A customer relationship management (CRM) platform can help more than your existing customers. It can also help you find new ones. Mortgage CRM systems are changing the industry for good. Here’s how you can leverage these tools to generate leads and grow your customer base.

What Are Mortgage CRM Systems?

A customer relationship management platform is a centralized means of engaging your customer base. Mortgage CRM systems can be used for communication and marketing, but they can also handle advanced tasks such as:

• Digital loan applications
• E-signatures
• Interactive chatbots
• Online portals
• Customized video content

These features help you stay connected with your customer base. And they can also help you collaborate with your team members. Best of all, these features help you develop a lead pipeline so you can grow your lending practice.

How to Use Mortgage CRM Systems to Grow Your Business

How can you use a CRM platform to generate leads? Here are some of the ways lenders are using mortgage CRM systems to transform their businesses.

Develop a Web Presence

A professional website gives your lending practice greater legitimacy. It can also provide a central location for customers to access things like:

• Application forms
• Educational resources
• Customer portals

A CRM system can help you develop a clean, modern website that’s easy to use on every device. The best CRM platforms offer pre-built templates to help you get up and running even faster.

Additionally, you’ll gain traction by implementing search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. By using the right keywords and phrases, your website will rank among the top results of today’s search engines. Consequently, you’ll gain greater visibility among those looking for lending services.

And if you integrate Google Analytics into your website, you’ll gain greater insight into your online performance. Are you turning clicks into customers? If not, your data can help you learn what to improve.

Respond to Inquiries with a Chat Feature

A staggering 44% of online shoppers have expressed appreciation for having a live person respond to their questions. Mortgage CRM systems allow you to integrate a chat feature into your webpage.

A chat feature may be particularly helpful for first-time buyers who are unfamiliar with the lending process. Answering questions in real-time can increase the chances that they’ll choose you as their lender. Afterward, you can drop the customer into your mortgage pipeline to follow up later.

Connect the chat feature to your phone, and you and your team can respond to customer inquiries from anywhere. The latest CRM systems even offer AI-powered chatbots for greater responsiveness.

Build Your Brand Through Pre-Built Marketing Content

What’s your current marketing strategy? Small lending practices don’t always have the resources to execute massive campaigns.

Mortgage CRM systems can help. The best CRM platforms offer pre-built marketing content, including:

• Monthly newsletters
• Property market updates
• Customizable video content
• Personalized e-cards
• Social media content
• Email marketing templates

With more in your toolbox, you’ll be better equipped to reach your target market. Additionally, these pre-built resources save you time, helping you focus on the execution of your plan.

Target Customer Segments

Not all leads are created equal. Quality leads are those that are likely to follow through with a mortgage application.

Mortgage CRM systems allow you to create unique customer segments. Lenders can then adjust their marketing approach to each segment.

For example, explainer graphics can form something of a roadmap for understanding the lending process. Borrowers (and potential borrowers) can use these graphics to learn more about what to expect. Lenders might also tailor their email marketing by including promotional offers or follow-ups to continue engaging potential clients.

Automate Your Email Marketing

A mortgage CRM provides a centralized email marketing platform. With this tool, you can standardize your email marketing efforts, saving time and boosting efficiency.

Keeping your emails organized in a central location will prevent you from missing any customer inquiries. You’ll be able to keep logs of all of your contacts, and your employees will also gain visibility into past communications.

Automated features empower you to send emails automatically. This can be great for email marketing campaigns. It also ensures that you maintain open lines of communication with new mortgage leads.

Mortgage CRM systems can also provide analytics to help you improve your performance. What types of emails are seeing the greatest results? A CRM can optimize your communications to maximize your performance.

Follow Up with Text Messaging

Email isn’t the only way to follow up with potential leads. You can use a CRM platform to send text messages as well.

So if a website visitor asks a question or signs up for an introductory offer, you can send an SMS text to follow up. Sometimes simply asking: “Do you have any additional questions?” can be enough to keep the relationship moving forward.

Alternatively, a text message might provide more information. Follow up on refinancing requests with messages that explain the process in more detail — this may prompt a commitment.

Create a Resource Library

As a lender, you possess a wealth of knowledge. Why not share it with the world?

Content marketing is the art of creating materials that educate and engage potential clients. For example, you might create a blog post or video outlining loan options for first-time homebuyers. Customers searching for answers can learn from your content, and they may follow up by requesting more information.

