regulation.

Create a customer survey style script to work the older leads. For example:

“I’m calling today from XYZ Reverse Mortgage, as you applied with us a month or so ago to receive more information on a Reverse Mortgage. Many of our clients found their Reverse Mortgage drastically improved their financial outlook and allowed them tremendous flexibility during retirement. I just wanted to follow up to see if your experience with our company was satisfactory, or if you still required more information on this product? I have one of our bankers standing by if you still want to explore your option and receive a no obligation quote.”

One important question is, when do you move your data to the remarketing queue? The answer varies depending on your process, but I would move uncontacted leads to the aged queue no later than 30 days after purchase, as you have until the 90th day from the date the consumer submits the lead to call the uncontacted leads under Safe Harbor of the DNC. Contacted leads in which you establish an Existing Business Relationship (EBR) can be called until the customer opts out, but check with your compliance attorneys to maintain both DNC and TCPA compliance. It is critical due to TCPA that you only call on data with an existing EBR or Express Consent as defined by the FTC. Calling mobile numbers from random data you buy, where the consumer has no informed consent as to who will be calling, can lead to disastrous consequences, including FTC investigations and Federal class action lawsuits. Again, confer with your attorney on compliance matters.

To conclude this series, the main take-away I hope you realize now is that you need a plan, a process, and accountability to realize your maximum ROI from your marketing spend. Unless you are very talented, picking up the phone and winging it just won’t do for the majority of sales people. Identify what makes you and your company special. Become the product expert. Learn to effectively communicate and follow a plan. Most of the deals you lose are because you may have failed to follow a process. Skipping steps in the sale kills deals.

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