In the battle for attention, here’s how your agency can stand out.
Our current media moment is defined by paradox. On one hand, there have never been more channels you can use to promote your agency. But on the other, it has never been harder to separate yourself from the crowd and gain media attention. There are multiple reasons for this, including information overload and a changing media landscape. This doesn’t even account for how algorithms prioritize content, preventing many important stories from gaining the coverage they deserve. Yet amidst these challenges, an effective use of earned media can break through the clutter and increase public awareness for your agency. Join us as we explore the details of what this looks like!
Earned media: what is it and why is it important?
As we’ve talked about before, there are many different types of media that you can use to promote your business – each with its own pros, cons and tradeoffs.
First, there is owned media, which is any type of media that you control. This could include things like your website, your social media feeds or your email newsletter. Owned media offers advantages like creative control and cost-effectiveness but also requires continuous effort and delivers slow results.
Second, we have paid media – basically media you put an ad spend behind, like search, social and display ads. Paid media also carries significant advantages for business. For one thing, it can deliver quick and easy wins for a company, but if you’re not careful, those results can come with a sizable cost that harms overall ROI.
Lastly, we have earned media – publicity you gain from sources you neither control nor pay for. Guest blogging, podcast appearances and press release placements are all examples of earned media in action. Earned media is especially valuable because it often appears more trustworthy and less self-serving than other types of media. It can also deliver tangible benefits like improved SEO and greater reach. It has drawbacks as well, with lack of control and dependence on third parties being among them.
Create more earned media opportunities
With an understanding of the three main types of media, we can look at the top opportunities for generating more earned media coverage for your agency.
Human-interest stories: If you’ve ever watched the news, you’ll know how effective human-interest stories are at generating coverage. The reason is simple: People are emotional beings who respond to stories of human triumph and resilience. By tapping into this need, agencies can grow awareness for their businesses.
Novelty: Stories that introduce something novel can be just as effective as human-interest pieces. Pitching about new hires, products or business expansions all naturally lend themselves to potential pick-up in the media, as does staking out a position that runs contrary to the dominant perspective in your field. With the latter point, however, never try to gin up controversy just for the sake of it. People can detect disingenuousness a mile away, which will wind up hurting rather than helping you in the long run.
News jacking: As we’ve discussed, there are more communication channels today than ever before. While this can be overwhelming, it also implies that there is no shortage of news stories in which a title agency could insert itself to offer its unique perspective and expertise. This is known as “news jacking,” a straightforward process where you strategically align your brand with a trending news topic and position yourself as a subject matter expert. When done correctly, news jacking can increase your agency’s credibility, leading to more customers seeing you as a knowledgeable thought leader.
None of these techniques are easy to pull off, but each can help you overcome some of the barriers to entry that exist in the modern media landscape. No matter how many algorithms or communication channels we create, tailoring our stories to cater to human psychological needs will always be a powerful tool for achieving publicity. Similarly, news jacking can help you turn the deluge of daily news we all experience to your advantage, enabling you to hop onto an existing story or news cycle for maximum impact.
Spread the word far and wide about your business
The media environment today is challenging and ever-changing, with contours that are far more complex and fast-moving than they were even a few years ago. For many, this can feel like an impossible burden for gaining the recognition they need to succeed in an already difficult business environment. Even so, a well-planned earned media strategy that leverages human psychology and timely news opportunities can elevate your agency’s visibility, building the buzz necessary for both short- and long-term success.
In our last marketing blog, we walked through how to put together an effective strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis for your agency. SWOTs are a valuable tool for building greater visibility into your agency, but that’s not all. They can also inform other initiatives beneficial to your short- and long-term business goals. Take a strategic messaging framework as just one example. They channel your SWOT’s insights and help you speak with a unified voice that forms deeper connections with customers. Here’s how to put together your own framework.
How to think about a strategic marketing framework
Before you begin, it’s important to note what a strategic marketing framework is and what it is not. First, this framework should be:
Mission-driven: It should include the core tenets of your brand promise and identity.
