Among the elite group of mortgage salespeople, the survey found that some marketing activities are correlated with high productivity, but other activities have little perceived value.

Sixty-two percent (62 percent) of survey respondents indicate that tending to existing referral sources is a “very effective” way to generate new business. Database marketing is considered “very effective” by 58 percent. Another 39 percent rank the development of new referral sources as “very effective.”

Further down the list, niche marketing is considered “very effective” by 22 percent of top originators and “somewhat effective” by 42 percent of the originators.

Advertising, direct mail and similar promotions received slightly lower reviews, with about 49 percent of respondents rating them as “somewhat effective” or “very effective.”

At the bottom of the scale, some sales tactics of the past seem to have reached dead-ends.

For example, none of the survey respondents rate telemarketing as “very effective,” and a quarter of the respondents said it was “very ineffective.”

Similarly, more than 90 percent of those surveyed don’t purchase mortgage leads.