If you’re in marketing and sales in any industry, you’ve probably heard the buzzword Millennial thrown around pretty often over the past few years. The main reason for this is that Millennials are the largest generation in the U.S. with a total of over 75 million individuals. In fact, as of April 2016, Millennials have officially taken over the Baby Boomers as the largest generation in the U.S.
I talk with a lot of mortgage companies and I’ve noticed that the Millennial population has been somewhat neglected by mortgage marketers. This makes some sense because most Millennials were born between the 1980s and mid-2000s and, until recently, did not have the buying power to qualify for a mortgage (the financial crisis that hit in 2008 is also a big reason why Millennials didn’t have buying power). On the other hand, it's been just about 10 years since the financial crisis and the economy has gotten better. In addition to the economy getting better, the “older” Millennials (ones born closer to 1980) now have the buying power to purchase their first home.
The point I’m trying to make here is that there are only going to be more Millennials who are going to be making their first home purchase. If you’re looking for the next source of purchase volume, after such a heavy refinance environment over the past few years, look no further than the Millennial demographic.
So if you believe that Millennials represent a segment of the population that are going to be first-time borrowers, do you need to adjust the way you market to them?
The short answer is: Yes.
The reason why we have to take a different approach to marketing with Millennials is that due to the age that they grew up in, they behave differently when it comes to marketing techniques.
Because of this, you need to keep in mind that Millennials grew up in a time and age where the Internet was a daily fixture in their lives. They’re used to having information at their fingertips. They’re used to getting answers to their questions without having to call someone. They’re great at doing research online. Most importantly: they shun traditional marketing techniques like cold calling, print advertising, radio, direct mail, and TV.
Simply put, if you’re trying to reach Millennials through your traditional marketing activities, you’re going to have a very difficult time attracting and converting these first-time homebuyers.
So what's a mortgage marketer who wants to reach Millennials supposed to do?
We’ve got 3 key tips that will help you connect with millennial buyers better.
Most Millennials are going to start their research on the Internet. They could be looking up what they need to consider as a first-time homebuyer. They could be trying to understand how a mortgage works. They could also be looking up information about a local community or neighborhood.
The point here is that most Millennials are not going to start looking for a mortgage company first. They’re going to go to the Internet to do some research about getting a mortgage for the first time. That means that you need to develop content that is useful to a Millennial first-time homebuyer so they come to you for that content (instead of you reaching out to them via a cold call, email, etc.). An example of this would be developing a free PDF guide on “Mortgages for First-Time Homebuyers” and publishing that guide on your website and social media.
In short, you’re going to need to put up useful content that can be searched for on the Internet to get your brand in front of a potential homebuyer. They may not be ready to call you just yet, but at least you’ve taken a good first step to building some brand equity with that homebuyer.
What I just described to you is the heart of Content Marketing and if you’re interested in learning more details about Content Marketing as it relates to the Mortgage business, check out this post.
If you’re expecting a Millennial to walk through the doors of your retail branch asking for information about a mortgage application, you’re in for a big disappointment because those days are long gone.
Most Millennials are going to check out your “Digital Branch Office” before they even call you. That means they’re going to poke around your website to see what kind of useful content you have or how you differentiate yourselves from the competition. They’re probably going to check out your Yelp page or your Google Local Listings pages for reviews from previous customers. They’re likely going to check out your social media pages (especially Facebook) to see what you’ve posted over there and to see if anyone is active there.
The important takeaway here is that if you aren’t keeping your digital assets updated (Website and Social Media at a minimum), then you’ve effectively shown that the lights are off and the doors are locked to your Digital Branch Office.
It's very off-putting to someone who is doing research online to find a company that may serve your needs, but you go to their website and there is content on there that hasn’t been updated since 2007. Or if you head over to a Facebook page and there hasn’t been a recent post or people are asking questions and there is no public response to them.
Just getting Millennials to come to your digital assets is one part of the battle, but the other part is actually showing those visitors that you are alive and kicking. If they come to your online digital assets and there’s nothing there, they’re not going to have a lot of confidence to take the next (and most) important step: contacting you.
As I mentioned earlier, Millennials have grown up in a day and age where communication is instant and can occur over various channels. With apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Slack, Millennials are communicating a lot more through robust messaging apps. The phone isn’t dead, but it's taken a backseat to messaging.
With all that said, to reduce the amount of friction that a potential Millennial borrower might face in contacting you, be sure to have methods to communicate directly with this demographic. This could mean setting up a Live Chat function on your website. Or setting up some automation with Facebook Messenger so that an inquiry from your Facebook page can get automatically routed to a Loan Officer.
Phone and email shouldn’t be the only way that borrowers can reach you. You need to set up a process and system to allow Millennial borrowers to contact you via technology that they’re used to.
So there are 3 tips that you can use to better position your mortgage company to generate more attention and engagement from the Millennial demographic. Do you have a mortgage marketing strategy that focuses on Millennials? What do you do differently to attract and convert this demographic? We’d love to hear from you!