double POSITIVE Marketing Group, Inc.

Post By
Brian Tomasette

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Post By
Rich Dent

It was great to get a nod from Mike Ferree http://bit.ly/9RDG7s about the buzz DoublePositive has been generating lately. Lead buyers are discovering the value of using a live Internet lead transfer service like ours, not just to get insight into the quality of Internet leads in real time, but to share that information with their suppliers, which helps improve the quality of leads for everyone.

For example, take a look at leads generated for the online, for-profit education industry. A certain percentage of leads are not transferring. Why are they not transferring? Does the contact claim that they never filled out the form? Do they tell us that they are already enrolled in another program, or that they are still in high school? Is this happening more often than it should? What can we learn from these responses?

The following graph represents the top three dispositions of contacted non-transfers:

Graph provided by, Tim Watts, DoublePositive Director of Data Analytics

Supplier A and Supplier B are delivering pretty good results. But Test Supply is badly off the mark. The buyer can take this data and go back to Test Supplier and say, “Almost 10% of the leads we contacted told us that they never filled out the form. Can you provide us more information on how you are generating these leads? What is the message you are delivering to the consumer through search or display? Could it be because they are being offered some kind of incentive that makes them fill out the form, even if they aren’t interested in our program?”

Another disposition that occurs too frequently in the Test Supply is “No degree/GED,” because students who have not completed high school are not good prospects for online education. Some will fill out the form out of curiosity. Generally, 2% seems to be the industry average – but here we see Test Supply is generating almost 20%. Again, go back to your supplier. Ask, “What is the message and what can we do to change the message so we are not attracting people who are still in high school?”

One last point, and it’s important: Don’t assume that your supplier is trying to cheat you. We all work together here. The only way we can improve the product is if the buyers are willing to share more of the information with the sellers about what’s happening with the leads. After all, we want suppliers to generate more leads because that will drive up more transfers. It takes everyone working together.

That’s it, everybody. That’s the guts of contacted non-transfers. Next time, we’ll share some data on non-contacted non-transfers – or the leads we never make contact with. Until then, let us know about your experiences in the comments below.

Oh – by the way, our in these posts focus has been on EDU lately. I have not forgotten about my Mortgage and Insurance friends. I will share some findings with all of you soon. Please check back regularly.

Post By
Sean Fenlon

 

Especially in DC, New York, and Maryland.

SPF

 

Post By
Sean Fenlon

I once thought the event in the link below would go down as the biggest blunder in the Internet economy. 

http://blogs.doublepositive.com/2008/05/05/huh-yahoo-rejects-microsoft-bid-thats-ridiculous/

The Yahoo blunder has been bested…

This will CLEARLY go down as the the single biggest blunder in the history of blunders.

Groupon rejected Google’s (increased) offer.

Google pulled the deal.

Groupon wants to go public with their $2 Billion current run-rate in tow.

Readers please remember that this business was FOUNDED in 2008!

The play here is to go long on GOOG and short the Groupon stock right after the IPO.

<sigh>

But let me be crystal clear.

I STILL Love Groupon. :-)

SPF

Ok, so the term “stranded” may be a little harsh. My wife and I wed on October 23, 2010. Kelly was stunningly gorgeous, the weather was beautiful, and the ceremony was surreal. The reception flew by, as everyone told us it would, but we enjoyed every second of it. The entire day was perfect. Then came the honeymoon. We were all set to travel to the island of St. Lucia. After staying up late with friends and family, we left for the airport at 3am on zero sleep, but that didn’t matter because we knew we were in for the trip of a lifetime. The flight was long, but we certainly can’t complain as we landed in paradise! From the moment we landed, there was a sense of relaxation that we hadn’t experienced before. Was it the fact that it finally set in that we were married? Or that were finally made it after a day long flight? Or was it the magic of St. Lucia that allowed to leave all of our worries behind? The hour and a half ride to the Sandals Grande St. Lucian Resort from the airport was very interesting. We stopped a few times to view some of the brilliant scenario, learn about the  banana crops, and visit some of the local road-side food vendors. The roads are narrow and windy and the St. Lucian drivers act like they’re driving on the autoban. They say if you can drive in St. Lucia, you can drive anywhere in the world. But the most noteworthy sites were the shacks all over that appeared as though they had already a huge storm. They looked as those they would crumble to the ground with the lightest gust of wind. 

