Mortgage Broker Broadcast
Developing your knowledge to help you build a successful Mortgage Broker business. Craig Skelton shares his thoughts and experiences on all aspects of mortgage advice covering everything from operating in the banking world, estate agency based advisers all the way up to working as a self employed broker. He will be joined by experts from within the industry and other business sectors which all play a key part in becoming a successful mortgage broker in the modern world.
Mortgage Broker Broadcast
Mastering Niche Marketing: Insights and Strategies with Louis Adkins for Mortgage Brokers
Discover the secrets of niche marketing with Louis Adkins from Labs Media, as he returns to share his transformative journey over the past year. Reflecting on humorous graduation day mishaps, Louis dives into the real-world challenges and victories of expanding his marketing services beyond financial services. We explore how sticking to a niche focus helped him reconnect with financial advisors and specialist brokers, ultimately learning invaluable lessons in the art of clear messaging and industry-specific marketing.
Unpack the wisdom behind building trust with potential clients through free resources, as inspired by business authors like Alex Hormozi and Russell Brunson. Louis shares how offering valuable content—be it guides or courses—can establish expertise and nurture relationships, especially for mortgage brokers targeting first-time buyers. From leveraging LinkedIn to harnessing the power of written guides, Louis provides practical strategies for converting leads into loyal clients, even if video content isn't your forte.
Dive into the nitty-gritty of digital marketing strategies specifically tailored for mortgage brokers. We shine a light on the importance of combining effective landing pages with targeted Facebook ads and newsletters to foster consistent communication and trust. Learn how to navigate the nuances of ad budgets and local targeting to optimize lead generation efforts. Whether you're a seasoned broker aiming for growth or just starting your own brand, this episode is packed with actionable insights to elevate your digital presence and meet your business goals.
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Hi and welcome to this week's the Mortgage Broker broadcast. My guest this week is Louis Adkins from Labs Media, and Louis was back on the podcast originally in November 2023. And it was great. Guests were talking about where he was at then. A lot has changed over for him in the last year. A lot has changed within the industry for the last year as well, so I wanted to get Louis back onto the podcast just to talk about not only what he's been doing, but the changes he's seen within the industry talking about Google Ads, landing pages, guides and newsletters and a lot of other things as well. So let's just get Louis onto the podcast. So welcome onto the podcast, louis. How?
Speaker 2:are you? I'm really well. Thank you, craig. How are you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, very good, thank you very good and just and just sort of looking back and thanks for coming back onto the podcast. I can't believe it was when I was just looking back in my notes in the previous episodes. It's been 12 months since we spoke, so it's been quite a while.
Speaker 2:It's been a really long time. I can't believe it's been a whole 12 months, because it doesn't seem that long ago that I was at university, um, and just just doing it out of my union room. And then I look back and obviously I've only finished uni in the last couple of months, but when I look back at november, that's like the start of that year. It's such a long time ago. But, um, no, it's cool to be back on. So thank you as well for inviting me back on, looking forward to it no, it's been.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you coming back on. It's going to be good to have a chat about what's been going on with you in the last 12 months, and then we'll talk about what. What's going on with you right this second. But yeah, so graduation All right. Did that all go according to plan?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it went well. It was a bit my. My parents and my girlfriend would probably say it didn't it. It's a miracle that it went to plan because, um, uh, anything that's not business related I like to just leave to the last minute. I'm just like always. Anything to do with my business, I'm like on it. That takes up all my priorities. That's top of my to-do list than anything else, even as important as graduation, I leave the last minute, and so I did accidentally order the wrong gown. I did forget to tell them that my name was Louis, not Lewis, when they were reading out my name, but then I luckily, with seconds to spare, I managed to find the right gown and I managed to get them to read my name out correctly, but it did go all smoothly in the end, as I did tell my parents it was. But yeah, it was really nice though Good.
Speaker 1:I'm just surprised. I've never graduated and been in that scenario. There's a choice of gown now with graduating, like instead of saying you ordered the wrong gown and I'm with you on the I think we sort of spoke about this last time. My son, who's 19, is calledis and spelled exactly the same way as you, yeah, and he gets all the time, so much so that he's taken the s off the end of his name now in everything he does and he's just sort of like he knows he gets the pronunciation right. So, yeah, and everything, everything that he does, he's just dropped the s just to. Then he I think he did it at school, full enough, and then, um, I think he's just got a habit of doing that from now. So I am with you. I understand you came with regards to the louis and the lewis, so definitely so, yes, and graduated a few months ago. So how's business been going since then?
Speaker 2:it's it's been, it's been really really good, really really positive. Uh, if you look over the whole time period there was after I graduated, I did consider. I actually like took a step back from the industry for a couple of months because I wanted to try, because at the time I just finished uni and then I had one of like uh, somebody who I met at a networking event approached me, who was a marketing agency, who asked me to do the same thing I do for advisors, but for them, for their marketing agency. So I did it for them and I was like this is really fun, why don't I just broaden out and do it for more businesses? So I started doing that went against what I normally, but what I believe and what I normally do, which is I pick a niche, have a niche, be niche, and I was like I'll broaden out, see what, see what happens, and I should, and I've learned my lesson. Because it didn't work. And, um, it did, even though I was going after more people. It actually resulted in me getting less inquiries, less of the qualified people, and I gave it three months as well.
