Why buying finance leads online or from rank and rent lead generation style websites is bad news, and why Google has clamped down on running UK pay per click ads by non FCA registered lead generation companies.

Like any other business mortgage and finance brokers need clients. While studies show that for many companies the majority of leads come from existing or former customers, these usually won’t be enough for even the smallest mortgage or loan business. If you want to scale you need to find new customers. To do this many brokers and mortgage advisors have turned to purchasing leads from finance lead companies. This may appear to be a short and effective solution; however, it has many problems and there are better alternatives. We talked to mortgage leads specialists Insite Web to find out more.

Risks of purchasing mortgage or loan leads

Buying mortgage leads can seem to offer a quick and hassle-free way of locating new clients. You pay your money, and you receive a list of leads. That’s all you have though. A list of leads with no indication of whether they will convert to customers.

So why might this not be the simple solution it appears to be?

  • Lots of leads doesn’t mean good quality leads. We all know that in business quantity doesn’t equate to quality. Lead generation is no different. Worse than that, not only are you not guaranteed that all the leads you have are good quality, but you’ll also have many to sort through it’ll take you longer to get to the ones that are any good.
  • You may not know where the leads have come from. Many lead generation companies don’t actually generate all, or even any, of the leads they supply you with themselves. This makes it even more difficult to guarantee a quality.
  • It’s costing you money. Paying for leads adds a cost to your business. We’ve already described how you can’t guarantee the quality of the leads you receive, so the money you spend could be just going down the drain.
  • You won’t have a clear idea of how old your leads are. Buying leads from a third party adds a delay between when they were sourced and when you receive them. You won’t know how old the leads are. You could end up chasing leads that are out of date, meaning that prospective customers have already gone elsewhere or have changed their contact details. Worse still they may have been sold to more than one company already.

Another option

If you’re not going to buy leads from a third party what can you do? The simplest thing is to develop your own lead generation strategy. This can be done by revamping your website – or even building a new one, by using social media, by utilising PPC advertising or employing a combination of these methods.

Your own strategy can adopt many of the techniques used by specialist lead generation companies, including geographic and demographic targeting.

Developing a strategy

Developing a lead generation strategy can be made easier if you follow these steps:

  • Think about who you’re targeting. Identifying who your ‘ideal clients’ are is key to success. Consider who you want to sell services to. Where do they live? How old are they? How much do they earn, what do they need?
  • Where is your ‘ideal client’. You may have identified where they live, but do you know where they look for financial services. Which social media platforms do they use? How do they research financial services or mortgage companies? Do they prefer SMS or email?
  • What do they search for? Another key factor. For example, if you sell specialist financial mortgage services to high-worth individuals you don’t want to target people searching for ‘getting a mortgage when you’re on a low income’.
  • Does your website reflect what people search for? Keyword research will help you identify what the popular search terms are for your business. Once you know, make sure these terms appear on your website.
  • Spend some money. Test keywords and demographics via test PPC campaigns. Your initial keywords will also help you put together your main PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising and any SEO work. Paying for some initial online advertising can complement the rest of your lead generation marketing strategy. It can also provide you with some very useful analytics, helping you to refine all your marketing strategies even more.
  • Understand Googles changes. Following pressure from the FCA in the UK, Google has tightened up some of the regulations around PPC advertising for companies in the financial sector. Designed to protect consumers, what this means is that you must ensure that you, or the company running your ads is verified by Google and the FCA. Failure to comply could mean that your ads are removed.
  • Leverage emails. You’re sending out emails anyway, so make sure they work for you. Think about when you email and who you email. Understanding everyone that you contact will ensure that they receive emails that are relevant, and that take them through the lead generation funnel.
  • Track those calls. Putting phone tracking in place, as well as form/sale measurements, will let you determine where people have found your number, helping you understand what works, and what doesn’t via every type.
  • Use AI and automation. There are lots of processes that can be automated. This makes them more effective, saves time and ensures that your highly trained staff aren’t wasting time on mundane tasks.
  • Keep checking the data. Lots of the techniques outlined above will generate data, but data is only useful if you look at it. Make sure you take time to assess what you are doing and identify where both the successes, and the failures, come from to optimise your marketing.

Having a hands-on approach toward your lead generation strategy gives you more control of the quality of your leads. You can make sure that you really are generating bespoke leads yourself, that are relevant to your business. You can also be more responsive to changes in business for focus or the wider business landscape.

If you think it may be a little intimidating doing it all yourself, you should consider approaching a specialist online lead generation marketing company. Rather than just giving you a list of leads, a company like this will work with you to produce an integrated strategy that works in the best interests of your business. A company with expertise in financial services will help you navigate all the potential pitfalls, including ensuring that you don’t fall foul of any Google changes, and help you build your business profitably.