Pricing and Costs of Mortgage Lead Generation

If you are considering trying to increase your sales by obtaining real estate leads,

you need to learn what to expect. Most mortgage … If you are considering trying to increase your sales by obtaining real estate leads, you need to learn what to expect. Most mortgage sales leads improve your sales, but they are typically not guaranteed. For this reason, you should not spend every last penny you have on mortgage leads. Instead, find out the pricing and costs of mortgage lead generation, and develop a budget. Before you decide to buy real estate leads, consider your options. Decide what types of leads are most important to you. Do you want to have only unique leads, or do you want to save some money and find free or cheap leads? Think about your options:

1. Consider purchasing exclusive mortgage sales leads.

2. Find out the typical cost of detailed real estate buyer leads.

3. Seek out inexpensive or free leads.

Spend the extra money on exclusive or semi-exclusive sales leads for mortgage for promising results

You will find that most exclusive sales leads are somewhat expensive, and with good reason. Leads that have not been called recently by others in the mortgage industry are considered fresh and most likely to be turned into sales. You will find that the cost for such leads starts in the double digits, from about $40 to more than $100. Semi-exclusive leads are cheaper, as they might be sold to two or three people, and range from $20 to $40.

Purchase real estate sales leads that include many details

The more details in a lead, the better, as it is easier for you to decide if the potential customer even fits your requirements. Don't waste your time on a lead that has few details, as it could be for someone who is unlikely to purchase property. Leads with a good number of details are usually about $12 to $20.

Look for free or inexpensive real estate agent leads

Some mortgage lead generation companies offer cheaper leads than others. Usually, such leads are older, less detailed or sold more often than typically desired, but they can still work. If you cannot afford exclusive, detailed or fresh leads currently, these may be better than nothing. Many companies also offer a few free leads to start, or perhaps free leads after you buy a certain amount. Cheap leads are usually less than $10 each.

When choosing a lead type, realize that often the higher quality the lead, the more likely you will close a sale in a short amount of time. While cheaper mortgage broker leads can be good for your budget, consider the amount of time you will have to spend to close an older, less detailed or less exclusive lead.

Article Produced By
Autumn Rivers

https://www.business.com/articles/pricing-and-costs-of-mortgage-lead-generation/

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Millennials Strike Again: This Time We Are Killing Cash And ‘Merry Christmas’

Millennials Strike Again: This Time We Are Killing Cash And 'Merry Christmas'

Clearly, this generation just can't help itself with killing things

like starter homes and canned tuna. What's next? The Grinch might as well get in line behind millennials.Clearly, my generation just can't help itself with killing things like starter homes and canned tuna. (Or is it can openers?) So in the spirit of attributing transformative cultural shifts to whippersnapper whims, we regret to inform you that millennials might be claiming two new victims: cash and the "merry Christmas" greeting.

A new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll found that adults under 30 — so, mostly millennials — are the only age group among holiday shoppers with a clear preference for paying with plastic rather than cash. They're also the only group to strongly prefer the non-Christmas-specific greeting "happy holidays." But hey, we really like Christmas trees! (Wait, do we call them holiday trees now?) Younger Americans are the most likely to say they plan to put up a Christmas tree at home, the poll found. They are also most likely to say it will be an artificial — not real — one.

"Credit, 100 percent"

We millennials are a huge cohort, somehow uniting almost everyone born in the 1980s and 1990s. Despite the endless headlines treating our habits like historic aberrations, our generation holds much of the purchasing power in the U.S. as we are about to outnumber baby boomers as the largest living generation of adults.

The new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll did not show statistics for the entire millennial cohort, but it did break out the 18-to-29 age group. And this holiday shopping season, 63 percent of these millennials under 30 said they planned to use "mostly credit cards" when buying holiday gifts. It was the opposite for all older shoppers, who planned to shop with "mostly cash." "Credit, 100 percent," said Parth Shah, a 24-year-old management consultant from New York City, when I asked him how he pays. "I have a really good credit card that gives me a lot of points, so I try to take advantage of that as much as I can." Now, if you Google enough headlines about millennials killing things, you might encounter some seemingly contradictory stories, such as: "Debt-Conscious Millennials Are a Threat to Credit Cards."

