How to Get Mortgage Clients Online: The Movie Ticket Method

I got my first mortgage client from the internet by giving away two movie tickets on Facebook. The post ran for a week and brought in 142 likes and 36 comments from people in my own area. One of those people became a client. This page shows you the exact post, how to pick a hook of your own, and how the follow up turned a comment into a loan.

Prefer to watch? The same method is walked through on video, with a bonus video on what to do when a new lead comes in, in the framework. Everything below is the written version.

What is the Movie Ticket Method?

The Movie Ticket Method is a giveaway you run on your business page, attached to something local people already care about. You give away a prize with wide appeal, you pick a winner in public, and you treat every person who entered as someone to start a conversation with. The thing you attach it to does the heavy lifting, because people are already paying attention to it. You are not asking anyone to care about your business yet.

It works for two reasons. The prize is small, and the prize is universal. Almost anyone will enter for cinema tickets, which is the opposite of a prize like a free property report that only attracts people already interested in property. You are trying to build a list of local people you can talk to, not to qualify borrowers at the point of entry.

The exact Facebook post I used

Mine ran in July 2024, timed to the release of Deadpool and Wolverine. Here it is exactly as it went out.

It does not have to be a movie

The film is not the method. The film was my hook, and the hook is the part you choose. What you are looking for is something a lot of local people are already thinking about, that you can attach a prize to without it feeling like an advertisement.

A cinema release is the easiest one to start with, because the release date does your timing for you and the appeal is broad. It is not the only one.

A local or sporting event

A grand final, a show, a festival, a concert coming to town. Anything with a date on it that people in your area are already talking about gives you the same lift a film release does, and it is more local, which usually means the entries are more useful to you.

A season everyone feels

The school holidays, the first week back, Christmas, the start of the football season. These are weaker hooks than a dated event, because there is no single moment, but they are always available and you do not have to wait for the calendar to hand you something.

Another local business

This is the version I would push hardest, and it is the one most people never think of. Instead of buying a prize, approach a local business and ask them to put up their own service at a discount or for free as the prize. A restaurant, a barber, a gym, a detailer, a photographer.

You promote it, they promote it, and the post reaches both audiences instead of only yours. It costs you nothing but the conversation. More importantly, you now have a real relationship with a business owner in your area who has watched you bring them attention, and business owners talk to other business owners. The giveaway produces leads and the partnership produces referrals, out of the same post.

The approach is easy, because you are offering them something. You are running a giveaway, you would like to feature their business as the prize, you will promote them to your audience, and all you need from them is the prize itself and a share of the post.

Why it works

The giveaway was tied to a film people had waited years for. That is the part that does the work, and it is the part most people skip. A giveaway on its own asks strangers to care about your business. A giveaway attached to something already in their feed asks them to care about the thing they were talking about anyway, and your page happens to be holding the prize.

So the timing matters more than the prize. Look at what is coming in the next four to six weeks, pick the thing with the widest appeal in your area, and run it while interest is climbing rather than after the moment has passed.

Who to aim it at

Aim it at a place, not at a customer type. Nobody identifies in public as the customer you are looking for. Mortgage clients do not think of themselves as mortgage clients, people who need solar do not announce it, and nobody joins a group for people who are about to refinance. This is why buying borrower leads and chasing the small number who are actively shopping is such hard work for a loan officer. You are bidding against every competitor in your market for the same handful of people, and they are already talking to three of them.

Local people who go to the cinema is a far bigger pool, and a share of them will buy or refinance a home in the next couple of years. If you want to narrow it, narrow it by suburb or by an interest that maps to your area, not by anything to do with buying. The qualifying happens later, in conversation, not at the point of entry.

How to run it, step by step

1. Pick your hook. Something in the next four to six weeks with broad local appeal, or a business you would like to build a relationship with.
2. Sort the prize. Buy it as a gift card, or arrange it with the partner business, so you never have to make a booking on behalf of someone else.
3. Write the post. Name the hook, name the prize, and set a closing date and time.
4. Ask people to like the post and to comment. A comment is the signal you want, because a comment is a person choosing to speak to you.
5. Add the disclaimer, which is further down this page.
6. Post it, then reply to every single comment. Every reply lifts the post and starts a conversation.
7. Draw the winner at the time you said, in public, and announce it on the page.

How to pick the winner

Do it live, or at least visibly, at the exact time you promised. The draw is not admin, it is the second piece of content, and it is often seen by more people than the original post because everyone who entered comes back to look. Say the name, tag the winner, thank everyone who entered, and tell them what is coming next.

Then message the winner to arrange the prize. That message is a normal, welcome conversation with a local person who is pleased to hear from you, which is not a position you get into often in this job.

The follow up is where the clients come from

The giveaway does not produce clients. It produces a list of local people who have raised their hand once. What you do in the next few days is the entire difference between a fun post and a client.

Message everyone who entered, not only the winner. Thank them, tell them they did not win this one, and offer something small and genuinely useful with no strings attached. Do not pitch. You are turning a comment into a conversation, and a conversation is the thing that eventually turns into a deal, sometimes months later.

Give that offer somewhere to land. A comment is not a record and neither is a direct message, so the thing you offer should sit behind a link, and the link should go to a page built to capture rather than only to look at. The moment somebody fills it in, they stop being a name in a feed you will scroll past and become a person you can actually follow up.

This is also the part almost everybody drops. Thirty six comments is thirty six messages to write, on top of a full day of work, and by the time you get to it on Thursday the moment has passed. Speed matters here more than polish.

The disclaimer to include

Put a version of this at the bottom of the post. It sets expectations, it distances the giveaway from the platform, and the last line heads off the scam accounts that impersonate businesses running giveaways.

Prize promotions are also regulated by law, and the rules differ by country and by state. Platform rules change over time as well, so check the current Meta guidelines and whatever applies where you are before you run one.

Who else this works for

The method is not specific to lending. It suits anyone selling something local and infrequent, where the customer is not searching on the day you would like to meet them. Real estate agents are the obvious one, because being the recognised name in a suburb is exactly what this builds. It works the same way for solar, insurance, financial advice, trades, gyms and clinics. The hook, the prize, the draw and the follow up do not change. The only thing that changes is what you say once the conversation has started.

Common questions