Speaker 2:Um, so that that was a that that was the start of after I finished university it went on a bit of a dip, but then the second I came back to financial services. Everything went on the up and did really really well. So I've I've got a lot more clients now that I'm working with and building funnels for which are hopefully all going to be going live in the next two weeks. And then um also working with a really really big specialist broker who um have a very big budget on google ads and that's how they get all their business and um just being behind the scenes with them, even though their stuff is taking a long time because they're so big, um just being behind the scenes, like the things I've got to see and how they do things is is is fascinating, and um, I've learned a lot already excellent.
Speaker 1:What doing you're sort of saying there about and what I'm interested, just taking a little bit of a step back in terms of when we first spoke a year ago and it was all about niching for mortgage brokers and you've sort of then graduated, whatever reason was, and you made that decision to then go down a slightly different route, still doing what you do, but within not having that niche anymore and working for a firm. But then you sort of said you quickly realised and it's all about, you made that decision. How far into that and what would you say you learned from making that decision? In hindsight, whether it was right or wrong, it's not indifferent. You made that choice at the time. What was your sort of key learning points from that?
Speaker 2:I suppose the thing for me is. One of the things is I I always like my mindset was always pick a niche. Because I'd read it in a lot of the marketing books and I'd listen to like top, top marketers and I was like, okay, well, this is what they say to do, so I'm going to do it as well and what I think the biggest lessons I've learned from it is that you just need to listen to what the experts say, because there's a reason they're telling you to do these things and if all the experts agree on certain things and all the top marketers tell you to pick a niche, then you should pick a niche and you shouldn't really try and sway from it that much. I think the reason I did do the change is because a lot of the people around me, because a lot of my friends and family have businesses is they've grown their businesses similar to how a lot of mortgage advisors do through referrals, and when you're doing it through referrals, your niche doesn't really matter. It's not really a thing, because you're not trying to stand out to somebody online or you're not trying to. You know it's you. You you're getting business from the word of somebody else who does all the selling and all the trust for you, so you don't have to do those things, which is what a niche can really help you do.
Speaker 2:Um, and so they were telling me to do that because that's how they've grown a lot of their businesses. But then when I tried to do it online, it just meant that my message was it wasn't. It was kind of falling a bit on deaf ears and I couldn't really give examples of people I'd helped to specific, like everyone's kind of like well, you know, that's a mortgage advisor, why would it work for me, sort of thing? Um, and so like that's that. That's like the problems I ran into and the left. The big lesson I learned from it is well, pick, pick a niche is is the obvious one, but the second lesson I learned is listen to what the experts say.
Speaker 1:Two very good points in terms of what you learn from the decision. We all make choices. We all make decisions, we all have options in terms of what we do and we sometimes make the best decisions ever, or sometimes we make the worst decisions ever. But you for me, why I ask that question is it's all about learning from those decisions. I think, and actually now, whatever distractions come your way, whatever bright lights, and then you're coming, do this for us louis, come and do that for us louis, you'll stay. You're more likely to stay true core to your niche now, which obviously benefits a lot of mortgage brokers.
Speaker 1:So we've gone straight into the podcast. For those that didn't listen to the podcast before, when we introduced you back a year ago, you saw November last year. I don't know what episode it is because they've stopped doing episode numbers now, but basically you were on the podcast last year. Do you want to just give a brief explanation to the people that are listening who don't know you or haven't seen your profile on social media or LinkedIn? Do you want to give a bit of a who you are and what you do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, so my name is Louis. When I started, I started a marketing agency out of my uni room in like it's second year of university is when I started, but really the way it looks now only started about the time when we did our podcast episode, maybe a couple months just before that, about about 12 months ago. But, um, in my second year of uni I started my marketing agency because I'd always wanted from a young age I said before that a lot of my family have their own business and, um, and I think I had that in me, like I always wanted to start my own thing. But problem that I always ran into was to start a business. A lot of businesses. Usually they're really expensive up front, or you've so or you've got to, like you know, have a foot in the door somewhere or something like that. And, um, I found people talking about marketing agencies online and they were like, if you learn marketing, you start working for people for a low cost or something like that, then you can learn how to do it and you can just basically sell your time. And then I started doing it for that reason it's like a way of me just having my own business.