Let's do a quick flashback: Our generation came of age during the Great Recession, when people took on far more debt than they could afford. Add another trillion-ish dollars of student loan debt, and it's easy to see why borrowing more from the banks isn't our favorite pastime. In fact, the Fed recently found that millennials have "significantly less" credit card debt than Gen X and baby boomers. But holiday shopping is a time for special, maybe personalized — and often online — purchases. And — surprise! — adults under 30 are the most likely age group to say they plan to buy all or most of their holiday gifts online. And the Internet (trust me on this) is not the place to send anyone cash. "Cash is not a medium for the digital marketplace — you can't shop that way online," said Barbara Carvalho, director of The Marist Poll at the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted the new survey.

Only a quarter of shoppers under 30 said they wouldn't buy any of their holiday gifts online. Compare that with exactly half of shoppers over 60, who say they wouldn't shop for gifts on the Internet. Also, for all the tech progressiveness attributed to millennials, the poll found that it was 30- to 44-year-olds who were slightly more likely to use Apple Pay or PayPal to buy holiday gifts. Though remember, the oldest millennials are in their late 30s, so maybe our generation is behind this trend, too. (Perhaps someone should write a story about that!)

Happy all-inclusive holidays

Another question where millennials stood out was the — ah, yes — annual wintertime debate: In December, should you wish people merry Christmas or happy holidays? A majority of adults under 30, or 53 percent, voted for "happy holidays," according to the poll. In fact, millennials — who happen to be the most diverse generation of adults in the country's history — are the only age group to prefer this greeting.

"I usually say 'happy holidays,'" said Juliet McFadden, 23, who works as an office manager in Boston. "I think it's just easier to be more inclusive. Especially when I'm talking to someone who I'm only quickly interacting with in the city like a cabdriver or someone in the grocery store." Only 38 percent of people younger than 30 preferred "merry Christmas," the poll found. The number jumped to almost 60 percent for people between 30 and 60, and reached 68 percent for Americans older than 60. "I like to use 'happy holidays' but I don't mind being told 'merry Christmas,' " said 24-year-old Matt Puchalski, an engineer from Pittsburgh. "I like to make everyone feel included!"

This story also would not be complete without a mention of one of the most well-known facts about millennials: We've all basically given up homebuying dreams because of our lifetime commitment to avocado toast. But even if most of us can't afford homes, millennials are still the most likely generation to say they planned to put up a Christmas tree — even if it's a fake one. The new poll found more than two-thirds of Americans under 30 say they plan to put up an artificial tree. An additional 17 percent said they planned to buy a real one.

And here — plot twist! — millennials reported the same tastes as all people, because fake trees seem to be winning over everyone. All generations told the survey they planned to deck the halls with some artificial cheer — I mean, trees. Younger people were also the most likely to view the Christmas tree as a cultural symbol, rather than a religious one. A full 96 percent of people under 30 shared that view. And more than 70 percent of all age groups agreed that the Christmas tree is no longer about religion. But do we know which generation killed that?

Article Produced By
Alina Selyukh

Correspondent

Alina Selyukh is a business correspondent at NPR, where she follows the path of the retail and tech industries, tracking how America's biggest companies are influencing the way we spend our time, money, and energy.Before joining NPR in October 2015, Selyukh spent five years at Reuters, where she covered tech, telecom and cybersecurity policy, campaign finance during the 2012 election cycle, health care policy and the Food and Drug Administration, and a bit of financial markets and IPOs.

Selyukh began her career in journalism at age 13, freelancing for a local television station and several newspapers in her home town of Samara in Russia. She has since reported for CNN in Moscow, ABC News in Nebraska, and NationalJournal.com in Washington, D.C. At her alma mater, Selyukh also helped in the production of a documentary for NET Television, Nebraska's PBS station.

https://www.npr.org/2018/12/21/678148112/millennials-strike-again-this-time-we-are-killing-cash-and-merry-christmas

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Stop Buying Leads And Create Your Own Instead

Stop Buying Leads And Create Your Own Instead

Anyone in sales can tell you that no new leads typically means no new business.

Without sales, you truly don't exist. When I entered into the insurance business, I initially tapped my natural market. But — as you can imagine — that only goes so far. In order to succeed, you need to have an ongoing plan. Mine was to purchase leads.I started using a service called NetQuote, where I could buy leads from online shoppers who were looking for insurance. These leads were $15 a piece — and for the most part, the individuals were interested in purchasing coverage. But in addition to the cost, those same leads were also being sold to other agents from competing companies. So if I didn't get to them first, I was essentially throwing away my $15. I had only a 15-20 percent closing ratio, so I knew I had to find a better way.

