Both me and Kethe, my co-founder in TitleCapture, spent a very long time in sales and marketing and the one thing that proves itself to be true over and over again, allowing service businesses to thrive and build great customer relationships, is this:  The more you give value to people in advance, the more they will desire to reciprocate.

In fact, this is one of the core principles in Robert Cialdini’s book “Influence”. The rule of reciprocation is something you should always keep in mind, whether you’re a title agency owner, title officer, marketing manager — pretty much everyone who has to deal with people and depends on long-lasting, fruitful, client relationships.

Your business depends on attracting new real estate agents and lenders to send closings your way. Your business also depends on retaining (or not allowing to leave) these clients.

Either way, the rule of reciprocation is true today, as it’s always been. And in working with over 1000 title companies who already signed up with TitleCapture, we realized that the successful ones are the ones who actually “give, give, give” in advance.

Ok, so… “Give.” But what?

The rule here is that the more value you offer and the more frequent your clients or potential clients will use that value (preferably in a repeated manner), the more they will reciprocate and stay loyal to you, as their service provider.

Let’s take an example to illustrate this. When a real estate agent visits your office and you give them a branded pen, the value here is quite small. They will use the pen once (maybe) and then they may lose it or just throw it away.

When you hold a lunch-and-learn, teaching them about something… Now, this is much higher in value because it actually teaches them something, helping them grow. It’s very likely, however, that they will soon forget who taught them what, and your value was limited to that timeframe around the actual event. It’s good, but still not ideal.

What you need is something that “gives” repeatedly.

Shameless plug aside, the best thing we could think about (and built a business around) is the concept of a title company app or platform your real estate agents and lenders can use any time that’s branded with your title company logo, allowing them access to estimate tools they actually use frequently. That’s TitleCapture and you can learn more about it by allowing our staff to give you a free, online demo.

The key is to allow your clients FREE access to your branded platform. This is your “gift” to them. And, trust me, they will reciprocate. Our studies and interviews with the 1000+ title companies nationwide that signed up with TitleCapture show that the client who use these “gifts” are the ones who stay the most loyal and bring in constant business.

“I know what to give my clients, now what?”

Well, you have to do two things: 1) attract new clients and 2) retain existing ones.

Now, I do plan on going deeper on how title companies can do effective marketing in later posts, but here’s just a little primer to give you an idea.

Let’s consider you want to attract new real estate agents to work with your title company. So, when you have the branded TitleCapture platform, you should attempt to attract them by using the Seller Net Sheet or Buyer Estimate feature in the app as a driver.

You could go to Facebook and target job titles associated to real estate agents, in your geographic area. Use a cool, relatable image and post a message that sounds something like:

“Top producing real estate agents know how to serve potential sellers and win the listings. The SECRET ingredient is having a Seller Net Sheet estimate tool that screams professionalism and impresses sellers.

Our FREE Seller Net Sheet tool allows you to do just that. Fast. Accurate. Easy to use. Click the button below and register for your free account to start using it now.”

Or something along the lines… See an example below:

And you can use LinkedIn ads, Google Ads and Google AdWords, etc.

When a new user signs up, your title reps will get notified by our platform and can reach out.

Now, when it comes to retaining your existing clients, things get easier, because you already have a relationship with them, so all you need to do is reach out to your best 20-30 real estate agents for each office and personally sign them up and walk them through your new estimates tool. They will absolutely love it.

Now, this is one way to offer value, but not the only one, so please use the comments section below to let us know what YOUR title company is “giving” to its’ clients and how they reciprocate!