Get in the MYX: Data Strategies for Direct Marketers

Credit Union Marketing Strategies: Prospect Your Own Membership

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In an article written by reporter Matt Blumenfeld at Credit Union Journal, Fittingly, Best Lenders ID Prospects at Home, the author explores best practices for increasing mortgage loan origination through a series of interviews with executives at leading credit unions.

His premise was that mortgage loans are worth working for, as they are the most profitable product within a credit union's arsenal. Not only that, they are also a powerful relationship-building tool, as studies have shown that members holding mortgages use more services than non-mortgage members. The gist of the article was that in lieu of broad-based mortgage acquisition marketing, credit unions should focus on the "low-hanging fruit" that exists within their membership. The thought being that the battle is already half-won...they already have established some level of trust with their members...earning them the right to handle one of the most emotional transactions of their members' lives.

While the article was on point, and identified an undeniable opportunity for growth, I think it fell short of providing its readers with a comprehensive overview of the strategies that can be employed to increase originations within a credit union's membership.

In addition to the incentive initiatives mentioned by the author (both in the form of member discounts and employee referral bonuses), I would also encourage credit unions to consider the following highly targeted and strategic cross-selling strategies:

#1: Mine Your Membership for Qualified, Profitable Prospects. Let's face it, not all of your members will qualify for one of the mortgage loans in your portfolio. Not only that, I am guessing some mortgage loans are more profitable than others, either from a revenue or cost perspective, so wouldn't it be in your best interest to target members who qualify for your most profitable loans? Datamyx leverages a tri-bureau prescreen marketing platform, and can append a wide variety of credit-based attributes to your membership file that will help you zero-in on these profitable target segments.

#2: Market to Members in the Market. Leveraging the same tri-bureau prescreen credit information listed above, we can also identify members who have applied for a mortgage loan within the last 24 hours...giving you the unparalleled opportunity to deliver your product offering at the very moment your members are making a purchase decision.

Datamyx capabilities are not limited to helping credit unions identify cross-selling opportunities for mortgage loans . We can also identify ideal prospects for auto loans (see related post here), credit cards, personal lines of credit, and more.

All of these capabilities fall under our Loyalty Assurance product. You can learn more about this revolutionary cross-sell and retention solution by reading the following posts:

• Loyalty Assurance: Cross-Selling to Increase Lifetime Value
• How Many of YOUR Customers are Shopping with a Competitor?

Of course, you can always call us directly at 888-707-7600! One of our experienced marketing professionals would be happy to demonstrate how you can increase the lifetime value of your membership by leveraging this proven credit union marketing strategy.While the article was on point, and identified an undeniable opportunity for growth, I think it fell short of providing its readers with a comprehensive overview of the strategies that can be employed to increase originations within a credit union's membership.

The Trifecta of a Tri-Bureau Prescreen Marketing Solution

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I'm going to let you in on a little-known fact about prescreen credit marketing. Not all credit bureaus are created equal. What does that mean? It means that if you rely on only one bureau for your prescreen direct marketing lists, you are leaving deals on the table.

Each of the bureaus has a geographic bias...meaning that they have better coverage in certain areas over others. When you leverage a single bureau exclusively, you are at risk of missing activity in that bureau's weaker coverage areas. The generally accepted geographic bias for each of the bureaus is listed below:

• Equitrac - East Coast
• Trans Union - Midwest
• Experian - West Coast

When you partner with a data provider that gives you access to prescreen credit data from all three bureaus, you can increase your marketing universe significantly.

To my knowledge, Datamyx is the only data provider that offers financial services marketers access to credit information from all three bureaus. To demonstrate the significance of adding multiple bureaus to a prescreen campaign, Datamyx did an internal analysis on mortgage holders with credit scores ranging from 580 to 619. At the national level, we determined that marketers can achieve a 42% increase in the number of prospects when a second bureau is added, and a 72% increase when all three bureaus are leveraged.