Speaker 2:But then I quickly like really got obsessed with marketing and the first ever person I helped was a bridging broker. And that was the first ever person I helped um with like google ads and um. From there I thought, wow, there's a lot of finance brokers or actually at the time it was just bridging breaks. I thought there's a lot of bridging brokers who don't really know how to do digital marketing but could really benefit from trying to find leads of people who were searching for bridging loans, for example, and I thought I thought this would be a great little area to focus on. And all the books I was reading at the time were like find a niche. So I was like that'll be my niche bridging brokers. And then I realized there are not many bridging brokers in comparison to mortgage brokers. So I thought I'll go after mortgage brokers and so that's kind of like how it developed and so I started doing it out of uh in my second year of uni um with that first broker.
Speaker 2:When I got into my third year of uni um, I needed to actually start getting clients um like actually trying to attract clients to me, because at the time that bridging broker was just somebody it was a family friend.
Speaker 2:Um, so started posting on linkedin and that's how I've grown my business and that's where most people find out about me.
Speaker 2:Uh, started posting on linkedin every day, um, and then I started offering things for free and providing value at free, which is what I do, which is like sort of the service I do for brokers now to help them get leads and appointments.
Speaker 2:Um, and very quickly, after making a free course about marketing your mortgage business, um, I got lots of leads and I became very busy and I had a waiting list at that time and it was really, really and like I was trying to juggle a degree and with my waiting list and, um, then I just kind of sailed through uni, primarily doing the business and doing my degree whenever I had a bit of spare time, which my parents weren't very happy about, but it all worked out. In the end I graduated and that's kind of where I've got to today. I've graduated now and I've gone into it full-time and I don't know why, but I absolutely love trying to generate leads for mortgage brokers, which, if someone had told me that three years ago, before I started, I would have thought who on earth were you talking about? Three years ago, before I started.
Speaker 1:I would have thought they were who on earth are you talking about?
Speaker 1:Well, at least you understand that now and you're gaining good traction in terms of what you've been doing. Let's look at the free stuff, because before the podcast, before we hit record, I started to look through your LinkedIn and your stuff does come up on my feed every single day anyway, so it didn't take me too long to find the stuff that you've been doing. But what made you sort of give? So you're doing the free stuff with the free guides, which is something that brokers understand, because there's a lot of brokers that I know will offer first-time buyer guides or self-employed mortgage guides on the websites and things like that. So what was the trigger with regards to the the free guides kind of thing? Where'd you start with doing something from your point of view not from a broker's point of view, but from your point of view thinking right, I'm going to put some free guides onto my, my website, and start to put them all on social. Where was you, what was you thinking behind that and where'd you start with something like that?
Speaker 2:yeah, sure, um, so I, when I first started, I used to get like a lot of the way I kind of taught myself marketing was just by reading a lot of marketing books and taking a lot of courses. Um, and one of the books that I was reading and I always recommend these two to advisors very popular series. Now he's very well known compared to how he was like a couple years ago. But, um, alex hormosi, his 100 million dollar offers and $100 million leads books are the books that I read. At the time only offers was out, so I read offers and in that he talks about giving valuable stuff away for free. And then a lot of the other books I've read from people like Russell Brunson, who are big American. He's like a really big marketer in America. He also owns ClickFunnels. He talked about it as well. And then when I looked at both of them, in the book mentioned a mentor of theirs called Dan Kennedy, who's this other really old marketer, and he talked about giving away free stuff as well. And I was like, and the reason they talk about doing it is because, like, when you're giving away something, rather than like asking for a lead, like hey, let me, like, hey, I'll like give me money and I'll help you with this thing. If you provide, like the information, especially for like advisors and me who, like we're basically selling what we know, then if you provide the information up for free, you build trust Also. It's very easy sell because it's like hey want to know this, give me your email address or whatever and I'll give it to you for free. Build trust also. It's very easy sell because it's like hey want to know this, give me your email address or whatever and I'll give it you for free. Very easy sell builds a lot of trust. But also then, once they've read it, they get to know you, they get to build that relation with you and then they will probably come to you to actually do the things for them.
Speaker 2:Um so, like with the mortgage for example, as a first-time buyer you don't know a lot of the stuff. So if a mortgage broker had a bunch of stuff, that's all about the mortgage process and teaching you so you understand it. You get to know, oh, this broker's really good, they're really good at what they do. Look at all this information they've told me. You get to also see, probably if you sprinkle a few examples in there, that they've helped other people. And finally you do it and you go bloody hell. There's an awful lot to do in the mortgage process.
Speaker 2:I'd rather just have this guy do it for me because he seems really good and that's how it works. So I learned it from the books and I thought I'd just I'd try it. And I made a free course for mortgage brokers, which I promoted. I think I actually promoted it on this podcast, I think it was around this time. Uh, I said at the end of it you can go and get my free course. I don't do the free course anymore, um, because I've, like, moved since then. I've learned a lot more and I would, if I want, to, kind of redo it now. So I took it down um right, but yeah, that did really really well.
