Competing with the Big Dogs?

[RyanR]

Okay, I was thinking if I do a ppc campaign with mortgages, I don't know how well I could compete. Here is my point of view. I would be competing against eloan, lendingtree, etc. With mortgages, I know there would still be some people typing in Colorado mortgage, or some area-specific terms but even when you type those in eloan and all the big dogs come up with those terms also. And most search terms wouldn't be area-specific, they would be "apply now mortgage" without an area-specific. With real estate, it is always area specific and you're competing with local realtors. What is your guys opinion on this?

[BrandonSternfield]

You would want to capture a market.

Do you do subprime? Do you work with realtors, or buyers? Do you work only with certain credit scores?

Your niche will help you pick the words you want to target. If you only work with good credit, you don't want to show up on a search for '400 credit mortgage' do you?

[RyanR]

I can pretty much do anything. I'm signed up with about 100 investors all with different programs. I can do subprime as well but I almost don't want to find those leads because they are pretty much a waste of money. Most of my leads that I've had so far have been some of the worst credit scores I've ever seen and I couldn't do anything and I'm not even marketing for bad credit leads! Even when I type in "bad credit loans" the lendingtrees etc. come up.

[BrandonSternfield]

Heh I know what you mean. Nothing like someone wanting to invest in a half a million dollar property, with a 480 score

Then again, rapid rescore is their friend.

If you want to do a generic ppc campaign.. your biggest problem will be the negative keywords. I'd suggest make a few different ads instead.

Each ad would be for a certain niche. It would be easier to market. Possibly have a few of them overlap words. Better chance to knock lendingtree etc down.

[RyanR]

I've tried that rapid rescore stuff and one time it said do this and it will raise the score 30 points - actual points raised was 6. Another was do this and it will raise 24 - actual 2. Do you have any suggestions as to some niches and negative keywords?

[BrandonSternfield]

Well, if you want to avoid the bad credit scores, think of common ones, 400, 420, 450, 480, 500 etc.

Basically, if you DON'T want to see it, that's what you want on that list. If you don't want to finance anything below a certain price, put lesser prices in the negative keyword campaign. I.e. you only do half a million or more (hah, would be nice). You could put 'quarter million' 'one hundred thousand' etc. That wouldn't be really that good at it, since I doubt many people pue 'quarter mill mortgage 450 credit' into google XD

In short, you'd need to think and find out different niches. Investments is one type. Condo is another, house, new family, etc.

[RyanR]

So my negative keywords would be bad credit scores? So maybe things like "investor mortgage 100% financing" for my keywords? Thanks for your input Brandon. Anyone else?

[jessiesc]

Overall I agree with the above. However, even though real estate is typically marketed on the local levels, we also have to contend with some "big boys": Hm Gain, Hm Values etc,

You CAN out perform and out rank these guys, organically as well as in PPC. When we started we out ranked the PPC big guys (just over spent by .01 keeps them on their toes) and now we outrank them organically in our market area.

A few suggestions I have are in line with the above suggestions:

Go after a target market (niche), with a small set of search returns. Example: Colorado Condominium Financing, Colorado Condo Investment Financing, Small Business Financing, Retail Business financing. You get the point. I did a G search for: colorado+"real estate"+financing and there were only 24 returns.

Continue to push your major kw's as well, as you never know when you may pop up in the right place at the right time.

I don't know if this works in the mortgage industry or not, but do you offer/get referral fees? If so, target market the lower scores that can get financing and work out an arrangement with a Mort. broker that wants this type of business. That way you can market for it, build a client base and maybe get paid at the same time?

Hope this helps.

[BrandonSternfield]

A lot of times, the best way to do it, is to find people for referrals. Say a realtor, or even better a branch.

What you simply do is give low low, almost par rates. You take a point here or there, and that's it. As I'm sure you know, people for some reason want the mortgage broker to take a beating in the points, but never ask the realtor <.<

So if the realtor finds out you do really low financing, they will keep using you.

If you can worm your way into a branch... well.. even at 1% per loan, with all the loans you'd have, you'd be set

[RyanR]

Thanks for the help!