Mortgage CRM systems can help you organize and curate this content. They can also help you create material like explainer graphics and videos to engage your audience. If you create just one piece of content each week, then in only a year you’ll develop a resource library of 50 pieces of original content.

Provide a Customer Portal

Borrowers will be drawn to lenders who use the right technology. A mortgage CRM system can offer an online portal to stay connected with your clients.

A customer portal makes communication a breeze. You and your customers can keep in touch in the following ways:

• Borrowers can submit documents through the portal
• Borrowers can upload signatures from their phone or device
• Lenders can send important documents to clients
• Lenders can provide updates about the borrower’s progress

And yes, the customer portal is available as an app. Borrowers gain access to their loan application status from anywhere in the world. This feature also eliminates the need to make an appointment to sign off on important documents.

How does a portal secure new leads? Offering this level of convenience gives your lending practice a competitive edge. Mortgage customers may be more likely to commit to your services when you offer this level of support.

Connect with Community Partners for More Leads

An online portal isn’t just for borrowers. You can also connect to other community professionals.

For example, you might connect with local real estate agents who meet new home buyers at an open house or networking event. If they believe your services would be a good fit, they can drop a new lead into your mortgage pipeline. You can review this new contact and follow up later.

You’ll also gain the ability to track the leads submitted by each partner. Doing so will give you a greater understanding of how each piece of your business is performing.

Publish Testimonials and Reviews

Mortgage CRM systems enable you to gather and manage customer feedback. Custom surveys, for instance, can prompt your former and existing clients to review your services.

You’ll have the opportunity to learn from what’s working well and adjust things that aren’t. But more importantly, customer testimonials make great marketing content. You can publish favorable reviews on your website or social media channels.

After all, prospective clients may be more persuaded by real-world feedback than by other promotional materials. Soliciting reviews can build your reputation, and a good reputation can go a long way in the eyes of new clients.

Use Your Extra Time to Expand

Don’t overlook the greatest benefit of a CRM platform. With so many automated and collaborative features, you’ll be more efficient than you ever dreamed.

In other words, you’ll have more time on your hands. How you invest that time is literally your business. Mortgage CRM systems let you get more done. This means that you can serve even more clients without overburdening yourself or your staff.

Technology can help you grow your business by increasing your customer volume. You might even invest your time into offering a wider range of mortgage products or moving into new markets, such as commercial real estate.

Take the Next Step

Are you ready to take the next step? BNTouch can help. Our innovative platform can help you improve your efficiency, reach a wider range of clients, and scale your business your way.

The BNTouch CRM system offers prebuilt marketing materials, an online customer portal, and a robust array of important features. You’ll have all the advantages of a larger lending practice while retaining a personal touch.

To see these features for yourself, contact BNTouch today to request a demo.

The post How Lenders Can Use Mortgage CRM Systems to Grow Their Customer Base appeared first on .

If you’re a mortgage lender, you’re in the business of closing leads. But closing those leads becomes harder if you’re disorganized or pulled in too many directions.

Fortunately, Chat Generative Pre-training Transformer (ChatGPT for short) is a valuable tool for streamlining your workflow and customer relationships. When you leverage its power, you’ll close more leads while giving your customers an unmatched experience.

How ChatGPT Can Help Personalize Mortgage Customer Experiences

ChatGPT does more than answer questions on the internet — it’s become a valuable tool in the banking and financial services industries. The possibilities are endless when you integrate it with a customer relationship management (CRM) system. Here’s how you can make it work for you.

Answer Questions 24/7

If your customers ask you questions by phone or email, they may have to wait hours or days for a reply. ChatGPT is great for automating customer service while still adding a personal touch. 

ChatGPT can create a live chat service on your website or app. It can answer customer questions and concerns instantly. Everyone wins: customers get their answers quickly, and your time is freed to help you focus on leads.

Check out our full piece highlighting the role of AI and ChatGPT is playing in transforming mortgage technology here

Fortunately, you don’t have to be a tech expert to set up a live chat feature. A quality customer relationship management (CRM) tool will set the chat up for you.

Analyze Customer Concerns

The name might make you think ChatGPT is only suitable for chat applications, but it does much more than that! Leverage ChatGPT by using this technology to analyze data and help you deliver a personalized experience.

That data can be collected through customer activity, interactions with your site’s live chat, and more. For example, let’s say that through live chat, ChatGPT finds that many customers are frustrated with a specific step in the loan process. 

With that information in mind, you can adjust the loan application process to simplify that step.