When we arrived at the resort, we were greated by smiling, mostly St. Lucia, staff… and of course some delicious rum punch! After the painless check-in, we arrived in our room with breathtaking views of plantlife and the beach. Our honeymoon had officially begun. Everything was perfect – the service was first class, the food was delicious (I gained almost 10 pounds), the water was warm, and the drinks were plentiful! BBC anyone?

After dinner on Friday evening (2 days before we were set to depart), we retired to our room to find a notice indicating that a tropical storm was due to arrive over the next 24 hours, but that there was no concern. Oh, there was concern! We enjoyed a few more drinks at the bar (they brew a Guiness Foreign Stout in St. Lucia!!! – amazing!!!) before finally retiring for the night. In the morning there was another notice. HURRICANE TOMAS was heading right for us!!! We looked outside and saw that the paradise we came to love was being crushed by the storm. Palm trees blowing side to side, debris flying everywhere, bushes and trees derooted, erosion, devestation. It was the worst storm I had ever seen personally. People were starting to panic. They closed the airports so flights out that Saturday were cancelled. Luckily we were schedule to depart on Sunday. The storm worsened and concern greatened. At this point, interenet access, phone systems, and power were intermitent. Luckily there were powerful backup generators that did a great job of keeping power on in the resort. The general manager, Winston, truely earned his paycheck during the storm. He was available at all times to anyone with a question. He did his best to obtain exclusive information and details on the airports and flights. No one was allowed outside as it was very dangerous. They agreed to keep the bars open asking only that no one over-do it as medical attention was minimal at the resort and there was no way anyone was getting out of there to a hospital. At some point, even the hospital lost power and water. Yet we had both. We were extremely lucky in that we were on the North part of the island (the South, where the big airport is located, was destroyed), most of guests kept their cool and were willing to do whatever they could to help out, and of course the staff. The staff at the restort were some of the friendliest, most helpful, genuine people I have ever met. Even during the storms when they had no way of knowing the status of their homes and even their families. Phone systems were down, roads were blocked, there was no way out. Yet the staff continued to do their best to make sure each and every one of us had the best time possible under the conditions. They had buffet-style meals for us in a large ball room (for dinner, we had grilled Carribean lobster on evening of the storm). They even went as far as to setup a Halloween party on Sunday evening. After the storm calmed down, the staff immediately went to work to repair the beaches, clean the pools, repair water damage in building, remove fallen trees and branches, and return the resort to the pristine condition that it was in before the storm. The staff welcomed the help of the guests. We helped to powerwash chairs and walkways, return chairs and tables to their positions along the beach and pools, and anything else we could do to help out the people that made it their goal to help us the past few days. It felt good to give back even if it was a minimal amount. Winston made an announcement that two of the nights that guests were stranded would be complimentary with additional nights at a reduced rate. What an experience. Neither my wife nor I would trade it for anything. We had several days of perfect weather, a little “liquid sunshine”, and some great beach time and then an adventure that few couples can say they experienced on their honeymoon.

My only complaint is that the communication between the resort and the outside world was quite lacking and we tended to receive opposing information from different people. The technology to keep communications alive during a major storm like Hurricane Tomas must exist in St. Lucia. It’s a tropical island – they have to expect storms like that right? It would seem that the resort would have a better method of communicating information to people rather than everyone packing into the lobby to read a 4′ x 3′ board with printed updates or verbal updates. Maybe an information channel like they have on cruise ships, or at least the ability to broadcast a message across the entire resort including guess rooms and suites? But with the limited resourced that they had, the staff did the best job they could of keeping everyone informed with whatever information they had on request.

It seems that St. Lucia is quite the hot spot for honeymooners of late. We know a couple that traveled to St. Lucia only a couple weeks after us so it was interesting to share stories and hear how the island had healed by the time they arrived. If you have any stories from Hurricane Tomas or St. Lucia afterwards, I would love to hear them! And cheers to the people of St. Lucia who made our honeymoon unforgettable!

Post By
Joey Liner

Download PDF Here

Low Mortgage Lead Pricing
Creates New Growth Opportunities

How Having Access to Cheaper Leads That Are Difficult to Convert Impacts Lead-Buyers in Need of Higher Quality Lead Volume

Summary

• Mortgage Lead prices are near all-time lows
• Low interest rate environments continue, creating higher lead volumes
• Speed-to-Lead is still a driving factor in converting Online Leads
• Sales teams are getting crushed with too many un-workable leads, affecting their spirits
• Simply buying more leads will not increase productivity
• Adding LIVE Hot Transfers and a Lead Management System (LMS) maximizes higher conversions and sells more units

Transitioning from Survival to Growth

Every mortgage company still in business today has fought through nightmare market conditions of the last couple of years to emerge as one of the savviest lead buyers on the Internet. We congratulate you all for making it through what we call “nuclear winter.”

