Tech Trends: Mortgage Marketing Automation Space Heats Up

Even though it’s unclear how quickly mortgage interest rates will fall this year, mortgage lenders are already preparing to capture the new business that falling rates will surely bring. For many, that means tweaking or investing in new marketing automation systems.

As a result, we’re seeing more activity from companies operating in this space. A new marketing automation suite has been released by a subsidiary of a major title insurance company and the founder of another firm has published a book on CRM software.

Volly, a subsidiary of Williston Financial Group (WFG), a title insurance and real estate settlement services provider, has launched a marketing automation suite designed to support the partnership between loan officers and real estate professionals. Volly is a provider of SaaS-based fintech and creative marketing services. 

WFG acquired Volly through its marketing and technology subsidiary MyHome in late 2023. The company, which claims one-third of the nation’s top 30 banks as customers, was founded in 2004.

“As I’ve talked to customers over the past 18 months, they’re all trying to find new business,” said Katharine Loveland, Volly Senior Vice-President and General Manager. “They’re asking, ‘How do I make those connections with my Realtor partners and other centers of influence?’”

The Volly Network Portal is a fully customizable web-to-print store with co-marketing capabilities. Loveland says the new program supports collaboration between loan officers and real estate professionals by providing direct access to Volly’s network portal and comprehensive marketing services

The Volly Portal includes a CRM contact and campaign management hub so lenders can manage leads and deploy automated marketing journeys for customers and partners. Volly also offers a mortgage point-of-sale (POS) platform, custom website solutions, and the Volly Marketing Portal, a storefront loan officers and mortgage brokers can use to self-provision pre-approved marketing workflows, collateral, and closing gifts on demand.

By adding the ability for the real estate agent to enter the portal, the LO’s partners can now update their logos and make other changes to the documents. The result is a robust library of marketing material that can be used to boost the business of both partners, all accessible in a single location.

In other CRM news, Usherpa co-founder Dan Harrington has published a new book entitled, “Authentic Intelligence: The Other AI.”

“Even in these days of artificial intelligence/machine learning, businesses need human beings with experience and ‘Authentic Intelligence’ to make technology great, even loveable,” Harrington says. “You don’t have to look far to find software that looks like it was developed without any real understanding of how users would interact with it. Is it any wonder that so many technology initiatives fail?”

Harrington was a Mortgage Loan Officer in the early 1990s who needed a better solution for winning new, repeat, and referral business. His answer was to develop the Usherpa Smart CRM with his co-founder and wife Chris Harrington, who currently serves the company as CEO.

According to Harrington, “Without a good CRM and sales management supported by good technology, a company won’t reach its real potential. Thinking critically about this important technology is how leading businesses set themselves apart from the rest.”

In his new book, Harrington shares the proven strategies that have transformed thousands of salespeople into top performers. In this book, readers will discover how technology is used not to replace human relationships, but to enhance them.

He points to five critical factors that must be considered by leadership before implementing any new sales automation system. Together, he says they will determine the success or failure of technology initiatives.

• How does management find and eliminate complexity?
• How does management know if they have fallen victim to shiny object syndrome, SOS?
• How does management determine when technology is really easy enough to get used?
• How does management ensure the new technology gets adopted?
• How does management get the lower 80% of the sales team performing more like the top 20%?