Send Customized Texts and Emails

Unless you overuse them, personalized marketing emails and texts can help you close leads and improve mortgage customer experiences. Sending personalized texts and emails yourself is impractical. But using customer data and the power of artificial intelligence, ChatGPT can create and send customized messages by itself. 

Create Custom Web Portals

A good CRM doesn’t just optimize your experience as a lender. It also makes the customer experience easier. ChatGPT can design web portals to fit each customer’s needs. It can also be set up to send customers important updates about their loans.

Create Quality Web Content

Because you close mortgage leads, you might consider using ChatGPT to create a blog addressing common homebuyer concerns, mortgage rate trends, and other helpful topics. 

Customers will see that you’re doing more than just convincing them to get a loan. They’ll see you as a company that cares about their experience.

Make ChatGPT Work for You

Want to empower your company to reach new heights? BNTouch can help. We’re a CRM provider dedicated to helping you achieve business growth and optimize your mortgage customer experiences.

We believe that technology is the future, and we allow you to integrate ChatGPT with our system fully. Want to see how we can help you? Schedule a free demo today.

To schedule a demo, contact our experienced team today!

The post Leveraging ChatGPT to Personalize Mortgage Customer Experiences appeared first on .

Mortgage websites are unlike traditional business websites. As a highly regulated industry, lenders have a slew of compliance requirements in addition to state and federal regulations like the CCPA in California and WCAG 2.0 across the nation.

But having a mortgage-compliant website isn’t the only thing you have to worry about.

A mortgage professional’s website must also incorporate crucial structural, design, marketing, branding, and functional elements –all while delivering a borrower experience that delights and converts!

Does your current site meet the standards of 2022 consumers?

Check out this list of the most critical and essential elements your site should have right now.

Essential Elements of a Mortgage Website

Clear Site Navigation and Architecture

Several avenues may lead a user to your site. Google My Business could have directed them to your homepage, or maybe a search query landed them on one of your mortgage blog articles.

Or perhaps a real estate partner or former client forwarded them an email resulting in the user clicking over to your site. Where ever the user came from, it’s important that they can easily find what they are looking for.

Navigation should be located both at the top and bottom of the site. Nest categories in the menu to minimize clutter and include a link to a site map at the footer.

Also, make sure the navigation is intuitive to the visitor’s device.

View Template Gallery

Visible Call-to-Action (CTA)

Again, depending on the page the user landed on and their intent, you’ll want to provide clear direction as to what to do next, and there are several key spots where you want to include a CTA.

Your homepage should include a lead capture form, and it’s good practice to have an apply now at the top of your navigation –visible on every page they visit on your site.  Including a CTA at the end of every article and a lead capture form on key evergreen content is also an excellent idea.

The CTA can vary in wording, but essentially you want to encourage the user to continue through the sales funnel and get closer to completing an application. This can be accomplished by:

Telling them to contact you for more details on a particular program

• Pre-qualify using your online form
• Download your mortgage mobile app
• Subscribe to your newsletter
• Read more articles about a specific topic on your blog

Mobile-Friendly Version

There’s some confusion about what constitutes a “mobile-free” website. Mobile-friendly isn’t just about its site resizing to fit on a smaller screen. According to Google, a website must have these features to be classified “mobile-friendly” by their Google bots:

• Avoids software not commonly used on mobile devices –like Flash.
• Uses text that is readable without zooming.
• Content fits the screen without requiring users to scroll horizontally or zoom to view
• Places the links far enough apart so that the user can tap on the correct one easily.

Well-Defined Mortgage Business Brand

Your brand is what makes you memorable and unique. From a mortgage consumer’s perspective, a well-defined brand makes them feel at ease and familiar.

It can also give them a sense of happiness and satisfaction -both rooted in the emotional connection that digital consumers build with brands they find trustworthy.

When it comes to your website, make sure that you communicate your brand throughout your site –from your logo and tagline to mission statement and “about us” pages.

Even font and color scheme elements communicate your brand to the digital consumer, so be mindful of that when customizing your mortgage website.

Mortgage Content and Resources

Many loan applications begin with questions like, “how do I…?” or “the truth about…” or something similar. In other words, it’s unlikely that a digital consumer landed on your site because looking to apply for a loan at that time.

A consumer typically lands on a mortgage site researching loan or real estate services and topics, making it essential to have a library of well-written informational articles on your site. Note that relevant content goes hand-in-hand with your SEO efforts and search engine ranking.

