Yext Introduces Comprehensive Digital Knowledge Management Solution for Mortgage Industry

Yext, the digital knowledge management provider, unveiled *Yext for Mortgage*to serve the consumer lending industry today. Yext for Mortgage puts loan officers in control of the facts about them in all the places that clients search for lending services. This control helps mortgage businesses win the trust of their clients through personalized, high-quality information and authentic reviews.

A combination of market forces, demographics, and new technology is creating urgency for mortgage businesses to hone their digital strategies. With rising interest rates and lower inventory tightening access to the housing market, mortgage businesses find themselves competing for a smaller group of homebuyers than in years past. At the same time, the digital-native Millennial generation represents a larger share of the market every day. In January 2017, Millennials accounted for 84% of closed home loans. Following the lead of its clients, the mortgage business is becoming more digital than ever before. In order to compete for leads online, businesses need to take control of their digital brands.

"The mortgage industry is experiencing large-scale disruption as homebuyers use in-depth online information and reviews to find lenders and decide on a provider to trust," said Marc Ferrentino, Chief Strategy Officer of Yext. "In the end, consumer lending is still done person-to-person, so clients are looking for personalized and accurate information on the individual loan officer they are considering working with. Yext for Mortgage enables loan officers to provide clients with the full, rich information they need to choose the lender that best meets their needs."

Mortgage businesses have struggled to control their online presence across a fragmented digital ecosystem. As a decentralized, entrepreneurial industry of individual lending professionals, many mortgage businesses have no central source for their loan officers' business hours, contact information, credentials, and other facts displayed online. The result is clients having considerable difficulty finding reliable information–which means mortgage businesses are missing out on potential clients.

A Yext study of 5,849 loan officers' online presence found significant errors across the industry, with 64% of business listings containing incorrect addresses, 42% having phone number errors, and 46% having errors in business names. 9.25% of loan officer listings were duplicates, and 57.8% of loan officers studied had no online presence at all.

"Consumer lending is a very personal business built on trust, and we partnered with Yext to make sure we were providing the same high level of service when clients looked for us online as when they walked into one of our branches," said Emilia Anderson, VP, Digital Marketing at IBERIABANK. "Control of our digital knowledge was decentralized, so we didn't have a way to help when a loan officer or branch would call and say 'My phone number is wrong on Apple Maps,' or 'Why aren't I showing up in search?' Controlling our information from the Yext Knowledge Engine is a game-changer in ensuring accuracy and generating leads so we can help even more people become homeowners."

Yext offers the following products to mortgage professionals:

1. The Yext Knowledge Engine: A central dashboard to house and update all relevant public information about a firm's professionals, practices, and offices.

2. Listings: Allows businesses to display correct information from name, address, and phone number to education, experience, specialties, and more across leading digital services in the PowerListings® Network, from Google, Yelp, and Facebook to business directories like the Yellow Pages.

3. Pages: Tailored pages for individual loan offices, branches, and mortgage professionals on corporate-owned websites

4. Reviews: Generation and syndication of client reviews across reviews sites, enabling mortgage professionals to display their star ratings in search results.

Reviews are a particular challenge in the mortgage industry, as, while many mortgage businesses have online reviews on their own websites, most do not leverage them effectively across the digital ecosystem. With younger consumers consulting online review sources like Yelp before even contacting a potential financing provider, cultivating reviews is key to getting found.

"Mortgage brands need their digital knowledge to be front-and-center everywhere their clients look for them so they can be found in the moment that a homebuyer is seeking financing," Ferrentino added. "Yext for Mortgage takes what was a very manual process and makes it easy and real-time, all from one platform."

Learn more about Yext for Mortgage.