Speaker 1:So that's how I got my waiting list and I think that's it's like good to hear you talking about that in terms of what you're doing, because I'm guessing, from what I've seen in terms of your content and the clients that are getting responses, that you are working with your clients. They're doing the stuff that you're actually doing. So you're not just talking about what they should be doing, you're doing it as well for your own business, which demonstrates to them again it goes back to trust that they then trust you in terms of you know what you're talking about and you're not just talking about it. You're actually doing what you're recommending they do anyway, which is the free guides or the, the newsletters or landing pages that we talked about, which we'll get onto. But I think that's the sort of I don't know. It'd be interesting to get your take on it in terms of, because there's quite a lot of brokers that brokers will either want to work with someday externally or they'll do it themselves.
Speaker 1:But then you've got the people that were very good in terms of website stuff, and that's that's what they want to do. You've got people that are good with content on social media, and that's what they do. You don't get many people that are doing both very, very well and consistently. But with regards to things like free guides, that's something that every single broker can do, because you're not getting out of your comfort zone about getting in front of the camera or creating content and things like that. Creating guides should be quite. I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but it's going to give. It's going to bridge that gap between actually getting your own personal content out there but offering something on your website or something on your social media. That giving free stuff away, that's just going to build the trust without them actually seeing. I know you're, you've got a picture of you with your free guys, but some brokers don't feel comfortable with that yeah.
Speaker 2:So there's there's, there's lots of different ways that you could package up your information as well. And if you're not comfortable in front of a camera, by all means do a PDF. And then, if you're thinking, oh, I can't do designs, you can go on somewhere a platform like Fiverr or Upwork you can write it out in a Google doc and pay somebody a couple of hundred pounds to go and design that for you. And if all that does was get you one person, then that guide is paid for itself. Um, I'm probably giving you a little bit extra as well, to be honest, but, um, like that, that's the way I, that's the way I. I think about. Like I, I do think with, because it's just about what you do every single day.
Speaker 2:It's very easy to package it up and I one of the things I hear a lot from my clients or people who I'm speaking to on calls is like, well, why, why would people want to know this? And I think, because brokers are in it every single day, they forget how much they actually know and how like useful their insights are. And someone I mean I've never bought my first house. I know quite a lot about mortgages now because I speak to them every single day and I have to write the guides for people after they give me the information. But, um, like I know for like my girlfriend, for example, she would to have a conversation with a broker would be really, really like she'd learn so much.
Speaker 2:And if you can put that up, package that up into a little pdf guide and it's really easy for somebody to do it, because meeting a broker is a little bit scary for some people and it requires a lot of trust. They also know that the end of the day, that person wants to do your mortgage for you, so they're going to be trying to sell you something or sell a way of like working with you. So it requires a lot of trust. But if you can package all that into a pdf and then at the end of the pdf say, hey, if you want to see how we can apply this to your specific situation, booking your call, then that's a great way of getting leads, because you're giving the, you're serving first and you're giving before you're asking, um, which is, yeah, the best way in my opinion.
Speaker 1:So, um, yeah it, it definitely is. I think the thing the thing with it is is that if you're providing a guide and it backs up what you're sort of saying in terms of building that trust, but and doing it this way is that if you're providing a guide, people don't want to look stupid. People don't want to come to working with you and talking about their Google Ads. Some people won't be bothered about that. But from a client point of view, from a mortgage point of view and a client going to see a broker, some clients are okay with just, but generally speaking, they don't want to look stupid in front of the broker. They want to know that they've got some basic information about mortgages.
Speaker 1:So if they've read your guide, they are a first-time buyer or a home mover or somebody who's self-employed or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 1:If they read the guide, they're more likely to reach out to you because then they feel informed, they feel their trust with you and you're going to be talking about the stuff that's in that guide.
Speaker 1:Whereas if you read somebody's mortgage broker's guide and then reached out to another mortgage broker, you might feel like and you sort of say, oh, I've read Louis' guide on being a first-time buyer, some mortgage broker in a different part of the world or a competitor, you're instantly going to be getting the backup of that broker, because the broker's like, well, they don't know what they're talking about. So, whereas a client's more likely to reach out to you my point is, a client's far more likely to reach out to you because you provide the guide, because they feel that that trust is there, but they're going to be talking about they know that half the job is already done because you're going to be talking about things that they've already read in the guide. So you're just backing up the guide face to face. So that saves a lot of that human interaction that's needed very early in the relationship, because that relationship's already there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know what the other things that it does, which I think are, first of all, the reason why this is so important in the mortgage world is just because of how long the process can be for somebody to actually like go from inquiring to the broker. Actually being able to collect some money from them is such a long time, or not even just being able to collect some money from just being able to like proceed with getting an agreement in principle or something. Sometimes that gap can be quite a long time, depending on the case. And what this guide is really really good for like doing it this way is, obviously, if you're only speaking to the people when they're at that stage ready to come to you, then that's not where everybody is at, whereas if you start with the guide, you start providing them value and education when they're early on in the process, before they're ready to speak to you. But then you've got them and you've got their contact information and their details, and then you can start sending them emails every week in a newsletter or something, like one of my clients does now. He sends his list of emails. Uh, he sends a list. He sends an email every week to his list, um, just providing more value and education.