Targeted and relevant: The framework needs to resonate with your target audience by offering clear value.
Strategic and succinct: Your framework must align with your agency’s needs and be short enough to fit various communication channels.
Emotional and actionable: Remember, people respond powerfully to emotional appeals and clear next steps.
Cohesive and comprehensive: Your framework must tie together seamlessly and speak to the entirety of your organization’s high-level priorities.
On the other hand, it should not be:
Disjointed or random: Each element of your framework must feel intentional and complementary.
Granular and tactical: Avoid discussing specific marketing campaigns or granular organizational details.
Exclusively sales-focused: Don’t make your framework solely about getting customers to buy from you. Instead, make it squarely about how you can solve their problems.
Vague and unfocused: Just because a strategic messaging framework is intended to capture high-level aspects of your agency does not mean it should be vague.
Start building based off your SWOT
Now let’s explore how to build a messaging framework based on your SWOT. First, create language that emphasizes your agency’s strengths. An example might be a message about how you “bring decades of collective experience to each closing.”
Then, build a message that reframes SWOT weaknesses as areas primed for growth or future advantage. For instance, if your tech stack is aging but you plan to update it, talk about how you are “quickly implementing more innovative solutions to better address stakeholder needs.”
Next, address your SWOT’s opportunities. The messages should align and build off your identified strengths. They should also convey how your company is positioned for long-term success. Be as specific as you can, include data if possible and always indicate why customers should care. As an example, if you have expansion plans on the horizon, you could explain how this “reflects the depth of your resources and the unparalleled competency of your team.”
Lastly, message your SWOT’s threats. These must also be reframed by putting the focus on how you will address them. The ebb and flow of the real estate market offers a good example of how to do this. For instance, you could articulate how “your financial strength and operational efficiency enable you to ride out periodic downturns and continue delivering for clients.”
Implement your framework
Once you have fleshed out messaging, it is time to integrate your framework into your agency’s communications. Let’s look at a few ways for doing this:
Incorporate your framework into your marketing materials, including your website, social media and press releases.
Create simple talking points so your team can easily memorize key messages and amplify your agency’s efforts where appropriate.
Incorporate your messages into your brand guidelines to ensure consistency across all materials, including those created by third parties.
Leverage your framework for thought leadership by using them as a springboard to talk about your values and long-term vision.
Measure, refine, rinse and repeat
After you have your key messaging framework based around your SWOT, it can be tempting to sit back and put your feet up. Don’t! The whole point of this exercise is to build greater connections with your customers. To know if you’ve achieved this, you must measure whether people are responding to your messages and connecting with your brand.
Track meaningful changes in core metrics once you begin using your messages in communications, and consider surveying your customer base to understand how they perceive you. If you don’t get the answers you want, revisit your strategic messaging framework and refine. And if you still don’t get the responses you desire, refine again.
Tell a story that connects and converts
In a competitive field like title insurance, it’s important to differentiate yourself. Building a strategic messaging framework based on your SWOT analysis is one way to do this. By thinking about your strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats, you can create a compelling story that will make your customers take note and engage more fully with your brand. That’s because they will have come to better understand who you and how you can help them achieve their goals.
Have some of your leads gone cold? Reconnect using these tips!
Nobody likes to see their email leads go cold, but sometimes it happens despite our best efforts. The trick is not to give up hope, especially when there is no reason to do so. There are many strategies to reignite your dormant prospects. We’ll dig into a few of them here.
Why leads go silent
It’s important to note that leads are not static. At the end of the day, leads simply represent people, and people are always changing. Seen through this lens, it becomes clear why a lead that was once active could suddenly go dark. Agencies must continually assess their leads and adjust their approach to avoid this.
Leads can go dormant for reasons that either have to do with the business or with the customer. We will begin on the business side. When putting together your outreach campaigns, problems can arise if:
Your content is no longer relevant to your audience.
