What financial institution ISN’T interested in increasing their loan portfolio? Pretty much none of them—at least not if they want to stick around! For everyone else, that means there is a lot of competition for the loan revenue out there. Every institution large or small needs a marketing strategy with a focus on loan generation.
Loan generation describes the marketing strategy that identifies your best new prospects for a loan and, using this information, provides a preapproval at just the right time to capitalize on the opportunity. Proponents of these types of programs report an increase in loan portfolio revenues and a decrease in loan acquisition costs.
What institution ISN’T interested in those two line items? Again, pretty much none of them!
We use a program called Loan Generator, and it’s excellent for many parts of your loan portfolio. In general, the opportunities it identifies breakdown into two categories:
- Missed Opportunities: When your prospects take out a loan somewhere else, we refer to that as “lost” opportunities. Despite your best efforts to inform and entice your members to start their shopping with you, they didn’t. In the past, you could hope your general marketing copy could get these lost opportunities to refinance with you. Now you can target those specific lost opportunities—whether for a vehicle, a home equity loan, a credit card, or even a mortgage—and convince them to reconsider.
- New Purchases: Using the technology platform, you can define the parameters of what looks like an acceptable loan for your financial institution and then identify the people you have that fit them. Using this list, you can identify which of these solid loan prospects is most likely to need a new car, home equity, credit card, or even a first-time buyer for a mortgage based on “trigger events” or common life stage signals that indicate an imminent need.
Voila! In either case, a targeted list is born full of prospects ready to hear about your great loan product.
So what parts of your loan portfolio are best for these missed opportunities and new purchase. A better question would be which ones aren’t…but that’s another post. Here are the top five loan products for which the program is most effective:
- Auto: We all know how the dealers work: They get your best auto loan prospects back in their office and next thing you know, the prospect has a new vehicle and you have bupkis. This product allows you to get some of those loans back. Or you can identify those that are most likely to be shopping for a vehicle so you can send the preapproval…before they go back in that office!
- Credit card: How does a tiered-rate campaign sound to allow for better targeting in your new credit card direct marketing strategy? What if you could also identify those that had a good history of managing their debt? This technology can do both, as well as identify good prospects for balance transfers.
- Personal Loans: Increasing this product category is a great way to expand your loan portfolio. With personal loans, you can segment your prospects based on revolving debt utilization ratio. You can also tier the offers in such a way that you have a bigger list of prospects without taking on too much risk.
- Home Equity: This lucrative loan option is often missed by financial institutions because the prospect doesn’t even know you offer them. With the software, you can see who qualifies and is most likely to take one out, or who has already taken one out that you can convince them to switch to you.
- Mortgages: Like the home equity, some of your people might not know you have these (despite your best efforts of informing them!). You can either save them from a high-interest or adjustable mortgage option, or you can reach out to those customers or members that are likely to take out their first mortgage in the near future.
With all the competition out there for loan growth, you need a marketing strategy that is targeted and effective. Loan generator is both, and a great way to capitalize on the opportunity as it presents itself with your loan prospects—and recapture the ones you might have missed. The new loans growth is out there, A LOT of it, in fact. Make sure you are getting your share.
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