Reviews From Previous Happy Clients

Positive reviews from past clients underscore a phenomenon called social proof. Social proof is the idea that others place a higher value on something simply because someone else has placed a high value on it.

Social proof also encourages people to follow suit. In other words, if a prospect is unsure if using your services is the correct course of action, seeing that someone else had used your services and was happy with the result will reinforce the idea using your services is the best action to take.

So while positive reviews raise the trust factor,  reviews also make your services more valuable and desirable. This is why this element is necessary for your site.

Pre-Designed Mortgage Websites by LenderHomePage

A well-built mortgage website that connects to a digital consumer takes more than just looks.

It must also be compliant, well-branded, and positioned as a reliable, professional resource for all mortgage needs –all of that in addition to easy to navigate and designed to capture leads!

Our flagship product, mortgage websites, is still one of our most highly-praised digital mortgage assets. We’ve maintained this reputation by consistently improving and evolving with the needs of our clients, their digital borrowers, and search engine trends.

Explore our gallery of templated mortgage sites –including designs tailored for personal branding –and try it free for 14 days.

Choose Your Mortgage Template

Content that engages your audience isn’t about winning a popularity contest. It’s about enticing or activating motivation, making it more likely that the reader will convert into a borrower. Engaging content also makes your business more memorable. So even if the prospect didn’t take action then, your content and business would linger on their mind long after, increasing the likelihood that they’ll return to your mortgage site. 

If you’re stumped on how you can give your mortgage web content a fresh and engaging upgrade, this post is for you. In this post, we will look at six keys for creating mortgage content to drive engagement. 

Use Visuals like Video, Graphics, and Images

It’s well known that humans are primarily visual learners. This study illustrates that idea when it found that a person could remember about 65 percent of visual information after three days versus only 10-20% of written information. That’s not to say that text is irrelevant. Written content is still a preferred way to consume content and the foundation to organic web traffic. But adding a visual element will help to make your content more appealing and memorable.

The other thing about visuals is that they are more likely to be shared around the web, helping to intensify engagement opportunities.

Make Lists

Business blogs are discovering what magazines have known for over a century — readers like lists! Articles with titles like “top ten ways…” or “20 tricks to” instantly pique curiosity and trigger the reader to click more to read the entire article. 

Another benefit of lists is that they break down information into bite-size pieces, making it easy for the layperson to understand complex topics like finance or real estate. 

Use storytelling to share a success story

Humans love a hero story, and sharing a client success case study is how you can do it. The great thing about this method is that you don’t even have to be a great storyteller. Just follow this basic three-act model, and you’ll have an engaging piece of content that your reader will devour.

1. The setting – Offer some background demographics on the client, like age, career, and family. Also, share info on whether the client is a first-time homebuyer, a veteran, or perhaps looking to retire soon.
2. The problem- Describe questions or obstacles that the client is struggling with.
3. The resolution: Bring the story into a climax, describing how concerns were resolved.

Create a how-to guide

When writing a “how-go mortgage” guide for driving engagement, go long. About 1,500 words or more. Substantial guides are more likely to get read and shared. Although a 1,500-word guide or blog post can seem too challenging to create, an easy way to think of them is as a list blog post where you dive deep into each bullet point.  

Here are some additional tips on creating how-to guides for your mortgage blog:

• • Focus on solving a problem for your prospective borrower. A how-to guide is only helpful and valuable if it actually solves a real problem for your reader.
  • Break up large chunks of text. Break up topics visually with checklists, quotes, or infographics. 
  • Include a workbook. A companion workbook adds even more value to your guide and invites engagement. No time for creating a whole separate workbook? Consider adding exercises or questions at the end of each section for the reader to complete. 

Provide resources or tools

Create content that lists tools or resources helpful for the prospective borrower, such as: where to check their credit history, a guide for creating a budget, an affordability calculator, recommended local home repair service providers, local hiking trails, and community activity guides are a few examples of helpful resources that will likely get shared.

Do something unexpected

The purple cow is a method made popular by marketing guru Seth Godin. Godin introduces this idea with an anecdote about going on a car trip and seeing cows grazing on the field. While it excites you at first (especially if you’re a city slicker), you get bored after miles of the same plain cows. Now imagine that there’s a single purple cow grazing amongst the hundreds of typical cows. Not only does it immediately catch your attention, but it keeps it as well –for some time!

