Boring Title: The One Reaction From Potential Customers to Strive For

Title insurance is boring, but Allied Title & Escrow is here to decode the jargon and make it (somewhat) more interesting. This biweekly column will explore the mundane (but very necessary!) world of title insurance while sharing interesting stories of two friends’ entrepreneurial careers. 

It can be daunting and overwhelming when you try to figure out how you should position your brand.

What should my message be? What should my logo look like? Do I target a specific audience? How do I do that? What should my ads look like? Where the hell do I start?!

I started my career at PriceWaterhouseCoopers doing marketing for the tax division, and I’m pretty sure the only reason they didn’t fire me was because I quit before they could. Then I started looking for opportunities that fit my interests and I joined/partnered with a new start up running adult sports leagues and parties in San Diego, VAVi Sport & Social.

At that age, I liked playing sports and going out. Now I’m old and like doing nothing at all and having my weekend’s free. While building VAVi, we went on to found/co-found a number of obstacle races:

• Del Mar Mud Run
• Electric Run
• Ridiculous Obstacle Challenge
• WIPEOUTRUN

I remember thinking through how to position the different businesses and I asked myself “Has a marketing campaign ever worked on me? What was my reaction? Have I ever actually been excited about a campaign or is it just more and more noise?”.

My take away was in every industry you can get people excited… or at least interested and there is only one reaction you should strive for from the potential customer: “I WANT TO [insert cuss word] DO THAT!” Or for companies that don’t offer experiences: “I WANT TO [insert cuss word] work with them!”

That was my goal when we were building those businesses and hopefully we were successful.

I’ve put together some examples below of advertisements that have given me the above reaction. Tell me in the comments below if you agree or not!

Advertisements that made me say I WANT TO (insert cuss word) DO THAT!

• Rise Festival: My old business partner in Electric Run founded this as his next venture. How can you not want to sign up and forward to your friends after seeing this video?
• 6 unit development in Logan Circle: I went to a launch party there last week. My reaction was I WANT TO F’ING LIVE THERE!
• Buying a house must be the same with every brokerage? This commercial made me think maybe they do it differently and I want to meet them.
• Hangover movie: I remember many years ago that after I saw this trailer, I sent the link to all my friends and said I would be willing to quit my job to go see this movie.

The industry doesn’t matter.

If you really want to simplify your end goal, ask your self if the advertisement or this new office space or this experience with my company makes you say I WANT TO FREAKING DO THAT… or I WANT TO FREAKING WORK WITH THEM. It will help you simplify everything and not get caught up in the specific details that might not matter.

We own a title company, which I’ve determined has to be one of the 1-2 most boring businesses in the world from the outside.

Adult sports leagues and obstacle racing is slightly different than title insurance but we have a great time growing the business because we make the day to day fun and try to create an experience that we are all excited about.

We have a commercial coming out in a couple months… the challenge will be to get you to say I WANT TO FREAKING WORK WITH THEM. Hopefully it works but at least it’s very clear what our goal is going to be!

What’s your favorite commercial? Include the link in the comments below.

Have questions related to title insurance? Email Latane and Matt at [email protected]. Want to use Allied Title & Escrow when you buy a home? Tell your agent when you buy a house to write in Allied Title & Escrow as your settlement company!