Speaker 2:And then maybe that person downloaded the guide because they were a first-time buyer, who's you know, still saving for a deposit. But once they've got that deposit, they've been getting emails from somebody for six months um helping them even more. They're going to all right, it's time for me to get a mortgage. Not really sure how, oh, but these emails I got every single week were really helpful. Let's see if that person can help me. And then they click there and that and that's how they that. That's the first reason why it's really really good, um, and then so it's. It's about, do you see what I mean?
Speaker 1:it's about like the, the length, yeah, yeah, yeah absolutely, um, no, that leads on something I was gonna talk about which I don't see enough brokers doing, which is, like one of your clients is and I saw that from, um, your social media posts and you just referred to it there about doing newsletters new left newsletters to clients on a consistent basis. Because if they're if the client seeing you on social media and you're coming up on their Facebook feed or whatever that social media platform is, and they've got your guides and they're going through the process of looking for the home first home or moving home and then also as well, they've got sort of like getting a weekly newsletter from you or a monthly newsletter from you as well. It just adds to the benefit and the trust that you're building with these individuals I think brokers can sometimes lose sight of. Not, it's not about that instant.
Speaker 1:I need a lead now and I want to leave now. We all need, like I understand, the lifeblood of brokers is leads, absolutely, but it's about nurturing these leads, not through hard sell and pitching. It's about things like leads, not through hard sell and pitching. It's about things like what you're talking about, which is newsletters, having that content on your social media but then having they get a consistent message from you and free stuff as well in terms of helping their education, and that's what it's all about is educating the clients.
Speaker 2:It's sort of like I, I think the I, the, the phrase people use is like digging your well before you're thirsty. That's like the, the way it's sort of.
Speaker 1:That's the way I always see it, I've never heard that one before. To be fair, sorry to interrupt, I've never heard that one before.
Speaker 2:That's a good one yeah, so that, but that's exactly how it like the point. The point of it is that your referrals are great, uh, but I think most brokers know or have had this, where if they slow down, then very quickly it's like well, what do I do? Where can I get leads from? Whereas if you have something like this online, it's the same way that content works as well is that you're posting every single day or a couple times a week. That's nurturing somebody.
Speaker 2:It's not like that person's going to see one of your posts and they're going to be like I need to get a mortgage now because they might not be in the position. It's like they're going to see a lot of your posts. Sometimes they might not even be thinking of a mortgage because they might not be ready yet, but because they keep seeing them then eventually, when they get to that point, you've built the trust in their mind. Big. It's a big long-term nurture, um, and that's the. That's the. It's so important in the mortgage world just because of how long the process takes, um.
Speaker 1:So yeah, exactly that okay and I think, like, surrounded by all this like and you you've talked about it on your social media and your linked profile about building trust, that is like the biggest thing for me.
Speaker 1:With a client Doesn't matter whether you're in a mortgage broker or whatever industry you're in, it's all about building trust with the client Then the more likely to to have the relationship with you in terms of.
Speaker 1:So, when you look at so, just moving on from where you're at with regards to your free guides and your newsletters, in terms of what you're doing with brokers, obviously you're educating them on this sort of stuff, but you're also in terms of their we talked before that we hit record you're working with brokers on landing pages and all around the google ad campaign ads that they're running. So what, first of all, do you want to explain what a landing page is for the brokers that don't understand the landing page and why they're important? Because there is still brokers, there are brokers out there that do not know what landing pages are. They just don't understand. And then just how that is important when you look at things like Google ads and the clients that you're working with in terms of lead generation, things like google ads and the clients that you're working with in terms of lead generation.
Speaker 2:So I'll do like a maybe. I'll just go through it step by like, step by step, from the customer's perspective.
Speaker 2:Um so, if you can, imagine if you can imagine that a customer's online and maybe they've searched for a mortgage or they're scrolling through facebook and they want to get a mortgage, um, they might see, um, a video of yours let's not talk about ads right now and how they work like they might just see a video of yours. Or they might click on your page and and see that you do mortgages. And then they might click because they're in, that they want, they're interested, because they need help with their mortgage. So, whether they found you on social media on Facebook, on Instagram or any, or TikTok or YouTube, any of those platforms or they found an ad on one of those platforms, they click on your page and typically most brokers have a standard website where it's got the home about us, contact us, and then it says mortgage remortgage, home movers or adverse credit or self-employed mortgages, whereas what a landing page is? A landing page is job, where that's the way I picture see those websites is it's sort of like a brochure for that mortgage broker's services. So it's kind of showing like here we are, here's what we do, whereas the point of a landing page is much more like a direct sales letter and the idea of it is that person who clicks on the page, it's to turn that visitor into a lead or a customer. That's the point of a landing page and the way it works, as opposed to it being a website with lots of different pages. It's just one page. You can't click to any other links on the page. You can't go to any other pages. It's just this one page and it's a very long page and it's in and the whole point of it is to sell the person onto your service, whether it's to book an appointment with you or whatever, or to pick up the phone and call you.
