Mortgage buyers today are more digitally driven than ever and are also more inclined to initiate a mortgage purchase online. For mortgage lenders, investing in the latest marketing and sales technology may be worth the sometimes high up-front costs, according to a new survey by Velocify, a sales technology provider for the mortgage industry.
Mortgage lenders that relied more heavily on consumer direct channels made greater investments in marketing and sales technology and were more likely to experience high growth. On the flip side, lenders that relied more on retail channels were less likely to invest in marketing and sales technology and less likely to experience growth, the survey found.
“We found the results to be a wakeup call for retail lenders,” said Chris Backe, financial services director at Velocify. “Putting all of your eggs into the loan officer basket and referral strategy is not a sound approach without marketing support and state of the art technology.”
Though, retail lenders surveyed said they plan to increase their technology investments going forward. The type of technology specifically, will drive growth and improve processes and customer retention.
“We have seen how sales and marketing technology has helped with growth in our consumer direct channel and are planning to invest in technology to help drive growth in our retail channel as the purchase market continues to heat up, “ said Tony Pietrocola, the senior vice president at vLoan, an online mortgage ledgering platform backed by 40 years of mortgage experience from Union Home Mortgage Corp.
As a whole group, mortgage lenders saw significant growth last year with 88% reporting their volume grew at least 5% since 2014, the survey found.
Mortgage lenders with higher growth and higher marketing investments were most likely to be adapting technology at a higher than average rate.
“With the purchase market finally starting to take charge, we were curious what strategies lenders were pursuing to take advantage of the current environment,” Backe said. “We found consumer direct lenders are poised to leverage the strategies developed during the refi boom to sell purchase loans. But there is no reason why retail lenders can’t use these very same strategies to close their sales gaps and boost conversion rates.”
“At the end of the day, lenders that invest in technology to meet changing borrower expectations are more likely to succeed,” Backe added.
See the full Velocify survey
Written by Alana Stramowski
