To help with creating a better-educated mortgage consumer, Bank of the West, San Francisco, has introduced a series of online videos designed to teach people about different aspects of the process.
Topics covered in the initial set of videos include: Can I afford buying a home? Buying versus renting; HARP loans—an introduction; Who is eligible for HARP loans? and FAQs about HARP loans. A company spokesman said it intends to create an additional five mortgage videos, which should be completed by mid-September.
Karen Mayfield, mortgage banking national sales manager, said the reason behind the
So Bank of the West is trying to be a resource for consumers rather than just an entity trying to sell a product.
The videos are linked to the bank’s website, plus she said it is promoting them through
“One of the challenges the industry as a whole has is that we’re still coming of age of how we’re utilizing social media,” Mayfield said. Bank of the West’s sales force can go out and provide the links for these videos to their “centers of influence,” which includes consumers and business partners such as Realtors and accountants.
There is also an e-newsletter the bank sends to 200,000 customers every month which is also used as an educational vehicle for the products and offerings. There will be a link to the videos in upcoming newsletters.
Furthermore, she said, “YouTube is becoming more of the 'how-to’ source” for consumers to find information. And mortgage is one of the most common things consumers look up for information about on the search engines. Even so, there was not a lot of solid information about the subject when compared with checking account basic information or other banking products and services.
Jim Cole, vice president of Bank of the West’s corporate communications department, said there were two drivers for the creation of the mortgage videos. One was the company’s head of social media, Joel Nathanson, who is working on a broader project to create educational videos for the different product lines.
At the same time, Mayfield and Cole were working on a press release regarding the bank’s participation in the Home Affordable Refinance Program. As part of that effort, they created the three HARP videos. So the two projects dovetailed.
Mortgage was first in the bank’s video education efforts because of a lack of consumer information available, Mayfield said. The mortgage business has been lacking an easy-to-understand, quick bullet point way of giving consumers information. And the bank needs to grow its library to cover all the various topics.
She said the initial efforts have resulted in at least two consumers reaching out to her about HARP loans. And regional sales manager are reporting some of their competitors sales staffers have reportedly used the videos as education tools for themselves to get a better understanding of the HARP program to tell their customers.
The typical video is 90 to 120 seconds, with the goal to keep them under two minutes. This is to maximize attention span.