The message’s quality is perceived as poor and includes:
Grammatical or spelling mistakes
Delivery or presentation problems
Timing issues
Larger structural issues like lack of brand trust or awareness.
Then there is the customer side of things, which may include:
Budgetary constraints
Changing goals
Staff turnover
Inaccurate data
A competitor offering a more compelling value proposition
Reconnect with your leads
To begin rebuilding a connection with your leads, take a strategic approach by reviewing your marketing lists and segmentation strategies. As mentioned, leads often disengage if your content is no longer relevant to their needs, goals and pain points. Determine if your buyer personas are still accurate and that you are actually sending the right content to the right people at the right time.
After that, review your email marketing programs and ask hard questions about whether you are incorporating all the latest best practices. You may want to consider developing personalized content for future messages. Ensure you emphasize value for the reader. And don’t forget to double check that your copy is optimized for mobile!
Reengagement campaigns
Agencies can also go one step further by creating a reengagement campaign. These campaigns involve sending a series of emails or phone calls (or both) that de-emphasize hard sells and prioritize educational and helpful content. Over time, reengagement campaigns show cold leads that your agency is a trusted, go-to resource that is equally committed to solving their problems as it is to making money.
Keep the momentum!
Once you start to see engagement again, it’s important not to stop. Stay consistent with your messaging. Consider using a content calendar if it’s helpful. Whatever you do, keep a watchful eye on your email analytics. Staying vigilant is the best strategy for adjusting in real time and ensuring your audience stays engaged and happy.
Final thoughts
Sometimes in marketing, it can feel like you are taking one step forward and two steps back, especially when a lead goes quiet. Yet marketing is often a pendulum rather than a straight line. Anytime leads go cold, it can feel like a major setback. But with some thoughtful course correction, your results can soon start swinging in the right direction.
We live in a digital world, and it’s easy to rely heavily on digital marketing tools to raise your business’s profile. Yet, when we focus too heavily on digital solutions, we can sometimes forget that person-to-person interaction remains one of the most impactful ways to form new connections and gain business. Concise and meaningful talking points that easily communicate your unique value proposition can be an important tool for making the most of these critical in-person interactions.
What are talking points?
Describing what you do isn’t always easy, especially when you’re on the spot. Sometimes, it’s hard to predict when you’re going to have a key conversation with a potential client. That’s why it’s always good to have talking points in your back pocket.
Talking points are short, succinct statements that describe key aspects of your business and the work you do. Often, talking points cover the services you deliver, what your company’s culture is like or how you work with clients to achieve their goals. In short, they are a series of brand promises that help audiences quickly get up-to-speed on how your business operates.
Best practices for developing talking points
Unsurprisingly, one of the best practices to keep in mind when developing your agency’s talking points is brevity. There is a lot more that goes into it, however, such as:
Key messages: Before you can create talking points, you first need to know what your business’s main messages are. These messages should reflect your firm’s top priorities and goals.
Integrate customer needs: Your company’s key messages and eventual talking points must address the needs of your ideal customers. To do this effectively, you should first understand who your customers are – both demographically and psychologically. And how do you do that? By building out buyer personas! Check out our earlier blog for more on building these personas.
Create a logical flow: Although talking points can touch upon different or disparate aspects of your business, they still need to move easily from one point to the next. Flow is important. You don’t want to confuse your audience.
Be benefit and customer-focused: When you are talking about your agency, try to put the focus less on you and more on your target audience. You will want to convey how your products or services will improve their lives.
Show your passion: Imbuing business communication with emotion can be tricky, as you run the risk of coming off as unprofessional. But the truth is people are emotional by nature, and your audience will want to feel your passion. You can accomplish this by discussing not only what you do, but why you do it.
Prepare for rebuttals: As you build and deliver your talking points, you may occasionally experience pushback from an audience. Objections are a fact of life, and it’s always best to be prepared to address counterarguments. Spend time thinking about potential weak spots in your business narrative. By doing so, you can be ready to rebut the rebutters!
