And just like that, the RamQuest User Group Conference came and went, and wow, it was FUN! We got to meet so many cool title companies from around the country and even got to sit in on a few of the presentations. Jim Morris got the party started, from the opening montage of his movie, The Rookie, right through his speech, and I think we can all agree, the party pretty much didn't end (how many of you were up waaaaay too late with the hotel bar conveniently located on the 2nd floor?)
Amidst all the fun and meeting RamQuest users from around the country, we had a lot of great conversations, and in those conversations, we recognized 3 big Marketing Tips/Takeaways/Insights into the title industry that we wanted to share with you here... and although there were waaaaay more than 3, here are 3 that should drive your business forward, increase efficiencies and attract the right referrals:
There is a lot of pressure being put on Title Companies to have someone on their team focused on Marketing. From lots of conversations with Marketing people at title companies, we've heard the same thing over and over... "I was just put in charge of Marketing, but I don't know where to start..." So we wanted to offer one bit of insight into "where to start," so here goes...
To begin, don't focus on trying to attract new customers with ads online, but rather start by Googling yourself and seeing what is already online (ie, what someone will find when they look for you right now), and make sure you are happy with that.
From there you can add to your online presence and start actively marketing... but you gotta get the base down first and you will want to begin by making sure that what is currently online represents you correctly.
The focus should not be on attracted more eyeballs to your company right now, but making sure that the eyeballs that get referred by Real Estate Agents, see the right stuff. You wouldn't believe how many title companies have no idea what appears on a Google search when a first-time consumer googles their company.
If what you read does not represent you well, or if you find random articles or things that you had no idea even existed, it's time to go into house cleaning mode before you invite the guest over. Make sense?
Takeaway Point:
Start by Googling yourself to make sure what is currently online is correct, then you can add to that and start marketing your company by adding Search Engine-Friendly pages to your site, spending money on advertising and posting on social media.
Here's a big epiphany that you already know, but needs re-emphasizing: Real Estate Agents want to know what's going on with their clients closings... however, there is a gentle balance between over-communicating and under-communicating (or not communicating at all).
Since most people know that we help Title Companies communicate better during the closing process with Automated Text Message Updates, Emails and our Closing "Pizza Tracker" Timeline, we have a lot of conversations about "how much communication is too much communication?"... because as in anything in life, too much of a good thing stops being a good thing very fast.
Here's what the general consensus is though: Real Estate Agents should know what is going on with their clients files. It's up to the title company to show the progress, even if the Real Estate Agent does not want to know it- because if the consumer asks the Real Estate Agent about the closing status (instead of you for some reason), they should be able to reference it instead of just telling the consumer "I don't know... I haven't heard from them in weeks."
We suggest 4-6 touch points during the closing communication. This is not too much, and it's not too little. This allows you to tell the Real Estate Agents that you are dedicated to offering the best Care and Attention during the Closing, so you prefer to copy them on emails to their clients.
Sure, they might kick back and say they don't want another email in their inbox (and if you've ever seen a top producing Real Estate Agents inbox, you'll know why), but you can always come back and tell them that you've trained your staff (or use something like CloseSimple) to have the same subject line on each of the 4-6 update emails, so they can simply add a Filter to their inbox and it can go into a folder so it bypassed their inbox.
Takeaway Point:
Communicating with Real Estate Agents is a gentle balance between too much and too little. It's often good to just tell a Real Estate Agent what to expect when they refer a client to your company. This will allow them to opt-in for the communication by allowing it to go to their inbox, or setting up a smart filter on their inbox to bypass the inbox, directing the email to a folder instead.
If you're "rookie" in the title industry (no pun intended on Jim Morris' movie- see above), here's the biggest thing you can learn by going to any title conference: Rest up BEFORE going to the conference because there are just waaaaaay too many people to meet, places to go (with the people you meet) and things to eat/drink... so you probably won't be sleeping as much as you would prefer.
If you want to get the MOST out of the conference, do this one thing and the rest will fall into place.
Takeaway Point:
This is pretty self-explanatory, haha, but rest up before going to any title conference! You'll thank us!
There they are... 3 BIG Marketing Takeaways from RamQuest User Group.
Amidst all the busyness of the conference, if we didn't get to chat and you still wanted to see what CloseSimple is, and see our Automated Text Message, Email and Closing "Pizza Tracker" Timeline in action, check out our CloseSimple RamQuest Integration page.
Looking forward to connecting soon and please let us know if you had any thoughts on the above points because we wanna see you Win, and W