The vast majority of title agents either do very little to market to consumers or do nothing at all. Each agent has his or her own reasons, but the main roadblock to increasing consumer business is the population’s general lack of knowledge about what title insurance is and how it works. Transparency — that’s the key word in any solution to this consumer equation, and that’s what makes the new marketing initiative at Winged Foot Title so interesting.
Winged Foot, a 10-person shop based in Fort Meyers, Fla., has implemented a two-pronged strategy for communicating with consumers, which it breaks down into general and transaction-specific.
In the transaction-specific communications, Winged Foot will reach out to buyers and sellers by phone calls and emails at certain important benchmarks in the transaction: the opening of an order, the delivery of the title commitment and just before closing.
“These ‘core communications’ are emails that explain in layperson’s terms what is occurring or has occurred by that point in the transaction and what the consumer may expect next,” said Winged Foot Title attorney Chris Black. “We even include videos that guide the consumer through particular documents and issues.”
For example, after the search and title commitment are complete, the buyer would get an email with the document attached, an explanation of the title commitment, a link to a YouTube video explaining a title commitment, contact information for the agency, and a note about the next step in the process, which would be clearing the title. Suddenly, title insurance might not seem like such a mysterious line item, and even though it’s still a relatively new program for Winged Foot, Black said he’s seeing results.
“Consumers come to the closing table much more informed and much more aware of our role and what we have done to get them there,” he said. “We have always been focused on creating an experience for consumers that leaves them thanking their real estate professional for referring them to Winged Foot Title. This more robust campaign has definitely increased those types of responses.”
Black said it was important for his staff to listen to customers throughout the process and understand what the most frequent questions were in order to set up a targeted communication program and also to use the most effective language.
“Consumers are, of course, less likely to use the same industry jargon as real estate professionals, so keeping track of the language consumers use is vital to creating content that relates to them,” he said. Black noted that the entire team contributes in sending out the messages, with each department contributing during specific points in the process.
The second prong of the strategy, the general communication, focuses a lot on social media and web marketing. Black said this is also a team effort, with everyone reporting on the issues and questions that come up along the way. Black then creates the content and enlists an outside firm, Internet Services Group of Florida, to deploy the content and find people online.
The general communication may be delivering the most measurable results at this point. Black said there has been a big spike in the company’s for-sale by owner transactions, which he attributes to the web marketing and social media.
“Consumers are finding us on the web at the top of their search engine results and are finding our web presence worthy of a call or email for more information or to find out how we may help them,” he said. “Our web content related to short sales and other distressed sales has been very successful as well.”
For example, the company was just contacted online by a foreign national who owns 13 properties in the area that are all upside down, which he wanted to short sell. Obviously Winged Foot cannot sell the properties, but it can do the title work on all of them and then toss the business to a local client or two.
“Our web marketing company told us from day one that we should ‘give until it hurts, and then give some more,’” Black said. “What has resulted from the giving is a new set of goals related to converting the web marketing into consumer-driven title business. Even if this source of business makes up an admittedly small percentage of our target market, the return on investment is very good, especially since this is a segment of the market that is largely ignored. Why wouldn’t we want to capture that business?”
Even Black admits that direct-consumer work is still a small percentage of his business, so it’s easy to see why most title agents would prefer to avoid putting in the extra effort to attract and inform consumers. Each agent’s perception of the world, and the individual goals of the company, will determine the value placed on similar communication and marketing strategies in the industry. Black, for example, believes a consumer’s input will only increase from here, which motivates his desire to push this initiative forward.
“Because modern consumers have nearly instantaneous access to such a wealth of information online, they are more likely to enter into a transaction informed and opinionated, and as such, are more likely to expect to be included in the choice of their title agent,” Black said. “For that reason, I think title agents will have to interact and engage with consumers more intensely in the future. Title agents will certainly need to provide more consumer-focused information in order to raise brand awareness. And once the consumer is in the door, the title agent should be able to communicate in such a way that demonstrates the value of their work. As technology improves, this interaction will of course become more and more online; and the title agent of the future should be preparing to meet and exceed consumer’s expectations in that regard.”