While the effort is merited, managing databases from multiple bureaus is a daunting task...one that requires a significant investment in technology. In an effort to simplify the process for marketers, Datamyx consolidated all three of the bureaus' databases into our online count and fulfillment platform, Intelidata Express. This innovative technology allows marketers to prioritize the order in which each bureau's information is pulled and automatically removes duplicate files, ensuring the delivery of the maximum number of unique prospects with a given set of credit criteria within a given geography.

If you are leveraging credit inquiries (triggers) as part of your marketing strategy, a tri-bureau solution will help you gain access to incremental prospects by capturing activity that is sometimes only reported to a single bureau. As trigger leads are typically in shorter supply, this increase can play a significant role in increasing the effectiveness of your acquisition and/or retention campaigns.

Learn more about our tri-bureau prescreen marketing solution by downloading our FREE White Paper entitled: "Universe Expansion Strategies...How to Leverage Multiple Bureau Prescreen Files to Maximize your Universe".

How Many of Your Members are Shopping with a Competitor?

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Imagine a program that could alert you when one of your customers was about to jump ship and buy a competitive product. Or give you a heads-up when they were shopping for a product you offer but do not currently buy from you.

Now imagine that this same program could deliver this kind of intel in as little as 24 hours of a customer coming into the market for your products and services.

Curious to know which of your customers are shopping with the competition?

We can tell you. Leveraging credit inquiries from all three bureaus, our Loyalty Assurance program identifies those customers who have applied for a mortgage, auto loan, credit card or installment loan in the past 24 hours....giving you the unparalleled opportunity to improve retention and lifetime value by ensuring your products and services are being considered at the very moment a purchase decision is being made.

As an added benefit, our Loyalty Assurance program will also prescreen these active shoppers for creditworthiness using your specific qualification guidelines, allowing you to optimize offers and maximize marketing efficiency.

How valuable would these actionable insights be to your organization?

Let us show you. Take advantage of our FREE Loyalty Assurance Opportunity Analysis. Leveraging our exclusive tri-bureau prescreen marketing platform, we will review inquiry activity within your customer base over the past 30 days to provide you with the following insights:

1. Inquiry Type Distribution: We can help you gain visibility into a wide variety of financial services activity. Specifically, we can outline how many of your customers actively sought credit for a mortgage, auto loan, credit card or installment loan in the past 30 days.
2. Qualification Waterfall: We will apply your specific qualification criteria to those customers with inquiry activity to determine how many of them would meet your guidelines.
3. State Distribution: This view can act as a powerful planning tool when overlaid with your branch locations. We will show you how many inquiries fell into each of your marketing geographies.
4. Credit Bureau Distribution:This analysis demonstrates the power of our tri-bureau prescreen marketing platform by outlining the incremental matches you will gain when leveraging all three credit bureaus as part of the Loyalty Assurance program.

Sign-up for your FREE LOYALTY ASSURANCE OPPORTUNITY ANALYSIS today! Let us demonstrate the value of this proven customer retention and cross-sell solution for your organization!

Tranzact Information Services is now Datamyx

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Tranzact Information Services has rebranded its identity to “Datamyx”.  However, it’s not just a new name and new look.  With it comes new energy to provide an enhanced ability to meet the marketing demands of our customers in both the online and offline space.  “Datamyx” is a name that encapsulates the value we can provide to marketing programs through our unique blend of Data, Technology, and Analytics.   This unique “myx” is designed to offer real solutions to your marketing needs ultimately leading to real results that are measureable.

Data has always been and will continue to be the driver of our success.  In addition to the very unique relationship we enjoy with all 3 credit bureaus, our quality is second to none in the industry.  It is these data assets that fuel successful campaigns for many of the top financial services marketers and has been the backbone of our organization since its inception.

Intelidata Express is the most sophisticated system to get access to over 220 million consumers within minutes.  Marketers enjoy not only the lightning quick access, but the platform is also designed to support cross-sell and retention programs so that lenders can focus on maintaining and growing their existing customers.

Our hidden gem is our vertical expertise in tandem with deep modeling and analytics expertise.   Having all elements in place (data, technology, and analytics) combined with the brainpower of our specialized team has enabled us to maximize ROI for our customers as part of a strategic, comprehensive, approach that has launched us to the forefront of Risk-Based Marketing companies.  These capabilities combined. allow us to provide these services at a fraction of the costs of standalone analytic providers.

