By now, the lending industry knows that investing in digital marketing is essential if we’re looking to generate new leads while also processing and acquiring new loans. Before even beginning a marketing strategy, we must pinpoint our target audience. With this information, the entire marketing platform will build its foundation around the target client. 

In finance, there are two potential clients: new homebuyers and refinancers. If we’re looking to target both of these potential acquisitions, then it will require two different marketing strategies. This is because refinance and new homebuyers contrast one another and are technically their own target demographic. Refinancers are likely well read about their mortgage and know precisely what they’re looking for. They are willing to shop around for quotes and are quite sensitive to rates. New homebuyers are baby birds, they will pay for good, solid advice. These are referral-driven people that are looking for a lender willing to guide them through the process. 

Before beginning our marketing efforts, we must identify which of these target demographics is ideal for our business. It is okay to do one or the other, but if you’d like to start with both, we recommend either hiring on outside marketing help or launching one platform at a time. Identifying the target audience will create ease in other aspects of marketing, we’ve listed just a few here. 

Facebook Advertising

This is such a crucial point of digital marketing not only can it build your presence on the channel, but it can also build interactions that will help index the page for future followers. Facebook advertising allows using precise targeting options. One important note though – since 2020, mortgage is considered a special ads category, and thus your targeting options are limited when compared to regular ads. Lenders can take advantage of Facebook Ads and generate leads that are interested in buying a home. Finding the right target audience before launching the marketing campaign will ensure that an investment in Facebook Ads shows a positive return, whether it be likes, follows or leads. 

Content and SEO

When a prospect visits a page on a social media platform, they are looking to find an authority on a subject. We become an authority by making our pages into a conglomerate of relevant news, trends, and aesthetics for those with interest in the sector. Of course, to build SEO it is crucial to consistently post content that leads back to our website, as well. Creating content on our blogs gives us fodder for social sites and makes it much easier to keep posting regular content. Having the target demo in mind before brainstorming blog titles will help us craft blogs that potential clients are interested in, otherwise, our efforts are wasted. To be sure that the posts are making the right impression, monitor which pieces get the most traffic and take note of those topics. Content is a powerful tool in marketing, but if the articles aren’t guided towards the right people, then all of your work will be for naught. 

Email Marketing

Some people perceive email as being outdated. But don’t be mistaken, email is a powerful marketing channel – more than 34% of the people worldwide use email. That’s about 2.5 billion people. It’s predicted to increase to 2.8 billion email users in the next 2 years. And it works especially well for serious niches like mortgage. It is immune to changes in algorithms of social media feeds or search engine rankings. Email is also almost unaffected by erratic tech companies’ policies, so it provides you with relative freedom on how you wish to communicate with your audience. You have many options for how to approach this medium. Be it content-filled newsletters, autoresponder campaigns, or simply an occasional promo – email can do it all. 

PPC Advertising

While social media advertising on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn quickly became a staple of modern marketing, you can’t disregard the power of another digital medium – pay-per-click advertising on search engines. Despite all their power, social media ads have one major flaw – people don’t browse their Facebook feed to see your ads. Even if you’ve nailed your target audience perfectly, you can’t be sure that these people are necessarily on the hunt for what you’re offering. Search engine ads address this problem at its root by showing ads to interested people – the ones that are actively searching for what you offer! PPC ads will allow you to connect with the red-hot prospects who are almost ready to commit, especially if you did your homework and picked the right keywords.

These are only a couple of ways you can use your target audiences. It’s a powerful tool with many applications. You can use these for your sales process (what objections do your customers have?), for offline ads (what magazines do they read?), or even attend the same events they do. 

What are your favorite applications of target audiences? Share with us in the comments below!