Speaker 2:Whatever the action you want to take is to sell them on doing that, and so typically, like the rules I say for a landing page are like it's one page, you have one.
Speaker 2:Well, when I say one button, you have multiple buttons throughout the page, but the button can only do one thing and all of the buttons say the exact same thing, like book a free call or book your consultation. And the landing page typically has a headline which is like a short phrase which is meant to catch attention and basically get the person to take the action you want them to take. So that might be like, for example, how to get the best mortgages for your circumstances, but your free consultation or something like that. That's like a headline, so they have a headline, sub headline and then a button and they have like a photo of the team or something like that, and then underneath that they have some reviews of other people you've helped and then a few points about your services and how you would help them. Um and that's, and then at the end of it they have more reviews and a final place they can click to book in a call. And that's how a landing page. The whole job is just to sell.
Speaker 1:The next step and that makes perfect, says that it's not. There's no distractions for the client in terms of visiting other pages on the website. It literally is that landing page dedicated to what whatever that subject matter is, that they've clicked on and it's just telling them. But I think that's where the top brokers sometimes don't have that consistency, where it's a case of, like you said there, the the button does exactly the same thing. So you've got multiple buttons on the same page, but it does the same thing. You've taken them to arranging a call or maybe just booking an appointment in or something like that. So that's clear with the the landing page, so does. How does that factor in with the google ads then, in terms of those sorts of things? Yeah, sure, well, I'll talk about that.
Speaker 2:I think, with the Google ads then, in terms of those sorts of things, yeah, sure, I'll talk about that. I think the other thing about landing pages as well is I mean, I don't have a website, so to speak, for my business, my business if you search Labs Media, there's not a website, even though I'm a digital marketer. It's just a landing page, and the whole point of a landing page is to get you to opt into a free video which is going to show you about the services that I do Like. It's just a landing page and I think for a lot of brokers, a landing page can. Unless you're you know, you're a big broker, you're trying to get onto SEO and things like this, which is different. We're not going to talk about that Then a landing page can definitely do the job. I don't know about the other stuff. So, yeah, um, but yeah, so, as far as like landing page, your concerns for ads, so I we've already talked about, like facebook, linkedin, posting on social media. That's like organic content, um, and the reason it's organic is because the people that it you're not paying for people to view your content. People are viewing your content for free. It's organic, but it takes a lot of time, so you have to post for a very long time. You have to slowly build an audience of people who are going to see you, and that's just posting it. And it does take a long time, but it's free.
Speaker 2:The other type of way of content is paid advertising content and that's like, rather than posting on Facebook or posting on YouTube, you can run ads on those platforms where you basically, rather than posting a video, you take a video and you say Facebook, I want you to show this video to people who are interested in mortgages. And then Facebook will say okay, happy to do that. For us to show it to a thousand people is a pound or something like that. That's called your CPM. It's cost per a thousand people is a pound or something like that. Like that, um, it, that's called your c cpm. There's cost per a thousand people seeing it. Um, the they'll, they'll. You have to just pay them to show your videos to people. Um, wow, that's, and so like, that's that's how ads basically work and you can run ads on all sorts of platforms.
Speaker 2:So facebook, uh, is a very popular one. Instagram is owned by Facebook, so you still run the ads out of Facebook, which can sometimes be a little bit confusing. And then there's Google Ads and there's YouTube Ads, and Google Ads are running ads. You're basically running ads for, when people search mortgage broker, you're paying Google to appear towards the top. You actually don't pay google until a person clicks on your page, which is pretty nice because that means they're a little bit interested to a degree, because they wouldn't click on your page otherwise. Um, and then with youtube ads, you're just showing video ads before a youtube video and you're basically paying for a certain type of audience to see your stuff.
Speaker 1:Right, and does that cost and spend differ depending on the platform that you're using? Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:And now we're going to get a bit deeper into the type of ways of paying, because there's a difference between boosting a post and paying for an ad, and I've spoken to quite a lot of brokers who boost posts on Facebook, so you might have seen it on. Have you ever seen it? On Instagram, there's a little button, a button that says boost this post and it shows it to more people and you pay maybe 10 quid and it shows it to more people and you pay maybe 10 quid on it shows it to more people and you think great. Um, then there's ads, which is it's almost like it's. It's almost like boosting a post. It's not I don't like to say that the digital marketing me does not like to say that but like basically you're paying to show that that thing, but you're going to be very specific on who you want to show it to and you get get a lot more control over who you show it to. So when you click boost post, facebook will just push that post to more people. They'll just push it to more people, whereas if you do an ad, you have to put your ads in and then you have to write a headline for the ad. You have to write a description. You can send people when they click it to go to a specific web page. You can say I only want to show this to people who are 35 and older, who have been looking for mortgages recently, who have kids.
