The Ultimate Organic Lead Strategy for UK Mortgage Brokers

How to Generate Leads Organically Without Paying for Ads - podcast transcription

So this topic is, um, how to generate organic leads without paying for ads as a mortgage broker. So what I wanna do with this is, this is gonna be a transcription of me just kind of spitballing ideas, telling you. I'm gonna go for seven questions here, which are the most asked questions about this topic.

I'm gonna riff on these for about 20 minutes, and then, um, I want you to then put this into a blog for me — a long-form, very deep blog, which will then turn into a really deep script.

1. What does organic lead generation actually mean for mortgage brokers and how is it different from just posting content?

So, organic lead generation, um, if we think about organic lead generation, actually means that a mortgage broker is, um, looking at trying to generate both what we, what I would call demand and brand leads. So they're trying to generate leads either through demand — so people finding them and finding them at the time when they need them.

So, you know, estate agents, things like that — or brand leads, which is people who are not quite ready yet, which is, I would know, is passive prospects potentially. So people who are not quite ready yet but they see you and they start to watch you and they fall in love with you, your personality, what it is you do, so that when they need a mortgage, they're gonna come back to you.

That is organic lead generation. And it is effectively generating leads either right now or in the future through organic means, meaning free. Now, free doesn't mean free. It might cost you money to set up, there might be set-up costs and things like that, but free means free as in there's no paid ads towards that.

There's no pay to be able to reach new people or anything like that. That's very different to a Facebook ad or a Google ad, which is not free. So you could add a blog to Google, which is free. You could pay for a Google top-of… like a PPC paper-per-click in Google, and that would be paid.

So that is the difference to organic, and that's what it means for mortgage brokers. Now, how is that different from just posting content? Quite simply: posting content is the act of what you do. You create content. But actually, organic lead generation is a strategy. Posting content is the act. So it’s what you actually do.

Most people just post content. And if they don't have a strategy in place — an actual organic lead generation strategy — then, um, they're just posting stuff. It's a spray-and-pray approach. They're posting stuff hoping things are gonna work. And very rarely does it work. And sometimes if it does work, um, it’s usually by luck.

And there are many people out there in this space right now — brokers who you might see who have big, large followings — when you actually talk to them, the advice they give you, if you ran it through a sense check by an expert, you would realise that it's actually not correct. It doesn't mean they're wrong; it just means that they themselves don't know is the answer to that.

And one of the best examples of this is Mrs Hinch. If you've seen Mrs Hinch, in her autobiography she actually wrote, if someone said, “Could you do this again?” — “I wouldn't be able to tell you how I did it.” And that is a great example of someone who doesn't actually have an organic lead generation strategy.

They just posted content and it kind of worked.

2. Which platform genuinely matters for brokers who want consistent inbound leads without spending money?

Okay, so which ones really matter? Let's talk about the ones that don't matter first. I don't think personally… well, all of them matter in some degree, let's say that.

But the ones that don't matter first, in my opinion: ultimately the biggest one, I think, is TikTok. I think TikTok is very, very irrelevant from a lead-generation, from mortgage-broker point of view, from its ratio of views, likes, comments and shares to actual leads. Having been doing TikTok now since it pretty much came out, I have a relatively good TikTok account myself — which I barely like to touch anymore — and have had many clients who've had very large TikTok followings.

I've been proven time and time again that the lead quality from those are very, very bad, and they end up clogging the system of your business, which is that marketing, sales and retention. It ends up clogging that system and it can be a real problem.

So that’s the one I'd say is the worst one. And it's the easiest one to go for because everybody tells you… but it's this thing of following a different crowd. Do something else. Don't do what everyone else is telling you to do.

So which ones are the best ones then? The ones that genuinely matter, I think…

If you're a mortgage broker and you want to be a local mortgage broker — everybody knows you — you cannot not be on Facebook. And you need to be on a Facebook personal profile, which can be switched, by the way, to a creator account, which means that it's completely allowed to be used for business purposes.

Any mortgage network worth their salt and up to date with this will allow that to be the case because it is an official business platform. So a personal profile. Facebook — the reason that is the case is that your audience, the people who already know you — your mortgage business is built off the back of people who know you.

And so when you set up a business page, it's not really organic lead generation, because they're gonna try and get you to pay. But on Facebook personal profiles, these are people who know you already. They already like you. They already trust you.

We just have to get them to want to see you as a mortgage advisor. That's probably the best one. Platforms is Facebook.

