Mortgage companies have received a new shot in the arm with the launch of an optimisation tool from Marketing Metrix, designed to tailor marketing activity to an individual postcode level.
Dubbed the Mortgage Optimisation Tool (MOT), the scheme allocates each postcode a set of scores – including sales activity, affordability, average price, the number of sales in an area and the change in affordability since 2007 and an intuitive geo-demographic coding system.
Marketing Metrix has also developed an MOT dashboard app to allow an interactive overview per postcode.
Most mortgage lenders use generic ‘catch-all’ mortgage advertising, which ignores discrete segments. First time buyers are very different from empty nesters wishing to downsize or second term buyers stuck in negative equity.
The system allows marketers to target specific groups with pertinent mortgage related messages. It can also be appended to existing customer databases or used to target prospects through cold emails, direct mail and online PPC.
Earlier this week, the Council of Mortgage Lenders said house-buying activity was “robust” in the last three months of 2012, and claimed that recent household surveys indicated that raising a deposit and getting a mortgage “are beginning to loom less large” as obstacles to buying a home.
Its prediction coincided with Lloyds Banking Group’s announcement that it was committing £6.5bn towards helping first-time buyers get on the housing ladder by the end of 2013 – the largest such sum so far set aside by a lender.
