Small and midsized mortgage originators want to have access to marketing materials that typically meet two criteria: they are effective and they are inexpensive.
The latter is especially true today, when declining revenue has resulted in many of these firms having to slash their marketing budget.
TheLoanMarketer seeks to fill this void, company executives said, by providing agency-quality direct mail and email marketing pieces at a low cost.
David Lentz, one of the co-founders of TheLoanMarketer, opened a direct marketing firm in 1994 which specialized in working with real estate agents.
He was thinking about branching off and providing the same services for other industries, when he came across First Edge Solutions in 2006, which owns an online marketing agency.
Robert Kraft, First Edge's president and chief executive, is the other co-founder of TheLoanMarketer.
First Edge, Lentz said, “is an absolute expert in managing data.”
He utilized First Edge's expertise to help grow Lentz Design's business in its marketing to real estate brokers.
First Edge got Lentz design “through some very lean years by doing some amazing things with data mining and helping us find the customers we desperately needed to find.”
Lentz said he mentioned to Kraft that he would like to take the work he had done in the real estate space and apply it to other vertical markets.
Kraft responded that his company was looking to do the same thing.
They put their heads together and decided to team up rather than compete.
Because they were creating their own custom online code, TheLoanMarketer could go right from web to print.
“We think of this site as a marketing on demand website,” Lentz said.
The end result is a simple-to-use, streamlined, system.
In its focus testing, a new user can go on the site, without assistance from a call-in number, can place their first order in between five and 10 minutes, he continued.
But the website, Lentz said, is “merely a storefront” and the users are most interested in what products the site is offering.
Those creative products come from First Edge's agency, called eGencee.
“We are offering up to our customers is ad agency quality work, so they're getting high-quality product.
“But at the end of the day, through economies of scale, they're paying some very low, affordable prices,” Lentz said.
This levels the marketing playing field between the smaller originators and their much larger competition which can spend a lot of money.
Kraft said even though the housing crisis has significantly reduced the number of mortgage industry participants, “there are still tens of thousands of independent mortgage brokers out there that need to run their businesses and need the support of what a large corporation would have.
“But they don't have the wherewithal to sit down and get agency-level materials and communications.”
The system manages the data for them, while allowing them to get their message to clients and potential customers.
To further attract users to the service, TheLoanMarketer is offering a $50 discount to launch a first campaign. This makes the materials available at virtually no cost.
The goal with the pricing plan is to get as many customers as possible and help them to market themselves efficiently and cost effectively. So its potential customer base does run the gamut of originators of any size, he added.
Kraft said even with the growth of technology related marketing, direct mail is not disappearing. Rather those technology channels are augmenting it when a marketer looks to reach out and attract customers.
There is a full suite of postcards and e-products, including e-cards. It is a dynamic product, completely branded for the loan originator (with appropriate disclosures) and live Internet links that can be set by the loan officer.
“It's not just fluff, it is not just another pretty picture. It's clever, creative advertising to really set the loan originator in the best light possible,” Lentz said. One of those buttons is to forward the message to a friend.
As for the more traditional direct mail piece like a postcard, the customer can choose any number of themes. It can be customized to include a photo, a company logo and any sort of messaging. This customization can occur on either the front or the back of the card, Lentz said.
TheLoanMarketer also offers an e-newsletter clients can send out, as well as a video mail tool.
There is a section where the originator can personalize the e-newsletter.
As for video mail, it lets originators “blast out important information to their customers. It is your own custom branded web channel,” he explained.
Clips are available that cover industry news, while some have a more lighthearted approach.
These help to enhance the originator's position as the expert and trusted resource on mortgage loans.
“At the end of the day, they still need to figure out how to market their businesses,” Kraft said.
But the most important feature of the system is when the customer is finished creating the piece, they then go to the mailing list section on the website.
Lentz said the customer can upload its mailing list to the site, where it is stored on a secured, password-protected server, and the data is encrypted.
Only the customer has access to this data, not TheLoanMarketer, he pointed out. The list is saved in the customer's account until the customer decides to delete the list, if they want to. “Like everything on our website, you do it one time and you never have to do it again,” Lentz said.
For example, when someone registers on the site, they provide their name. During the customization phase, the name is already prepopulated in the material, he noted.
There are also mailing lists available for purchase. The user can whittle those lists down to fit the target audience. That can be done by geographic and/or demographics. The customer can purchase as few as 200 unique addresses.
Lentz said they are looking to offer clients the greatest amount of data possible at the lowest price.
“We want to be the marketing and advertising agency for every loan originator that comes to our website. We want to be their partner, and our prices prove it.”
As for the advertising agency that First Edge owns, its services will be available to clients who need such items as offline assistance and help with branding, Kraft said.
In the future, TheLoanMarketer could get into such things as private-label branding a site for an originator and making it a custom portal for that entity, Lentz said.
This is a result of writing its own software, and doing so in a cost-effective manner. Kraft added that social media marketing services would also be coming down the road.
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