Best practices for delivering talking points
Once you have your business’s talking points fleshed out, it’s time to sit back and relax. Just kidding! Getting these messages written out is only half the battle. You still need to practice and refine your delivery. Here is a good process you can follow:
Practice makes perfect: There are no shortcuts to being a great speaker or advocate for your business. Instead, practice makes perfect. Practice your talking points in front of people you trust, in front of a mirror or even by recording yourself. Try doing this repeatedly until you feel calm enough to speak about your business in any context and at a moment’s notice.
Stay loose: Have you ever heard that it is not really what you say that matters; instead, it is how you say it? Keep this in mind when delivering your talking points. This does not mean that you should be flippant or overly casual, just that you want to avoid sounding monotonous or like you’re reading from a script.
Refine and edit: As you practice your talking points, stay open to constructive feedback. Think of your talking points as an ever-evolving process rather than something static and fixed. Accept feedback in good faith and use any criticism to improve the next pitch.
Be ready to pitch and reap the rewards
In today’s fast-paced economy, you need to be ready to pitch at a moment’s notice. By developing clear, concise and compelling talking points, you will be ready to spread the word about your business and position yourself to capture new leads and growth opportunities.
According to PositivePsychology.com, as humans we are innately wired to pursue instant gratification. It’s natural for us to want good things, and to want them NOW. In fact, the urge for immediacy surely benefited pre-modern humans as their very survival often hinged upon making instantaneous decisions followed by taking immediate actions (e.g.“there’s a Tyrannosaurus rex headed my way … I’d betterrun and take cover!”). Humans today are not so different from their ancient ancestors – we, too, want immediacy, especially when it comes to the acquisition of wealth – whether that translates into the speed with which we receive funds or the swiftness with which we get title to real property under contract.
A Catalyst Corporate Credit Union blog reported that recent studies have shown “[a] staggering 70% of consumers express that having faster payment options from their financial institution is an important driver of satisfaction.” Thanks to advances in fintech, we now have a payment rail with two trains riding upon it to deliver that instant gratification. These two “trains” are Real Time Payments (RTP) and FedNow. They both move so FAST (almost instantaneously) that you and your customers can enjoy the ability to transfer funds 24/7, 365 days of the year in real time. With no waiting periods to transfer funds, just imagine how much faster your closings can take place – they can occur on holidays, weekends, and anytime convenient for you and the parties to the transaction!
Since 2017, RTP has been operated by The Clearing House (TCH), a consortium of member financial institutions; TCH’s RTP Network lists approximately 373 participating Financial Institutions (FIs).
On July 20, 2023, FedNow – the Federal Reserve’s interbank, instant payment infrastructure – went live; it launched with35 participating FIs, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service and 16 service providers, but it has the potential to service all depository institutions eligible to hold accounts at the Reserve Banks – currently estimated at more than 10,000 banks and credit unions! FedNow promises to be a real game-changer for the national economy, and especially for our industry.
Let’s talk about what FedNow can do for you. At this time, the FedNow Service supports account-to-account and consumer-to-business bill pay use cases. The maximum credit transfer amount is $500,000, but participating FIs have the option to provide a lesser amount (so you may want to check with the transferor’s FI in advance to make sure that you know its dollar limits). With FedNow, businesses and individuals can also request a payment (referred to as a RFP or “Request for Payment”) from a recipient. For example, with FedNow you can electronically send “Betty Buyer” a request for the balance of cash needed to close her transaction; there is even a “zero-dollar request for payment” pre-validation tool available to make sure that the end-customer has the ability to receive and act on the RFP prior to the biller actually sending one. We can anticipate that FedNow will be able to do even more in the future as its functionality is expected to increase in phases. To learn more about FedNow, and when and how it may be available for your use, please visit FedNowExplorer.org.
Lastly, if you want to know more about the BIG picture – RTP, FedNow, the Good Funds Laws, and Payment Service Providers (e.g. Venmo and PayPal) – and how these mechanisms and laws affect each other and work together, read our in-depth white paper, “Moving Money in a Real Estate Transaction.”