Speaker 2:Um, the actual, sometimes some of those options aren't actually available for advisors because it's financial services. But, uh, you get. You get the idea. You can be incredibly specific on who you, who you target, um, and so I run ads. I don't boost posts because, to be honest, the only thing they do is is make more people see it. It doesn't convert into any results because, at the end of the day, when you're, when you're trying what do you want people to see your stuff or do you want people to actually become a customer like that? That's what I always think when I talk to brokers about boosting. It's like it's great boosting your posts if you want just more people to see it, but it doesn't necessarily mean the right people are going to see it and that those people are going to book appointments, whereas if you're doing ads, you're making sure the right people are seeing my stuff, um, and the people who are most likely to book in so technically.
Speaker 1:So when you look at something like fit, like say, the difference between boosting and ads is quite clear. I think one of the things that I talk a lot about particularly brokers when they're looking at leads is about local, about being very getting your brand out there as much as you possibly can. Don't worry about the sort of the, the county or the whole country, and that let's focus on your talk, your area, first of all, and then build out and build out from there which facebook ads is pretty, is very good at that, because you can set your area in terms of who's going to see what you, what your ads look what your ads and the ads that you're posting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, facebook, you can definitely target by location. You can on all ad platforms. On Google, you can only get your ads to show up for people who search on Google in certain areas. So like, for example, I'm based in Manchester. If I was running ads on Google and I was going to search for mortgage broker, it doesn't mean I have to search mortgage broker Manchester. It means if I just search mortgage broker and I am in Manchester, then the person who's running an ad for mortgage brokers and the location is Manchester, then I would see their ad. So you can definitely target on location.
Speaker 1:Okay. So in terms of how, if you're a mortgage broker first starting out and thinking I need to get some leads, where pointing them in the right direction, thinking you would start here with. In regards to paid, I'm not talking about organic stuff, I'm talking about right, I've got a budget to spend. I've got so many pounds per month that I've got to spend in terms of paying for some ads when would you be suggesting those people start to look?
Speaker 2:Well, my attitudes to this have changed quite a lot quite recently.
Speaker 2:Um, like very recently, but because I used to, I used to think like, oh, it's, it's as long as you've got the right strategies in place. Like, if you spend a little, then you'll get a little result and then you can scale from there, which is true to a degree. But, um, when I first was on the podcast, I used to say about um making, like you can start with a lower, low budget. I think I said about 500 pounds a month or something around that sort of level. And so, when it comes to like brokers who are starting out and are trying to get leads, I used to say like it more and more for people, the people with bigger budgets can just do a lot better than you. Basically, because the way ads works is a lot of it relies on data. So Google will see oh right, so we showed them this ad and 1 thousand people saw it. A hundred people became leads, 10 people became clients and google will go that's a great ad. Let's show that to more people, whereas if you're operating on a really small budget and you show it to 10 people, it's not got enough data to know. Okay, is this a good ad or not? Because it's not statistically significant. It's too small of a data size.
Speaker 2:Um, so what I say to brokers who are just starting out is, unless you are willing to put quite a lot of cash up up front, and because, also, it's a, it's a, it's a game of testing, you're not going to start your ads and they're going to be really successful.
Speaker 2:You might have to spend like a thousand pounds or a couple thousand pounds actually figuring out what the best sort of ads and web platforms and and offers are that you're going to put out there on your ads. You might have to do that, especially if you're doing it yourself as well, especially because you've never tried it before. Um, yeah, and so I would say like, unless you want to put that money in, um, and there are things that Google like. For example, google offer, if you spend 2,400 pounds, they give you an extra 2,400 pounds on top, which can be a great way to give you a sufficient amount of budget to start and start testing stuff. But that's what I would say to the smaller brokers who maybe can only afford like a couple hundred pounds a month or something like that I would say start, I would look at other channels before ads or save up and then save up quite a lot of money and then see how you can put that into your ads eventually, okay.
Speaker 1:So basically, save what you think about putting in, build it up, because if you're getting, if you're putting 2400 in and google are going to give you double that, give you that back as well in terms of um you spend. Then save up what for what. So then you're going to get the right data, rather than just sort of dipping your toe in yeah, not getting any data yeah, just just, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's the thing that you're not going to get the data. You're not going to get the data as the client spending the money and google's not going to give you that data because there's no data to give you based on your spend, because it's just not enough to I don't know. I know that there's people out there that will never compete with the big boys in terms of the tens and twenties hundred thousand pounds a month that they spend on google ads, but, like I say, it's just something you're going to have to commit, to invest in and just see it out, because to get the data, then you know that then they become more efficient as the more that you're spending I mean-hmm, mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:I mean so, like me, for example, because I do ads and I really I'm like my plan is to do ads for my own business.
Speaker 2:The second, that I get my service to a point where it can put up with the volume of ads.