I would then say Instagram is a very close second, but for different reasons. Instagram is effectively your online business card now. You're not gonna get tons of leads through it, but people will check you out on there. It's the easiest place for people to find you, and it's one of the best places for people to actually see you and hear you from multiple different types of content avenues — because you can do carousels, reels, stories and highlights. It's a great way. It's like a mini-website.

And Instagram is great — and the two of them are obviously owned by the same company — so the two of them can be linked together. That's probably the two that matter the most, in my opinion.

The others — LinkedIn, YouTube — they’re all really, really good. And podcasting and all of these things are all really good, except they are not the main driver. If you're starting out right now, stick to Instagram and Facebook. Get those nailed down, and then you can move to more-advanced strategies.

3. How do I create content that drives real inquiries, not just views?

Okay, so the way to create content that drives real inquiries is what I call my Client-First Content Framework. So it’s ideally creating content that is for the client. You're making content for the client.

Your content needs to follow a kind of… you know, like if you want to generate views and stuff. So it has to be for the client. Can’t be about you. So those funny videos — all that type of stuff — you wanna avoid those.

What you then want to look at is: if you are looking at how to create content that actually drives inquiries, not just views, you need really a basic content funnel. A content funnel looks like this:

You've got awareness, which is getting people aware of you. People who don't know you now need to learn who you are. That's the first step. Awareness.

The second step is nurture. Nurture is: they know you, but they don't really like or trust you yet. So they've found you. They've seen you. But they need to like and trust you. Normally it takes about eight to ten interactions — online or offline — for somebody to start to remember that you are the mortgage broker they want to talk to or that you do those things.

Then you have lead content. Lead content is where you are calling somebody to book a call with you. CTA content or “money content”, sometimes referred to as. These are the ones that normally need to be signed off by your network because they’re hard CTAs.

Awareness content: reels on Instagram and Facebook.
Nurture content: Instagram carousels and stories.
Lead content: direct CTA posts or story CTAs.

Most people only make awareness content and chase views. But views don’t pay your bills. A solid business strategy does.

4. How do I turn my existing audience into actual clients instead of cold followers?

So, um, how do you turn your existing audience into actual clients instead of cold followers? You want to focus heavily on the nurture sequence. Nurture happens mostly in stories and carousels.

Stories: three to five per day, showing both what you do and bits of your personal life.

Carousels: the metric to track is saves. Saves mean the audience is warm.

Awareness: track new accounts reached.
Nurture: story views, carousel saves.
Lead content: bookings.

If you follow awareness → nurture → lead, that’s how you do it.

5. What daily or weekly habits will consistently generate organic leads for mortgage brokers?

Okay, so the way I look at this is: daily and weekly consistency habits are posting pretty much five days a week.

My ideal strategy would be:

– Five reels a week
– Two carousels a week
– Three to five stories a day
– A monthly newsletter to your existing clients

Mortgage brokers only need a 13-week content cycle. You need:

– 65 reel ideas
– 26 carousel ideas

Then you repeat the cycle every 13 weeks. If the content is good, you can repeat it. If it's not good, you make it better.

Your business has a clear beginning, middle and end. Your clients are always entering at the same point. So you repeat.

6. What mistakes stop mortgage brokers from generating inbound leads even when they're posting a lot?

Biggest one: Entertainment trap. They chase trends, memes, laughs — but views don’t convert. People buy when they trust you.

Next: Vagueness. If your content is unclear, the client won’t buy. A confused mind will never buy.

Next: No niche. Niching is about knowing demographic, psychographic and geographic details. Who they are, how they think, where they are. Without that, you’re talking to a void.

Next: No lead magnets or booking links. If you have no way for someone to book in or access something valuable, they will never leave the “merry-go-round”.

7. How long does organic lead generation really take before momentum actually starts?

Expectation: truthfully, it takes about 18 months.

You might notice small rumblings at six months. But consistently what I’ve seen:

Months 0–3:
They like you. They enjoy the novelty of seeing your content.

Months 3–9:
They get annoyed at you. They tell you to stop. Friends, family, peers. This is the lonely phase.

Months 9–18:
They start to realise you are a mortgage advisor.
Brand leads start to perform.
People start enquiring.

At around 18 months, most people now see you as a mortgage advisor who does content online. The authority kicks in.

It’s like driving a car — you don’t really know how to drive until after you pass your test and get 18 months of real experience. That’s when it compounds.

And at 18 months, the brokers I've worked with for years… the game gets so much more fun.