Web-based marketers can experience the power of a relationship with Datamyx.  Real-time access to our data assets can offer countless opportunities to strengthen web lead generation and increased web lead conversion.  Identifying prospects that are most likely to convert and then gaining the intelligence to refine campaigns and scale business is our specialty. 

Financial marketing has evolved dramatically over the past 5 years and Datamyx is uniquely positioned to provide cutting-edge and technologically-advanced information products and services to optimize customer acquisition, retention and cross-sell programs.

Find More Veterans Eligible for VA Mortgages With New List Source

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There is an old saying, "Do well by doing good."  Helping a veteran refinance into a lower cost mortgage or obtain a first-time mortgage truly benefits individuals who have served our country.  Plus mortgage marketers can now more efficiently and profitably reach this desirable segment using new lists and lead sources from Tranzact Information Services (TIS).

Months of Testing Preceded the December Rollout

Long known for providing data solutions for mortgage marketing, TIS recently added information on more than 9 million veterans to our database.  This new data greatly expands the universe of prospects for VA mortgages.  Before adding the information numerous tests were conducted with large mortgage marketers and mailers to test the accuracy of the data and results were favorable.  To keep the offering fresh, the database will be updated every other month.  The veteran data is multi-sourced but comes primarily from surveys.

List and Lead Options that Fit Your Processes

TIS maintains one of the largest consumer and mortgage databases that also has information from all three credit bureaus.  Clients create marketing lists in one pass using credit, mortgage and demographic criteria, such as the presence of a veteran in the household.  More and more marketers are also using the data to score inbound leads from websites or call centers in real time, to appropriately route the lead and offer the most logical mortgage product.  

The biggest question for most marketers is which type of credit data should be used along with the veteran data to best fit your organization's marketing goals, budget and compliance process.

1. Prescreen lists - These lists are based on actual credit information from one or more of the major credit bureaus.  These highly accurate lists require a firm offer of credit, often called a pre-approval.  Another benefit of these lists is that the current mortgage balance and payment can be used to identify the best prospect for a refinance to a lower rate.
2. Prescreen daily triggers (leads) - Every business day the credit bureaus provide a list of consumers that have applied for a mortgage. These consumers have started the mortgage application process, which shows commitment.  Triggers are available for the current customers of banks, credit union and mortgage companies or non-customers. Mortgage triggers can include an indication on the data output that the prospect is a veteran, so the loan officer working the lead knows a VA mortgage is an option.
3. Estimated credit lists - TIS' proprietary proxy credit score, called Risk Insight, can be used to estimate the credit score of an individual or household.  This score can be combined with veterans and mortgage information to create a highly targeted list, without the requirement of a firm offer of credit.  The creative for mailers or phone scripts does not have to be approved in the credit bureau compliance process, which allows for fast creative changes and speed to market.
4. Lead scoring - TIS can append information to an incoming lead, including presence of a veteran in the household.  For financial organizations that rely heavily on purchased leads from a variety of sources, the quality improvement and insight from scoring makes lead follow up more efficient.

Credit Triggers...The Surest Shot For Mortgage Marketers

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There's a lot of competition out there. Mortgage marketers are firing off direct mail, email, keyword buys and outbound calls to acquire new customers during this refi boom.  Everyone wants to make the most of the low rates.  But how can marketers target with pinpoint accuracy...the consumers most likely to close?  The best prospect is a consumer who has already made the decision to buy or refi, and has started the application process.

How Can I Find a Consumer Who Applied for A Mortgage With My Competition?

All three credit bureaus offer "triggers" which are "lists" of consumers who applied for a mortgage the previous day or week with any lender.  (The schedule varies depending on the bureau.) Trigger prospects can be downloaded daily from Tranzact Information Services, or we can automate the feed.  These trigger consumers are such hot prospects that marketers should contact them within seven days, by mail, email or phone.

How Can I Get the Most Triggers?