Lead-buying as a mortgage marketing strategy is very mature. Since LendingTree entered the market in 1997, mortgage firms have understood the value of getting leads and phone calls from contactable, interested and qualified consumers who are ready to talk to a mortgage-sales professional. Today’s savvy firms are maximizing their ROI by deliberately INCREASING their marketing costs in order to improve the QUALITY of the calls and leads in order to assure that they are indeed interested and qualified. This white paper teaches you how to achieve optimal results.

Lead Pricing Drops along with Interest Rates

The mortgage industry is in better shape than it’s been since 2006. Interest rates are the lowest they’ve been since then, and will likely stay low for a while. Along with falling mortgage interest rates, lead pricing has come down. WAY down. It appears to be a perfect time for lead buyers to step on the gas and buy more leads at a lower, discounted price, and grow their businesses.

DoublePositive preferred and integrated lead providers include:

The industry is not out of the woods yet, however. Lower rates are only half the battle. The other half is having qualified buyers who can take advantage of the low rates. There still a large demographic that does not have the equity or the credit strength to qualify, which means mortgage companies must be even more precise in their lead generation efforts.

Additional challenges for inbound marketers have emerged. After the subprime fallout, a lot of states, including Maryland, where DoublePostive is headquartered, require individual licensing for loan officers. Inbound marketers now have to buy the appropriate lead flow by state. Having the right phone distribution system is critical to making sure the lead gets through to the licensed loan officer.

The biggest Risk in the Mortgage Leads Market Today

What mortgage companies are now facing is how to respond to the current favorable atmosphere for lead buying. High volume lead supply is available, but they must weigh the pros and cons of flooding their sales force with new leads. They also must consider the best approach to increasing marketing costs for the highest ROI. The biggest risk is missing out on the opportunity to grow, due to operational inefficiencies. Many sales teams spend 80% or more of their time attempting to establish live contact with the consumers/borrowers. Outsourcing this function is usually easy to justify from a total-cost-savings perspective.

The Importance of Speed

One harmful effect of inefficiency is a lack of speed. A recent Leads360 study shows that companies have nearly a 400% higher probability of closing a deal if they are able to call them on Internet leads within 5 minutes. Here is a snippet of the Leads360 study, showing the drop-off as the minutes pass:

We also know that only about 50% of the leads are contactable, 30% are interested and 20% are qualified. For the mortgage firm, that means that a loan officer must spend time calling the leads that are not hot as well as those that are hot. This becomes a Catch-22. The quality of a lead can only be determined by calling on the lead quickly. But if a loan officer is tied up, calling non-hot leads, he or she will not be able to get to the leads that would have been hot, had they been contacted quickly. Inefficiencies are costing the firm, and driving up acquisition costs. For example:

“For the leads we bought and called ourselves, our average response time was more than an hour and forty minutes. There were just too many poor leads mixed in with the good leads, and it took time to sort them out ourselves. As a result, we missed a lot of opportunity.” — Bright Green Home Loans Director of Marketing John Challis

The Impact of High Conversion Rates on Mindset

Another harmful effect of inefficiency is poor conversion rates. Because only about 50% of the leads are contactable, loan officers who call on the bad 50% will have 0% conversion rate. This drags down their overall conversion rate from calling on the good 50%. Inefficiencies are negatively impacting the loan officers’ mental state, which reduces the effective use of their time. For example:

“Our time management was inefficient. It weakened our loan officers’ sales ability, because sales is psychological. When you’re on the phone so much and you hear a lot of hang ups and irritated, negative responses, it affects your mental state. Then, when you finally get an interested customer on the phone – I don’t know if you’re in the best frame of mind to sell.” – Great Western Financial Vice President Greg Reed

The Importance of Improving Productivity

Further compounding the problem of growth is the productivity dilemma. You want to grow your company. Interest rates are the lowest they’ve ever been. And yet you know that if you were to buy more leads, the money would be wasted. Your salespeople would be overwhelmed and unable to call on the new lead volume. To this point:

“If you have a loan officer who is maxed out with the number of calls they can make per day, giving them more leads is not going to give you the outcome you want.” – Hunter Financial Group CEO Pete Sokolovic

For example, let’s say your average loan officer can handle 5-7 Internet leads per day. If you were to give him 12 leads tomorrow, because you want to grow, he will still only be able to call 5-7. Behaviors don’t change just because you want them to. You can’t just overwhelm loan officers because you want to grow. It’s not going to work.