Speaker 2:So that's the other thing as well. If you're a one-man band, maybe right now, if you're going to start on ads straight away, unless you're going to start on ads straight away, unless you're like quite quiet on lead, because or you or you don't want to start hiring brokers, because there are a couple brokers out there who quite like the idea of them just being them or having quite a small team, um, if you're going to start on ads, then that's a very that's a volume way of getting leads. Like it's going to be a lot of people, um, so there's that element of, well, it's, if you don't want to do it, but like for me, um, my, I'm going to run ads myself once I get my service to the point where it can keep up with that volume, um, that I'm going to get through to it. And when I, so when I start, I'm budgeting 100 pounds a day on ads, um, right, that's what I would. That's what I would budget for for an ad campaign. I'm not there yet, but that's that.
Speaker 1:That's when I would feel ready to start my ads at that, start doing that all 50 pounds a day, 50 to 100 pounds a day, okay okay and I put some context in terms from brokers point of view as well in terms of what are your goals and where you're looking to go with your own ads, I'd say in terms of campaign. So we've talked about the past. We've talked about your graduation, We've talked about a lot of things in terms of ads and the free guides and the newsletters. So we've done the sort of past and we've done the present. In terms of where you're at, what does the future look like for for Louis and Labs Media? Is anything sort of goals you're working towards or where you're looking to go with it?
Speaker 2:I've got a few things. First one is I'm actually rebranding. I'm going to be rebranding the business soon.
Speaker 2:Change the name, not going to say what it is just yet Not, not ready, not ready to show what it is just yet. I'm rebranding um, currently in the work, so that's that's one thing that's going to be cool. And then I'm going to have loads of t-shirts and things like that, just with my, so you'll see my company name everywhere. Um, but the, the, the goals that I'm working on at the moment is I've got like short-term goals and then I've got long-term goals, because the short term is I, by the end of the year, I'm hoping to get 10 funnels. So we've not talked about funnels, but they're the things that I build for people we can get another whole new episode on funnels.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll do a whole new episode.
Speaker 2:But a funnel is like a system to generate your leads online, basically using the things we've talked about. But essentially my goal is to get 10 of the funnels live by the end of the year for my clients. That's the short term goal. The idea of that is to then develop some after I've got a lot more cases of exam, of where we've got like this thing that consistently, after we've tested it for all these people consistently, we're finding the things that work over and over and over again. Uh, obviously, for for a lot of brokers it's going to be quite difficult for me to just build a funnel for all of them. So I'm trying to think, work out ways to make it either some marketing, sort of education or things like that, or, um, doing something, packaging up the the resources that we found into something that's that's uh easier to deliver, especially even to the smaller brokers who just want to learn about content or things like that.
Speaker 1:Um, so, yeah, that's the plan long term, but got to get lots of funnels live before that yeah, like I said, we can get you back onto the podcast and talk a lot more detail about funnels, uh, but we won't wait a year, but we'll definitely can get you back on and talk about but it's exciting times rebranding, doing something new and obviously working on funnels is something that brokers hear a lot about. We hear a lot, quite a bit about funnels, but actually what they mean will be good to get you onto the podcast and talk a little bit more about that and understand why you're looking to go down that route as well. So, um, louis, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for agreeing to come back onto the podcast. We'd like to.
Speaker 1:Won't leave it a year next time. We'd certainly now it's uh, um, in terms of direction and where you're going. But, yeah, I really appreciate your sort of your input in terms of the podcast and educating the brokers in terms of what they're doing. If, if I'm sat here now listening to this podcast, watching the podcast, thinking I want to reach out to louis, I want to start interested in working more with him, how would people do that?
Speaker 2:Best way is to just go to LinkedIn Louis Adkins on LinkedIn and then just send me a message. To be honest, that's the best way.
Speaker 1:Fine, and we'll make sure that your profiles are tagged in and so people can easily reach out to you. But yeah, louis, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for agreeing to come back on the podcast and we'll hopefully well, not hopefully we will get you back on very, very soon all right, yeah, I look forward to it.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me craig appreciate it thanks for that.
Speaker 1:Louis, thanks for being a great guest, returning guest onto the podcast. It was great to get you back on and just to talk about what you've been doing over the last 12 months and getting into detail about not only landing pages but guides and, um, yeah, the sort of newsletters and the follow-up and things like that getting clients and, obviously, in with all that, he's talking about health. So, yeah, thanks for being a great guest. A lot of hints and tips for mortgage brokers who are thinking about their digital marketing and their content and their process with regard to follow up on the leads and stuff like that. So, thanks very much.
Speaker 1:If you've got any thoughts, comments or feedback on this week's Mortgage Broker Broker podcast, please leave it in whichever platform you listen to or watch the podcast. And if you are considering becoming a self-employed mortgage broker or looking to start your own mortgage brand and business, or just looking to accelerate the growth of your existing mortgage broker business, please see my website, craigskeltoncouk. Schedule a discovery call or just get in touch and we can explore how I can help you achieve, and your business achieve, your goals for the coming year ahead. Thank you for listening and don't forget to run your own race.