Faced with much slower growth, STRATMOR Group believes that marketing skills will become increasingly more important to competitive success. No longer will lenders be able to make good profits by simply riding the rising tide of industry growth, but will need to win share from competitors. To help our clients meet this challenge, STRATMOR Group has added a Marketing Strategy and Execution practice to its consulting services. This new practice is headed by Garth Graham, one of the industry's most recognized and respected experts in direct-to-consumer marketing and e-commerce.

Marketing Strategy involves two components. The first is lead generation --- the various methods and techniques by which a lender drives consumers to their mortgage origination channels, whether retail, consumer-direct or internet. Included among the many alternative lead generation methods and techniques available are multimedia advertising, mail or email-based direct marketing campaigns, the purchase of leads from "lead aggregators," capturing of leads from internet search engines, generating leads from a lender's own website and the use of so-called "trigger leads" ---- leads derived from credit inquiries made by mortgage lender at the major credit bureaus.

A marketing strategy consists of a combination of lead generation techniques matched to specific channels and customer segments. Thus, for example, the lead generation techniques that may be best for customer retention via the direct-to-consumer channel will be very different than the techniques that will work best for new customer acquisition via retail branches.

The second component is lead management --- the processes involved in contacting, qualifying and converting leads into customers. Lead management processes and systems facilitate consistent communication with leads through a variety of marketing techniques, increasing conversion and driving higher Revenue Per Marketing Dollar Spent (RPMDS).

Overall marketing success will be based on both the quality of leads and the sales processes to convert leads to applications. But superior execution of marketing strategy is also a key factor for success. Execution involves a variety of considerations including the development of process flows and business rules, sales training, effective use of technology and smart use of third-party vendors, e.g., direct mail vendors, to perform various functions within the overall marketing and sales processes.

STRATMOR Group's Marketing Strategy and Execution consulting practice is committed to helping clients achieve marketing and sales success. We understand that to accomplish this, our services must bridge the conceptual design of marketing strategy with the practical, in-the-trenches steps involved in executing strategy.