This relates to engaging content creation because you want to pivot from the norm to get people talking. Here are some ideas:

• Play devil’s advocate and offer a different perspective on a popular mortgage topic
• Include gifs on your blogs or create memes for shareable content
• Combine mortgage topics with seemingly unrelated subjects (i.e., “Dwight or Jim: The Office Guide to Buying Your First Home”)

Ask for engagement

A simple way to increase your content engagement is to just ask for it! At the beginning of the post, ask your reader to bookmark it for future reference. At the end of the post, ask your reader to comment and share the post on social media.

Be sure to include a social media plug-in to make it super simple for the reader to share with their followers. 

Did you find this article helpful?

Check out past articles on related topics like top ten online courses to grow your mortgage business and ways to drive more traffic to your mortgage website.

Getting a website online for any business is relatively easy nowadays, there are several quick and cheap options. But a website that’s also a hub of your business –central to lead nurturing, acquisition, branding, marketing, and Borrower Experience requires another level of sophistication. 

In this week’s post, we’re going to show you exactly how to create a mortgage website that meets all of these criteria, plus how you launch an attractive, professional, high-functioning mortgage website in less than five minutes. 

Best Mortgage Website Building Practices

Website Creation: Pictures and Text Are Not Enough

A quick search on launching a website will bring you over 360 million results, with the top generic website builders being Wix and Squarespace. But that’s just it –they’re generic. While the general design and launching are fast, the appearance is still bland, and its functionality is miles away from where it should be for a professional mortgage website. 

Of course, there’s much more to it. There’s also the matter of search engine optimization, content for conversion, and Borrower Experience. By the end, you’ll have the ability to decipher a generic website from a high-level mortgage website and know how to go about creating a mortgage website that supports your business needs, meets online ending industry standards, and modern consumer buying habits.

Responsive 

Responsive design is often mistaken for simply adjusting to the screen. While this may have been innovative ten years ago, modern responsive websites must also adapt their functionality. That means that items like lead capture forms, menus, videos, and any integrated 3rd-party applications must work and view properly without any effort from the user. No matter the device or operating system, the best mortgage websites are built for this level of user experience from the ground up.

Modern and Branded Mortage Design

As mentioned above, although there are plenty of clean website designs possible with generic website builders, a mortgage website that reflects modern design principles and the flexibility to brand is key to making your online business front stand out and above the rest. 

When it comes to designing, mortgage website templates from LenderHomePage offer a powerful and fast jumping-off point. With 45 attractive prebuilt mortgage designs, mortgage professionals of all sizes –from individual to multi-branch –can easily find a site that reflects their business. 

With some simple adjustments to the color scheme and the addition of your logo, both of which can be done without coding and matched your POS platform, your mortgage website will have a dynamically branded look and feel across the entire Borrower Experience.

Interactive Mortgage Tools

Online mortgage consumers crave an immersive and personalized shopping experience and interactive mortgage tools on your website are how to deliver this experience. Accurate to their location and loan program, online mortgage tools such as our mortgage calculators estimate down to the penny and move curious borrowers deeper through your lead nurturing strategy.

SEO Mortgage Copy

Search engine optimized copy is a precise craft of persuasive writing combined with researched keywords. This particular combination is aimed at helping to position your website for both a high-ranking organic search position and high conversion rates. This means that the words and the formatting must meet specific standards for search engines and consumers.

If you’d like to attempt it yourself, reach this previous article where we give a brief overview on how to DIY your mortgage SEO copy. Otherwise, we recommend taking advantage of our mortgage marketing services with professional and custom mortgage SEO content.

High-Value Content

Along the same lines as SEO copywriting is high-value mortgage content. The mortgage content can come in articles, videos, graphics, e-books, or white papers and, as expected, doesn’t come as part of any generic website design. 

While custom high-value content comes with additional costs, our mortgage website templates come with hundreds of pages of mortgage articles that can be edited as you see fit –or launch as is! Need additional help and resources? We got you covered. Our team of marketers is available for custom mortgage content and strategy development to guide how to make the best use of it on your website. 

Seamless Integration with Digital 1003 and POS

Last but not least, a mortgage website needs a seamless integration with your digital 1003 and POS. In today’s touchless environment, your mortgage website is more than an online presence –it’s also the hub of the Borrower Experience, and that includes your digital 1003 and mortgage POS platform. More than placing a simple link, integrating all the three platforms in such a way that captured leads, is branded, and is intuitively functional is vital to your competitive advantage. 

Want to see all this in action for free? Sign up for a free trial. Click here to get started –no credit card required! In only 14 days, you’ll be convinced that our mortgage website templates and support team are immensely better than what any generic website can offer. 

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