Using SEO

Throughout the past decade, the Internet has changed the way we do business — insurance is no exception. Gone are the days of sitting across the kitchen table and discussing benefit options. Just like most other products and services, people want to be able to search and compare what options they have available, and they want to do it quickly. I decided to learn everything I possibly could about search marketing, lead generation and SEO, and I also started to build a resource list. A few sites that helped me were Moz.com, Distilled.net and QuickSprout.com. Even today, for any beginner who is looking to learn, I highly recommend these websites. They contain some great content, along with helpful video tutorials.

Once I had my go-to sources, I then obtained the proper tools for tracking and I further developed my plan. Two great sources that I recommend in this area are AHREF and SEMRush. You can learn a lot from these tools, and even though they are paid, I found them well worth the money.

How Much Leads Cost

I review a lot of content on this topic and am amazed at what I find written about lead cost.

For example: “The average cost per lead across all the companies surveyed is almost $200 ($198.44).Admittedly, that’s a useless statistic, as these figures vary quite dramatically depending on industry, company size, etc.” Others stated that the range is between $35 – $100 for a B2B lead. Of course, it depends on what you are selling, but common sense tells you that B2B leads for a complex sale (that are worth a sales rep’s time) are probably going to cost more than $200.

Look at this data from an actual PoinClear teleprospecting client:

One source of leads was PointClear—we sent them only qualified leads and nurtured leads—at an average cost of $1,357.25.
Five additional sources of leads were from other sources, which included some qualified leads and nurtured leads, but which also included many, many more which were termed just plain “leads” (not even scrubbed, let alone qualified and nurtured) and a lot of “scrubbed” leads which were also not qualified and nurtured. Leads from these sources, most of which will land in a black hole, all cost more than the PointClear qualified and nurtured leads.

This table compares the cost per lead on outbound (PointClear Prospecting/Nurturing) to several other sources of inbound leads.

The EVP of Sales at this client, a big division of one of the world’s largest software companies, said that he received zero qualified leads from marketing—except for the PointClear outbound leads.
Marketing on the other hand stated that they had provided sales with more than 4,000 leads.

This problem is classic and represents the disconnect between marketing and sales:

Marketing is focused on the quantity and cost of the leads.
Sales is focused on the quality of the leads and revenue generated.

Marketing considered the content syndicator download “leads” to be “too valuable to stop buying” (at $23.15 per gross lead). Because prequalifying the leads adds cost, marketing’s solution was that they would just quit prequalifying the leads and send them straight to sales. What do you think the chances are that sales will cull through 3,117 suspects to find 40 prospects? Right. Zilch. Yet from one source alone marketing spent $72,158 per quarter on leads that were sent to sales and ignored. What is the “right” price to pay for leads? Here are some scenarios to review:

Lead Rate Break-Even Analysis

To convert to a SaaS solution, calculate lifetime net present value of the average deal.

While this is a simplistic approach, you can see the extent to which average deal size, margin and the percent of revenue that is spent on marketing impacts the allowable cost per lead. Only the $50,000, 60% margin, 15% allowable marketing cost ($1,500 target allowable $ per lead) scenario works for proactive outbound marketing. You can’t cost effectively buy quality leads for low price and low margin offers. I go through an exercise like this with prospects and clients as we work through whether our services will result in a successful outcome.

Article Produced By
Dan McDade

https://www.pointclear.com/blog/how-much-leads-cost

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

How Much Should You Pay for a Sales Lead?

When planning a B-to-B lead generation program,

you need to deliver leads to your sales team at an affordable price. A neat way to determine in advance how much you can spend on a lead is to calculate the allowable cost per lead for your campaign. This number can then be used as a benchmark for evaluating campaign investments, and deciding which ones are likely to work. If a campaign is looking like it’s not affordable, then you’ll want to make some tweaks, like find a stronger offer, or narrow your targeting.

Begin by calculating your cost per inquiry. Assemble the total direct campaign costs, including all fixed and variable costs that can be directly attributed to the campaign. Include creative and pre-production work, cost of developing and producing content, and the normal variable costs of campaign development and execution. Divide this amount by the number of expected campaign responses, and voila! There’s your cost per inquiry.

