Admit it.

You’ve looked at examples of sales funnels online before, and you’ve been skeptical.

Maybe you thought:

“That looks great. But it would never work for mortgages.”

Mortgages, you figure, are bigger things.

Way bigger things.

You’re not going to nurture a mortgage lead like you might nurture a lead for products that cost less than $100.

But you’d be surprised at the reality.

True: maybe your mortgage sales funnel needs some tweaking before it’s finished.

But if you’re new to the world of mortgage sales funnels—and what they might look like—it helps to know the basic principles at work before you get started.

Let’s explore those principles today:

Basic Element #1: Attention and Attraction

When a teacher begins a class, the first thing they say is simple:

“Attention!”

Or they might start writing on the chalkboard.

Or they might call roll.

Either way, the first step is almost universal in any sales funnel:

You need to attract new eyes to what it is you’re doing.

This is true no matter what you’re selling. You could be selling tires, or selling mortgages. If you don’t attract attention, then nothing else works.

But with mortgage marketing, you want to be sure that you’re attracting the right kind of attention.

How do you do that?

It starts by knowing your customer.

Customer research is key if you’re going to make a go of any sales funnel related to mortgage marketing.

For starters, you have to know what types of mortgages you offer. Do you specialize in first-time homebuyers? Then there’s a good bet that what gets their attention won’t be the same as getting the attention for 80-year-olds in search of condos.

Know your customer.

Once you know where you’re targeting, you can then create a marketing campaign designed to lure them in. This follows a basic structure:

• Find out what your customer wants.
• Create compelling content that drives their attention.
• Capture their information.

More on that last point later.

As I noted in Mortgage Marketing Manifesto, statistics suggest that as many as 97% of consumers will research products/services online before they make a decision.

And that’s not focusing on mortgages.

When someone is in the market for a mortgage, they’re contemplating one of the biggest financial decisions they’ll ever make.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars—if not more—are on the line.

You need to have the content that suggests that you’re the mortgage officer for them.

Truly great, compelling content can fall in a wide range of categories:

• Relevant social media posts
• Highly engaging, information-rich blogs
• eBooks, whitepapers, and other content-based information products
• Mortgage calculators

It’s not hard to imagine how these might be enticing to anyone searching for a mortgage.

After all, if you were looking for a mortgage and you saw a free mortgage calculator online, would you be tempted to fill it out?

What if that mortgage calculator was specifically aimed at your demographic?

The more targeted your content is, the better a chance you’ll have at attracting attention. And that makes the first element of the sales funnel complete.

Basic Element #2: Capture

It’s not enough to capture attention.

Attention is fleeting.

Attention is transitory.

Attention goes away fast.

In fact, the human attention span may actually be going down on average.

Credit the Internet for that one.

What is a mortgage marketer to do?

Capture.

Getting someone’s attention is just the foot in the door. It’s what you do to make sure that there are eyes on your mortgage website.

It’s when you capture their interest that you truly start to see results.

But first, let’s define what we mean by “capture.”

Capturing a lead means that you’ve taken down some bit of information about them: an email address, a phone number.

You can do this by investing in quality-content—such as a newsletter or a free download—and exchanging that in return for your lead’s information.

Or you might do it on the back end. For example, you might have a mortgage calculator that asks for their information so they can find their results.

Either way, the key is that you have to create some hook that doesn’t only draw the interest of someone looking for a mortgage, but encourages them to become a bona fide lead.

This is the crucial stage at which a person goes from an average, interested web-surfer…

…to someone who might do business with you.

There are some ways you can optimize your ability to capture your leads:

• Optimize your CTA. The call to action button may be the single most important on-page element for capturing leads. Notice how we at leadPops always keep our “free trial” button above the fold? That’s not by accident. If customers can’t even see that there’s a way to click forward, they’re not going to move to the next stage in your sales funnel.
• Write from your customer’s perspective. No longer will you write content that says “Calculate your mortgage rate.” You’ll now adopt their perspective: “Find out my mortgage rate.” “See if I qualify.” Put yourself in your customer’s head.
• Use high-quality techniques that the “big dogs” use. Even if you don’t spend any money on extra ads, you’ll find that if you have the lead-capturing technology of the biggest names in mortgage marketing, you can make your presence that much more compelling. We’re talking about customizable web forms that make your site an interactive way for people seeking mortgages to become enthralled with what you’re doing.

Basic Element #3: Nurture and Close

Even if you’ve done a great job hooking a potential customer, you’ll find that one thing’s missing:

The close.

But before we talk about that, consider that there’s one step that most sales funnels—if they’re doing it right—have to include.

Nurturing.

You see, most leads don’t become customers overnight.

Someone who’s doing online mortgage research is going to fish around for more information.

They’re going to sleep on it.

They’re going to think about you—and then they might not call you for a few days.

This is a perfectly normal part of it.

What you want to do is make sure that you plan for this process and automate it.

You can do this by setting up email campaigns that gently “nudge” anyone who’s filled out a mortgage calculator, for example, to reach out to you.

With the right strategy, this nurturing method will help keep potential leads “on ice.”

This is the stage of the game where you want to convey trust—especially for mortgage marketers.

After all, you’re selling mortgages here—not widgets.

If you have an automated, pressure-free way to keep those leads around, then when they’re ready to make a decision, they just might think of you.

That’s when they reach out.

Will you be ready?

You have to position your sales funnel for it, first.

If it sounds like a lot of work, don’t worry; we can handle most of the infrastructure.

All you have to do is give it a try.

We recommend signing up for a free trial of leadPops to make this kind of sales funnel easy to execute—and even automatic.