At their core, marketing trends are popular, cost-effective business practices that savvy marketing professionals pursue to meet their company’s goals. Marketing trends use the introduction of new features, technological capabilities, or tools that enable companies to expand their audience of potential customers.  

While certain mortgage marketing trends seem to fall out of popularity as fast as  they enter, others integrate to become necessary business practices. At one time, artificial intelligence, data-driven marketing, and search engine optimization were all considered to be nonsensical tech jargon. Today, these former mortgage marketing trends are among the top priorities for loan originators.  

But what current trends should be a priority for mortgage companies and which will prove to be a waste of time? Top of Mind Networks has the answer.

This Article Covers:

• Why video marketing is the preferred medium for social media channels
• How memes are introducing the next generation of borrowers to the lending industry
• Generating qualified leads through interactive media
• The new frontier of gamification

Video marketing uses videos to accomplish one or all of the following goals: 

1. Advertise and market your brand
2. Educate your prospective and current customers
3. Engage with your digital audience via different social media channels

More recently, video has conquered social media, providing mortgage marketing professionals with a method to more effectively grab the attention of their intended audience as they scroll through their social timelines.

If you aren’t using video in your mortgage marketing efforts, you will likely fall behind your competitors that do. Video marketing is the future, and the future is NOW! If you need additional convincing, then please review some of the high-level numbers on video marketing.  

Per a previous study released by Optinmoster, video marketers received 66% more qualified leads, achieving a 54% increase in brand awareness through the use of video in social media channels. 

Video is a great way to grow your lending customer base, and it’s now more affordable than ever. Production of video marketing content is no longer held back by constraints associated with equipment and cost. Anyone can create a high-quality 4K video using only their cell phone. 

Rule number one is to ensure that your video marketing remains compliant with state and federal regulations. Even though video marketing is still seen as a new frontier for lenders, what you can and cannot broadcast in these videos is highly regulated.  

The second rule of great mortgage video marketing is that any video you produce should tell a story. If you are introducing your company members to the world or walking potential borrowers through the steps they will likely experience during the buying process, your video needs to tell a story that is easy to understand.  

Whether you are an independent LO or a Chief Marketing Officer for a large lending institution, using mortgage marketing videos is a great way to stand out from the faceless crowd of online mortgage ads promising low-interest rates. 

In digital marketing and engagement, a meme is an image, video, or text edited to relay a new message, usually in a humorous and lighthearted manner. While previously thought to be unprofessional, wise mortgage marketing professionals have begun to use these little messages to increase their brand interactions with potential and current customers. 

Using humor in any of your lead generation efforts can be a double-edged sword. When producing any mortgage memes, you need to think about what might happen if someone doesn’t get the joke, or worse, feels offended by the punch line.  

When using memes in your mortgage marketing initiatives, you must remember that memes are professional when: 

1. They help to inspire your customers or internal staff to achieve their goals
2. They help to educate your customers on the lending process or news within the mortgage industry.

If the meme you want to post doesn’t accomplish one of the guidelines above, do not post on any of your social channels. 

Interactive media refers to a digital product or tool that mortgage lenders use to create an instant digital experience with their prospects. An example of the most common and simple of these interactive media tools is an interest rate calculator. These calculators help educate borrowers on the monthly and annual costs of a mortgage loan based on different lending scenarios.   

There are interactive media solutions for every lending scenario and service that a lender offers to borrowers. In the recent market, lenders have commonly used interactive media to introduce potential refinance options to their existing borrowers. 

Interactive media should be used as a tool to help borrowers set goals they can achieve effectively and efficiently through your lending services. Whether you are looking to source new qualified leads or want to introduce existing customers to different financing opportunities, always consider engaging them first through  interactive media. 

Gamification is a digital marketing strategy that uses gameplay elements to encourage interaction with a product or service. Through game design elements such as levels, badges, leaderboards, custom avatars, etc., mortgage lenders can engage with their customers in a way that the customer views as less formal and more enjoyable.  

By the numbers, gamification is likely to become another highly utilized marketing technique for mortgage lenders to build a rapport with an untapped customer base. Based on current reports from the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 130 million people have grown up with video games, and 155.9 million residents play at least one or more mobile games. 

As the leading solution provider for mortgage marketing automation, Surefire CRM continues to stay at the forefront of mortgage marketing trends, creating innovations to meet loan originators’ ever-changing needs.  

Through Surefire CRM, you can create and post custom videos, send interactive calculators, and deploy interactive media to your list of contacts with just a few clicks.  

If you’d like additional information on how Surefire CRM uses marketing trends to keep you top of mind with your customers, click here to schedule a demo of the industry’s top mortgage CRM.