When customers are in the early stages of a mortgage application, the credit inquiry often goes to just one of the three major credit bureaus.  So the best way to ensure that you get all the triggers is with a tri-bureau solution.  Every business day, Tranzact Information Services (TIS) aggregates the triggers from multiple bureaus and provides them to clients for use in approved marketing programs. Only TIS has the files of all three credit bureaus and can perform this process in one pass.

Are There "Rules" for Using Credit Triggers?

It's not the Wild West.  Credit Triggers are governed by FCRA regulations. That means a firm offer of credit must be made to consumers if their credit is accessed for marketing purposes.  These firm offers, typically called "prescreens" or "pre-approvals" can be made based on your mortgage underwriting guidelines. So you don't pay for names that will never be approved by your lenders.  We can set up trigger programs for FHA, VA or HARP based on credit criteria plus information about an existing mortgage such as LTV.  One of the benefits of working with Tranzact Information Services is that we walk marketers throught the data selection and onboarding process with all the bureaus. In addition, we provide suggestions on what script, mailer or email will meet the bureau guidelines. 

Don't Guess. Accurately Project Your Incremental Lift.

Sophisticated mortgage marketers can use A/B testing to analyze results from marketing programs using trigger data vs. other types of data segmentation. You can learn more about incremental lift by downloading our November 2011 white paper, Universe Expansion.

Give Us A Call for the Counts.

Or skip reading the white paper and just call Tranzact Information Services' direct marketing professionals to run counts for you in real-time.  Call us at 800-488-9113 or complete a contact us form.  During a live online meeting, our professionals will show you just how easy it is to use trigger data and make the most of the refi boom.

Use Auto Lease Maturity Data to Conquest Other OEM's Owners

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A consumer with a lease ending in the next twelve months should be one of the most sought-after prospects for OEMs, regional auto marketing divisions, and dealership groups.  Yet few auto marketers seem to use lease maturity lists at all, much less in well-planned and measured conquest programs.  In the next 24 months more than 1.4 million consumers will have maturing leases.  Segmented by a credit score of 720 or higher, you may be missing out on 360,133 possible customers with maturing leases in 2012 and 537,990 in 2013.  (Tranzact Information Services maintains credit information from all three bureaus and can provide counts for consumers by many different credit criteria, including near prime and subprime.) 

The time is right for conquest programs.  Share is shifting, according to motorintelligence.com (a division of Autodata) and reported in the WSJ data center.  In October, year-over-year sales, Chrysler was up 27%, Toyota was down 7.9%, Nissan was up 18%, Hyundai was up 22.8% and Honda was down .5%.  That is just one month in a year of significant changes, caused by vehicle shortages, hot new models, a strong yen, and the fluctuating financial situation of consumers.  Loyalties and buying patterns are in flux, so now is the time to conquest.

What data makes for the BEST Lease Maturity list?

The best lists are created from multiple sources. Tranzact Information Services maintains all the sources mentioned below, in house.

From the credit bureau files

• Lease maturity date
• Estimated monthly payment amount
• Credit score, including special scores based only on auto payments

From third-party files

• Make/model of current vehicle
• Demographics of the lessee and household (e.g. presence of children)
• Estimated discretionary spending

(Not all data may be available on all consumer records. When using lists sourced from credit files, a firm offer of credit must be made.)

Important steps that lead to conquest

The right data is the foundation of a conquest program, but it is just one part of a well-planned marketing project. Keep these tips in mind:

1. Timing - if you wait until three to six months before maturity to start talking to lease customers, you may be too late to reach many consumers.  Some dealers are calling customers six months prior to maturity and pulling them forward.  
2. Offer - Consider making a two-part offer in the same mailer or email.  For example, offer a reward just for taking a test drive (such as a $25 restaurant gift card) as well as $500 or more in discounts or a down payment incentive.  Of course, the marketing materials must also include a firm offer of credit, such as pre-approval.
3. Repeat - Consumers often spend months considering vehicle purchases and search many web sites.  Don't lose touch through this long process.  Consider multiple touch points and marketing activities, such as mail/mail, mail/call or email/mail/email.