Then, estimate the costs associated with qualifying a lead. Don’t try to determine this number on a per campaign basis — it’s too hard. Instead, calculate an average qualification cost for inquiries over a set period, such as a year. Gather up all your inquiry-handling costs, including the direct headcount involved in inquiry capture, fulfillment, qualification, and nurturing. If your back-end processes are outsourced, gathering the data is as simple as adding up the bills. After you have a number for the year, divide it by the number of inquiries handled in the year. This number will serve as your average cost to qualify an inquiry.

Finally, go talk to your counterparts in finance and sales to gather several data points. You need the average order size, namely, the total revenue divided by the total number of orders. (If this number swings wildly, do the calculation by product category.) You need the margin (or its opposite, the cost of goods sold) and the direct sales expense per order, calculated by the total sales expense divided by the total number of orders.

Let’s look at an example of how this works. The chart works through some hypothetical numbers to arrive at a cost of lead closed and an allowable cost per lead, and compares the two. Your goal is for the cost of a closed lead to come out lower than the allowable — obviously. If it’s higher, you lose money on the campaign. To get to Allowable Cost per Lead, it’s not actually necessary to know how many inquiries will be generated, qualified, and converted. But you do need to know the cost per inquiry, the cost to qualify an inquiry, the qualification and conversion rates, the net margin per order, and the direct sales expense per order.

Comparing your cost per closed lead to your Allowable Cost per Lead: A hypothetical example
Cost per inquiry (campaign cost/# responses)	$100
Average cost to qualify an inquiry (lead management costs/inquiries per year)	$50
Total cost per inquiry qualified (cost per inquiry + cost to qualify)	$150
Lead qualification rate	25%
Cost of qualified lead (cost per lead/qualification rate)	$600
Lead conversion rate	30%
Cost of a closed lead (cost of qualified lead/conversion rate)	$2,000
Average order size (annual revenue/# orders)	$10,000
Net margin per order (revenue per order x margin, 60%)	$6,000
Allowable cost per lead (net margin per order – direct sales expense, $3,500)	$2,500

In this hypothetical example, say the campaign spent $15,000 and generated 150 inquiries. Whatever the cost and the responses, the important number is the cost per inquiry. Here, we have hypothesized it as $100. Separately, the average cost to qualify an inquiry for the year was calculated at $50. We divide the qualification rate (25 percent) into the total cost per inquiry qualified ($150) to calculate the cost of a qualified lead. Then, we divide that by the conversion rate (30 percent) to get the cost of a closed lead ($2,000).

This number is then compared with the allowable cost per closed lead ($2,500), which is a simple calculation of the net margin per order minus the cost of sales (hypothetically set here as $3,500). In this example, the campaign looks promising, because the expected cost per converted lead is $500 less than the Allowable Cost per Lead. If you put this information in a spreadsheet and play with it, you can quickly see how much leverage there is on the back-end, meaning after the inquiry has come in and you are working it through qualification and nurturing. A few efficiencies on qualification rate and conversion rate work wonders on campaign ROI.

Article Produced By
Ruth P. Stevens

Ruth P. Stevens consults on customer acquisition and retention, and teaches marketing at companies and business schools around the world. She is past chair of the DMA Business-to-Business Council, and past president of the Direct Marketing Club of New York. Ruth was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in Business Marketing by Crain’s BtoB magazine, and one of 20 Women to Watch by the Sales Lead Management Association. She is the author of Maximizing Lead Generation: The Complete Guide for B2B Marketers, and Trade Show and Event Marketing. Ruth serves as a director of Edmund Optics, Inc. She has held senior marketing positions at Time Warner, Ziff-Davis, and IBM and holds an MBA from Columbia University.

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Tag: sales

Pricing and Costs of Mortgage Lead Generation

Pricing and Costs of Mortgage Lead Generation

Spend the extra money on exclusive or semi-exclusive sales leads for mortgage for promising results

Purchase real estate sales leads that include many details

Look for free or inexpensive real estate agent leads

Millennials Strike Again: This Time We Are Killing Cash And ‘Merry Christmas’

Millennials Strike Again: This Time We Are Killing Cash And 'Merry Christmas'

Stop Buying Leads And Create Your Own Instead

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Spend the extra money on exclusive or semi-exclusive sales leads for mortgage for promising results

Purchase real estate sales leads that include many details

Look for free or inexpensive real estate agent leads

Millennials Strike Again: This Time We Are Killing Cash And 'Merry Christmas'

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