In the early 1940s Schlitz beer company was one of the least popular beers. So they brought in a legendary marketer Claude Hopkins to tour the factory and create a new advertising campaign for them.
They showed him how they had dug their own wells to get the cleanest water even though most water came from lake Michigan at the time. They showed him how their hops were the freshest, and how they sterilized the bottles 4 times before filling them with beer.
At the end of the tour he asked why Schlitz wasn’t telling people about all of the ways they make quality beer in their marketing? Their reply was simply that every brewery makes beer the same way. Hopkins’ reply was that they’ll be the first to tell people about it and gain a big advantage to other companies.
Within a year they were #1 and they remained #1 or #2 until the 1970s.
The same is true in Title Insurance…
Just because everyone has to be compliant, doesn’t mean they are using it to effectively market their services.
Tip #1: Compliance is the New Marketing
You have a clean desk policy. You have a secure website. You have redundant offsite backups. You have monthly staff training sessions on to help prevent your company from being a hacked or a victim of fraud.
Tell people about it in your marketing! But instead of saying “we are ALTA Best Practices Certified” why not elaborate on it by saying “With all of the identity theft and cybercrime today, we have taken safeguards above and beyond industry regulations to protect you and your client’s information from the moment you contact us for a quote.”
Doesn’t that give your prospects a better reason to use your services then just saying that you are “Best Practices Certified”?
Did I mention that you also get a boost in traffic from simply having an SSL certificate?
Tip #2: Being Mobile Friendly is More Important Than Ever
In 2015 Google started giving mobile friendly websites more priority over non-mobile friendly websites.
The reason for this change is because now over 50% of Google Search traffic comes from mobile phones like iPhones and Android devices. It only makes sense to get people to information that is easily consumed from their mobile devices since most search that way.
According to Moz, a leader in Search Engine Optimization, this trend is growing so quickly that in 2017 Google is expected to change their search algorithm to give even more priority to mobile friendly websites.
Tip #3: Claim Your Local Search Profiles
Sites like Google Places, Yelp, Yellow Pages, and BBB not only rank high in search engines and are mobile friendly. They actually give you more changes to be found online. Again from Moz, “In a mobile-only world, the relevance of local search is even higher.”
It is in your best interest to claim all of these profiles, register your accounts, and fill in the appropriate company information, address, hours, and phone number. Also, be sure to ask a few of your customers to leave you an honest review and star rating.
These local search sites often rank higher than your website and star ratings show right up in the search results. This gives you instant credibility and trust – especially when most of your competitors have no ratings or reviews.
Tip #4: Utilize Facebook Properly
Facebook, in addition to being one of the local search profiles you should claim, also is one of the most heavily visited websites by Realtors and Consumers alike. There are lots of ways to get results from Facebook. However, for title insurance, real estate, and law we’ve found the following 2 ways work well:
Option a) Organic Post From Recent Homebuyer
This is by far the best organic post for a real estate or title professional. The nice part is that it is minimal work for you and doesn’t appear to violate any NPI Best Practices.
It works like this:
- After the closing offer to take a photo of the client with their camera phone.
- Ask them to tag your company in the post if they choose to post it to social media
- That’s it!
What happens when you do this? A couple things:
- Emotional posts like births, weddings and home purchases tend to show up on social media for longer amounts of time (3-5 days instead of hours for other types of posts).
- Your client just exposed you to all of his or her friends and family as prospects – many of which likely live in your local market.
Option b) Facebook Ads: Use to promote events, Your page, and Your Website
Unlike the last type of post, Facebook ads are great for promoting events, articles you write, or to give your company exposure to a specific target market – say “all real estate agents who make at least $60,000 a year, and live within 25 miles of your office”.
Tip #5: Stay top of mind for the customers and prospect that already know you
Most real estate agents have 3 or 4 title agents that they take business to. If all title companies compete on service, then it is a coin toss whether or not you get that agent’s next deal.
Stay top of mind with monthly emails that contain tips or useful articles and/or remarketing ads.
The nice thing about monthly email is that it you do not need to write the content. Just be well informed on industry news and share an occasional tip with your previous customers.
Remarketing ads, on the other hand can be a great reminder of your existance for both clients that have previously used your services and also for people that have visited your website but not yet purchased. Once a prospect visits your website, they’ll start casually seeing your ads around the web.
Tip #6: Video is Worth a Million Words
We’ve all heard the old adage “a picture is worth 1,000 words”. When used properly, a video can be worth a million words. In 2013, only ⅓ of online activity was spent watching video. However, according to Cisco, leading manufacturer of internet hardware such as routers, by 2018 over 80% of web traffic will be video.
This is why YouTube is the second largest search engine (behind its parent company Google). Is there a handful of questions that you get asked frequently by multiple customers? If so, film yourself answering the question on your iPhone, publish it to YouTube, embed it in your website, and post it to social media. You might be surprised as to how many people might find your company by discovering video.
The days of “business card” websites are gone for Title Agents & Real Estate Attorneys!
If you want your website to attract and convert Lenders, Real Estate Agents, Home Buyers, and Sellers, request a free demo today, and see how easy it is to get started with TitleTap’s website templates.