Are you active on social media yet see very few of your followers turn into mortgage leads? The problem may not be in how often you’re posting.

The reason why your social media mortgage marketing is falling flat may because your followers don’t know where to go or what to do.

And that’s what a Social Media Marketing Funnel does –it provides a template for you and a journey for your followers for generating mortgage leads through social media.

Sales and marketing funnels can get pretty sophisticated but we’ve simplified it to 4 easy steps so that you, the mortgage broker, can get started fast.

The Big Deal About Social Media Marketing Funnels for Mortgage Leads

Mortgage lead generation is a way to guide your prospects through a journey –a funnel –so that they take action. In this case, we want a follower to contact you right away through email, direct message, or phone call, or to fill out your lead capture form to follow up with them later.

No matter which social media platform you use, this quick start guide will help you to come up with an efficient plan for converting followers into mortgage leads.

Before you get started, answer these questions for each social media platforms you use:
*Who are your prospects? (first-time home buyers, refi’s)
* What action do you want them to take?
* What type of content will you share to encourage the follower to click your link?

Once you answer those preliminary questions, you can create a plan for guiding your followers into taking action. Here’s how:

#1: Define Areas for “Awareness, Repeat Visibility, Engagement, and Conversion.”

Awareness, repeat visibility, engagement, and conversion are your four pillars for any mortgage lead funnel.

Awareness refers to getting your brand or service “out there.” These can be paid or nonpaid posts on social media.

Repeat visibility is the opportunities you create so that the follower continues to see your brand and get familiar with it. Consumers need repeated exposure to build trust and eventually contact you. Repeated visibility can also be paid ads that retarget your consumers or your organic activity on social media.

Engagement refers to the “likes,” comments, shares, and click-throughs on your posts. Conversion is the place where the prospect gives you their info.

Note that “conversion” in this instance is a location, not an action. The location can be a mortgage landing page, your mortgage website, or a lead capture right on the social media ad.

#2 Filling in the gaps in the funnel

Now that you understand what the pillars are and their purpose, let’s start to fill in the gaps in your social media mortgage leads funnel. The goal is to begin quickly. So focus only on platforms you’re already familiar with and are comfortable using.

With your chosen social media platform, determine what their primary job is in the 4 pillars. How well is it doing at that particular job? Which pillar is missing and needs to be added to complete the funnel?

For example, Instagram is great for creating awareness, repeated visibility, and engagement pillars, but it lacks in conversion (because it’s not possible for the prospect to fill out a form right on Instagram nor does an individual post have the ability to add a link).

So you know right away that conversion is something to figure out in your mortgage leads funnel on Instagram.

Here are a few ways to get more action and mortgage leads on Instagram:

• Include a call to action at the end of every post. Tell users to go to your profile to learn more or contact you.
• You have one link in your bio. Instead of it leading to your homepage, link it to a landing page or contact us page on mortgage website with a lead capture form.
• Include a contact number so followers can call you right from the app.
• Do a paid ad where the action is taken is to contact you now.

#3: Assign and Measure Key Metrics

While you don’t need a HUGE amount of followers or likes on every post, a steady increase on followers and engagement is a good indicator that your funnel is flowing. If you haven’t already, start keeping track of those key metrics AND set a goal of where you would like to see those numbers.

For awareness, see impressions. For repeated exposure, you’ll want to see followers increase. Engagement is your likes, comments, and shares. Conversion is the“clicks” to the place where conversion takes place.

#4: Review

Now it’s time to review your posts and metrics closely. In the beginning, you’re basically shooting blindly, likely posting different types of posts, waiting to see which got the response you wanted.

Now that you have some posts to measure you can compare to see which type of post resulted in a boom in engagement, impressions, and conversion. You may notice that some received a lot of likes, but few clicks to the bio. Yet other with less engagement had several views to the profile and maybe even a few saves.

With the posts that resulted in a lot of action, was there a theme that seemed to resonate with your audience? Were the funny memes as popular or the mortgage news updates? Or were your video tips the most engaging and leading into action?

Analyze your posts to see what worked and what didn’t.

Guiding The Prospect to the Mortgage Lead

Consumers don’t like a hard sell. What they want are value and trust, and that’s what makes the mortgage lead funnel so effective. When you leverage a social media platform that they enjoy using, invite you into their feed by following you, and are continuously demonstrating your incredible value, the consumer can’t help but trust you.

Now it’s your turn! Social media platform are you on the most? Do you have advice about metrics or testing? Share them in the comments below.