Don't let a conquest program become a frustrating quest

At TranzactIS, we focus on making complex programs easy to administer and more effective. We can pull maturing lease customer names from all three credit bureaus and suppress your customer names - in one pass.  No need for multiple vendors.  Call 800-488-9113 or complete the contact us form to speak to one of our data professionals and get counts for your markets.

Also sign up for our free blog and recieve future postings about making prescreen offers by email, targeting for auto refi offers and a variety of "best practices" of interest to financial marketers.  Recent blogs of interest include: Credit Proxy vs. Prescreen Data: Rules for Auto Marketers.

Be Smart about HARP: Guidelines for Marketers to Maximize ROI

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"Start with the end in mind."  That quote serves as a guideline for good strategy, efficient time management and in this case...strong ROI.  In today's blog, we'll provide marketing tips to help you originate loans under new Home Affordable Refinance Program, better known as HARP, which was announced on November 15, 2011.  The key is to start by targeting HARP prospects that will sail through underwriting and close quickly.

The Starting Point - Managing Response

Many consumers who are underwater on mortgages are eager to refinance but have not been able to - even under the prior HARP program.  Direct mail and other marketing programs for the new HARP program should have very high responses.

The prospect of strong response may elicit groans from loan officers and production teams.  Those complaints are because they experienced high fallout or non-qualification of prospects from the previous program, primarily because of LTV (loan to value) or credit issues.  The new program virtually removes the LTV limitation, so the biggest obstacle is gone.  Plus, Tranzact Information Services (TIS) has a simple solution that identifies consumers that are highly likely to qualify under the new guidelines:

For HARP prospects, look for:

1. Very good mortgage payment history.

2. Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac must be the investor in the current loan.

3. The current mortgage must have been originated on or before June 1, 2009.

4. A consumer with a credit score that meets your lenders' guidelines.

(Check the Fannie Mae announcement from 11.15.11 for full details.)

Tranzact Information Services (TIS) offers acquisition lists, data, appends and real-time scoring for all these criteria.  Plus the data can be pulled in one pass from all three credit bureaus from TIS' Intelidata Express platform, to maximize the available universe.

Try Lead Screening and Scoring to Identify the Quality Leads

Consumers are already running searches on the Internet to learn more about the program.  While some mortgage companies may market using only keywords, spending $10 or more per lead, many respondents will be unqualified.  That's true even with leads purchased from outside sources.  The key is to take advantage of the media coverage in the next few months to create urgency, yet identify and target only those able to truly qualify.  Let other companies sort through inbound response and spend valuable loan officer time speaking to prospects that will not qualify.  Focus on outbound mail, outbound telemarketing, or even a component servicer armed with a list of qualified prospects.  If you do rely on inbound leads, use a professional lead screening company, such as Tranzact Information Services to score the lead for the "best eligibility" for HARP or other mortgage products, and route the lead to the appropriate loan officer.

Where Can You Find the Most Qualified Prospects and Instantly Run Counts?

Tranzact Information Services, with 15+ years of experience providing mortgage data for marketing, has solutions to identify the best HARP prospects using our Intelidata Express platform. 

Get FREE Counts Today

Simply call 800-488-9113 or complete the "contact us" form and we'll set up a demo of Intelidata Express and run counts for your market area, for HARP or any mortgage program.

The End...At Last

If you "start with the end in mind" you will see that good strategy and smart targeting can kick off an efficient and profitable loan origination process.  Before you go...consider signing up for our free blog, which covers best practices in financial services marketing.

Reach More HARP Refi Prospects withTri-Bureau Prescreen Credit Data

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Guidelines for the enhanced HARP program are still being finalized, but many mortgage marketers are ALREADY checking prospect universes and planning marketing programs.  You can identify the largest universe of qualified prospects by relying on Tranzact Information Services (TIS) data and our Intelidata Express Platform to pull it quickly.  We help mortgage marketers to quickly and easily take advantage of the hottest opportunity for December 2011 and perhaps all of 2012.

