double POSITIVE Marketing Group, Inc.

Ok… So we’re starting with some Mortgage Lead Generation 101 and walking through the key players in the ecosystem. (In today’s conference, you can’t comment on a category if you are a member of that group. This is tough :-)

LEAD GENERATORS

The ecosystem starts with lead generators (or aggregators), the top three being Lending Tree, LowerMyBills, and NexTag. What’s the job of a lead provider… To match borrowers with lenders. But there are various ways to do this. LendingTree is quite clear in telling borrowers what they are doing — matching borrowers with lenders. LMB, NexTag are experts in email, search, affiliate marketing, etc, but not as clear to the consumer.

But what do these companies need to do that they are not doing today? Some of the lenders in the room say that the generators are reselling their data too much… 3-4 is not objectionable, but 5-6 is pushing it.

There is concern that the people who go online and fill out a form get “crucified” and “bombarded” with dozens of calls. And the fear is that consumers will tell their friends and families not to go online.

One of the lenders in the room posed the following questions to the lead generators in the room… Why can’t you guys raise the bar? Why can’t you improve lead quality? With all the smart people in the room, why can’t you create the “perfect” lead for me?

(Unfortunatly, the lead generators can’t answer now, so we’ll have to wait until the “Lenders” category).

LEAD MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Several players here… Leads360, Kaleidico, Lead Mailbox, homegrown solutions, others. Their role here is to provide lead tracking, distribution, automated tools like email marketing, workflow, and metrics — all to help provide information on ROI.

LENDERS

The moderator proposed that the main roles of the lenders in this process are to monetize, educate consumers, be compliant, educate lead providers, pay lead providers (tounge and cheek, obviously).

The other groups (lead gen primarily) are suggesting that the lenders often have unrealistic expectations. So what can lenders do in this ecosystem that they currently aren’t to help everyone be more syccessful? Lead generators want more feedback from lenders — positive and negative. QuinnStreet pointed out that the trust level between lead providers and buyers builds over time, which is critical for everyone to benefit and grow their businesses.

SUMMARY

Overall this session fails to meet expectations. There was very little discussion (only laundry lists), which seems to defeat the purpose of the “unconference.”

See Also: Balancing the Leads Ecosystem (Leads2007.com)

How do you build and maintain long-term relationships with your clients? This is the question posed to originators (with consumers) and lead providers (with originators).

If there is a constant flow of leads coming to loan officers — if they are “drinking from the fire hose of leads” — then there is little or no incentive for them to try to build long-term relationships. One way brokers can try to encourage this is to make their LO’s realize that they are essentially self-employed. Some even go as far as to have their LO’s put some skin in the game by having them pay for their own leads.

(On a related note, this is the reason why I wish more of DoublePositive’s clients would see the value of new purchase leads. There is a lot of value there if you consider the life-time value of those relationships).

Lead buyers are spending a lot of money to contact consumers, but too many spend little or nothing to keep the relationship going. Even so, aren’t consumers who failed to convert the first time just likely to go to the Internet and start their process again, even if they receive tickler emails and postcards from a broker?

See Also: LenderFlex’s on Sales Approaches

The main question at hand here is “What technology innovations will have the most significant impact on the industry?”

Lots of the discussion is about metrics, which of course leads into a discussion about technology — whether it be a CRM, lead management system, mortgage management system, other in-house solution. Lots of disparate systems, and even more disparate levels of adoption of these systems. That makes it very hard to get any true metrics as to how the leads are contacted or converting.

Which is a better metric that originators should concentrate on — cost per funded loan or ROI?

Noel Collins explained why it’s hard to get adoption of a lead management system. He explained that the loan processing system is, in fact, a lead management system — but one that is geared just for the loans in process. So, it’s hard to push the use of the lead management systems when the bread and butter is in using the system for the loans in process.

From here the discussion really went all over the place, dealing with issues of lead quality, ballparking industry metrics, lead distribution methods, subprime fallout effects.

Monday and Tuesday I’ll be blogging the Leads2007 conference in Tampa, Florida. So many of the industry’s lead generation companies are here today as well as some mortgage lenders. Check out the full agenda at http://leads2007.com/.

In the last edition of PositiveWire, I used the term “Voice Traffic” several times.   It prompted many questions, and most of the questions had the same theme in common – what is “Voice Traffic?” I am certain we can all understand what a live human voice is, but what exactly is the meaning of the word “traffic.” Certainly, we’ve known the word “traffic” ever since there have been cars on roads (and probably even before that).  We hear the word “traffic” today continuously, but usually with respect to the car-driving patterns in most in major metropolitan areas, and unfortunately, quite often appended with the word “congestion” as a qualifier. For the past 10 years or so, however, we have heard a lot about “Internet” traffic. So, what in the world does “car traffic” and “Internet traffic” have in common?   

Hmmm…  now, that is a good question.  The answer to that question is probably the best definition for the word “traffic” in general. Here’s my theory… I believe that traffic is a phenomenon observed at the highest possible perspective, whereby the moving parts appear random or near-random in their movement, such as an Internet traffic report or a car traffic report as observed by a traffic helicopter. Drill down to any one moving part within the traffic and it is determined that movement is NOT random, but rather, driven by intent. 

Hmmm…. This is beginning to sound a lot like the Duality of Waves vs. Particles that troubles most Quantum Physicists. In other words, the helicopter flying at 5,000 feet (and reporting on the “random flows/waves” of traffic to listeners on their car radios) can drill-down to “observe” that a single person in a single car is not a random wave at all, but rather a single “particle” (or live person in this context) with a defined intent. In other words, what appears to be random (traffic/waves) is actually deliberate (intent/particles). Phone calls have historically been extremely NON-random. 

Most phone users are quite deliberate of their intent (thus far) vis-à-vis the number they dialed.  However, if phone usage ever became LESS deliberate and looked more like random traffic, advertising will soon follow.  In fact, this concept has already begun the snowball process with many adveritsing-supported tele-plays. 

Identifying and routing the defined intent of consumers on the phone for a profit is essentially “trafficking” in live human voice.  Hence, the use of the new term “Voice Traffic.” Presuming that you buy into my theory, you will probably also agree that DoublePositive understands “Voice Traffic” perhaps more than any other company. 

This is just one more step in the evolution of how Internet Traffic is monetized via online performance-based marketing. 

SPF