The mortgage industry must ‘immerse itself’ in the needs of its customers if it is to become more effective in its marketing, according to Steve Griffiths, sales and product director at The Mortgage Lender.
Speaking during a panel discussion at the Forum’s inaugural physical event last week, Griffiths said: “My advice to anyone in marketing in this industry is, before you do anything, understand who your customer is and immerse yourself in the customer. That might be the end customer or it might be the broker – but make sure you really understand their motivations and their challenges.
“For example, at TML, we receive hundreds of calls from brokers every day – each of those calls provides an insight into what brokers are really feeling. It’s a great place to start.”
When asked for his one tip to help mortgage marketers become more effective in their role, Jeff Knight, director of The Mortgage Marketing Forum, said: “Don’t under-estimate the importance of emotional intelligence, that’s really important and it’s going to be increasingly important.”
In response to the same question, panel member, Melanie Spencer, head of MCI Mortgage Club, said: “If you can map the broker journey and the customer journey and bring them together, that’s going to put you in a good place.
Jason Berry, group sales and marketing director at Crystal Specialist Finance, said: “Stay creative, but find tools which enable you to validate the success of your campaign with facts. This ensures buy-in from people at the top of your organisation for future new campaigns.”
The inaugural physical event of The Mortgage Marketing Forum was held at Tobacco Dock in London on 5 October. In addition to the panel session, the event included a presentation on the key mortgage technology trends for 2022 by Mark Lusted, UK CEO of MagiClick Digital and a talk on why it’s more important than ever for marketers to appreciate their competitive advantage, by Julia Jones from Altezza People UK.
The forum now has more than 60 members and will be announcing its upcoming content event programme in the coming weeks.