TIS' unique offerings for HARP refinance programs include:

1. Credit data from all three bureaus - Since TIS maintains prescreen credit data in-house from all three bureaus, you will see the most prospects and can select only those most likely to meet HARP and your underwriting guidelines.

2. Accurate mortgage data - Using the TIS platform you can combine credit data and mortgage information to pull lists based on the LTV that your financial institution or lender will approve.  TIS has one of the most accurate LTV models in the country.

3. Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac Lender Model - TIS created a proprietary lender ranking process to identify homeowners with a high likelihood of having a Fannie or Freddie mortgage.

4. Intelidata Express platform access 24/7 - Marketers can run counts and scenarios, as well as download data any time.  Or set up automated subscriptions to pull data every day, week or month.  TIS' Intelidata Express platform makes it easy to provide data to marketing agencies, mailers, call centers, or most important of all - your loan officers.

Leveraging our extensive mortgage files, pre-screen credit data and lender models Tranzact Information Services can identify more than 5 million HARP refinance candidates nationwide.  Due to their lack of refinance options in the past, these candidates are some of the most responsive mortgage prospects available.

Feel free to contact your Tranzact Information Services Client Manager for more information.  If you are new to TIS, we invite you to call us at 1-800-488-9113 for free counts and a demonstration.  Or contact us via the web. 

We also encourage you to sign up for our blog to keep up with the latest in mortgage marketing, including HARP, Veterans and purchase programs.  For financial services marketers that also offer auto loans and credit cards, this blog will be featuring ideas for 2012 programs in the coming weeks.

DMA 2011 Reflections: Balancing Online & Offline Lead Generation

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The Tranzact Information Services (TIS) team just returned from the 2011 Direct Marketing Association Conference in Boston. Billed as the Global Event for Real-Time Marketers, the show's presentations focused on the integration of all types of direct response channels, from mobile to direct mail.

That leads us to today's topic, which follows up on many of the discussions started at the DMA.

1. What is the smartest way to balance online and offline lead generation?

2. How can marketers in different industries use traditional, offline targeting techniques to improve their online targeting and lead scoring?

Measurement

The key to smart balance is measurement and testing.  Track not only customer acquisition costs but lifetime value by all channels, offline and online.  It is not surprising that companies that excel at tracking, such as insurance organizations, are believers in a variety of customer acquisition channels.  At the DMA we heard that direct mail channels are continuing to perform well and in many cases outperform online channels.

Strategy

Another notion of how to balance is whether your company wants to only reach active shoppers (often online) or to reach out to prospects that have not thought about your services but are highly qualified and look like best customers.  Large Mortgage lenders have robust PPC spend and purchase online leads. So they reach active shoppers. But they still mail heavily to highly-targeted lists based on credit score and property value.  A balance of both online and offline channels keeps a steady flow of qualified applicants in the Mortgage pipeline.

Real-time Lead Scoring

Many marketers don't know that they can score online leads, using the same data attributes they use to target customers in other channels. This scoring can help in offer optimization and sales treatment.  For example, automotive marketers can score their online leads with information such as: Risk Insight (TIS' estimate of actual credit score), Income Insight, current make/model, presence of children, age and other demographic attributes.  These data elements, which are used for highly-targeted mail and email programs, can now be used in real-time for online lead scoring. 

Lead Scoring: Standard or Custom?

Some organizations are relying on a standard package of lead scoring.  Tranzact Information Services has created lead scoring programs for specific verticals including: Education, Mortgage, Financial Services, Auto, Insurance, and Home Services (warranties, alarms, etc.)  These pre-configured packages provide lead scoring using that data elements and models that traditionally perform well offline.  We also help clients compare offline and online customers and then recommend scoring and workflow that is different, and then test performance.  Our insurance and financial services clients are leading the way with customization and testing.

Change is the Only Constant

If you are constantly balancing online and offline lead generation programs, it's important to have a data and analytics partner that can support both and measure results. 

If you'd like to talk to one of our lead generation specialists about offline compared to online, simply call us at 800-488-9113.  Plus we welcome your postings about the DMA show and the latest ideas in customer acquisition and targeting.