A New Way to Solve the Dilemma

So what is the best path forward?

Increase your return by increasing your investment.

Today’s economics allow this strategy to work. Because the supply of leads is at an all-time high, it creates lower lead pricing. Lower lead pricing creates an opportunity to increase spending back to typical levels to get significantly better results.

For example, if you were spending $13 per lead, and now you are able to buy the same lead for $10, you have $3 to reinvest. Let’s say you were closing 2% and have an opportunity to reinvest that $3 to increase your close ratio by 3-3 ½ % in the same time period. Your costs will go up incrementally, compared to the amount of units that you sell.

How to Get a Better Return

This is where lead transfer companies like DoublePositive provide can help. Using HOT Lead Transfers helps mortgage firms value their time more. To take advantage of where rates are today and grow their business, mortgage firms can buy more leads and use the HOT Lead Transfer process to increase their sales team’s productivity. When they receive HOT Lead Transfers, they get the opportunity to speak to interested, qualified consumers first, before they find another solution or are contact by a competitor.

Coupled with a Leads Management Software (LMS) company, DoublePositive helps mortgage firms achieve even better results. Here’s how lead optimization works.

Work Flow for Lead

This diagram shows the path of the leads as they come in from aggregators, internal and other sources. They enter the LMS, which triggers an email to your prospect, thanking them for their interest and letting them know to expect a phone call from you shortly. The LMS also captures their data for a drip email campaign if they do not convert immediately.

At the same time, the lead drops into a lead prioritization queue, which feeds the drip email campaign. Those leads also enter to the Hot Transfer Engine, which generates a call from our call center to your prospect. If your prospect truly is interested and qualified, our call center forwards that lead as an inbound call to your loan officers.

Partners in Optimizing Your Business Mix

An LMS that specializes in mortgage consists of robust physical connections to all Lead Suppliers, combined with a proprietary Translation Engine that handles the entire custom data mapping per supply source. An LMS will be able to help mortgage firms get connected to all of their lead suppliers, overnight.

Connectivity to lead sources and the transfer of leads is where the ROI begins. But DoublePositive is not just a hot transfer company. We work together with LMS companies as day-to-day consultants to help our clients operate more efficiently and get more juice out of the leads they are purchasing each day. We know that if we do a good job, they will grow, and add more to their marketing budgets. Improving lead flow is our primary goal.

To Improve Speed

What has been the difference for our client, who said that, before their partnership with DoublePositive and the LMS, their average response time was about 100 minutes?

“The average response time is now inside of a minute. This is dramatically different, which adds a tremendous value.” — Bright Green Home Loans Director of Marketing John Challis

To Improve Conversion Rates and Sales Mindset

How big has the impact been for our client who said that, before their partnership with DoublePositive and their LMS, inefficient time management hurt their loan officers’ mental state?

“Instead of our loan officers becoming telemarketers, they are allowed now to be great loan officers, and spend more time on the phone with a warmed-up customer that’s interested in moving forward. Now they can be more energized, more positive, and sell more like a professional. And we were able to increase our conversion percentages by 20% in productivity.” – Great Western Financial Vice President Greg Reed

To Be Able to Scale

And how has the inability to scale been addressed by our client, quoted above, since entering into a partnership with DoublePositive and their LMS?

"We’ve seen our loan officers increase production 100%. If they were capped before at producing 3-6 loans per month, we’ve seen every one of them be able to double up and produce 6-12 loans per month. That has helped the loan officers make more money, and our company produce more results with the same headcount.  Marketing cost remains close, but the efficiencies you get by enabling an individual to perform twice the amount of business makes up for it, and then some." – Hunter Financial Group CEO Pete Sokolovic

A Vision for Growth

Despite the fact that industry has not completely recovered, there are more positive signs than ever that forward-looking mortgage firms are poised for tremendous growth. It helps to have better access to cheaper leads, when you add tools like an LMS and DoublePositive to the quality of the leads and drive up conversion rates. Loan officers are happier and more productive, the consumer is better served, and the mortgage firm makes more money at last.

Review

Where do today’s favorable market conditions leave the mortgage leads buyer seeking to grow? Let’s review the facts:

• Low interest rates and a high lead volume create lower lead acquisition costs
• Market conditions present a unique growth opportunity for mortgage firms
• Companies that add HOT Lead Transfers to Lead Management Tools are better able to increase speed, improve conversion rates and boost productivity
• Having happier, healthier, more productive loan officers allows companies to scale

Download PDF Here