(**) Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning our company, JCHQ Publishing will get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through the links, but at no additional cost to you.
You could have the best loan signing services in the world. But if no one knows about it, then you won’t be making any money. Just like any other business, it is crucial to market your notary services to potential clients continuously.
Can notary signing agents advertise? Yes, notary signing agents can advertise. You could promote your loan signing business through traditional media, targeted online ads, or networking in person. But the marketing messages must comply with the regulation of the State notary public commission.
Furthermore, there is a saying, “failure to plan is simply planning to fail.” Placing ads randomly is like pouring money into the sea with no return on it.
You must have a strategic marketing plan, where you could reach your targeted audience effectively. Or I should say “cost-effectively.”
In this post, you’ll learn practical methods to promote your notary loan signing business.
Would you like to learn how to make $75 to $200 per signing appointment? You must check out the Loan Signing System from Mark Wills. (**) This is one of the best training programs for loan signing agents. Many students have achieved remarkable business success after taking this program.
Who are the targeted audiences of the notary signing ads?
Regardless of how quickly a plane can fly, if the pilot does not know where the destination is, you’re really not going anyway.
Your first step is to figure out who would be the people that could give you notary signing businesses. An obvious group would the escrow offices or title companies.
Then think about who are the people that could refer you to them. Would it be loan officers? Mortgage brokers? Or other professionals in the real estate industry?
Now let’s go over the methods to reach them directly.
How do you advertise as a signing agent?
Unless you are a multi-national large company with a huge marketing budget (e.g., McDonald, Coca Cola, Starbucks), mass marketing might not be a good investment for your loan signing business.
As a small business, your marketing campaign cannot just to build a brand, but it needs to give you a justifiable ROI. In other words, it needs to bring you signing appointments.
Use targeted ads
Traditional media such as TV, billboard, radio, newspapers could reach massive audiences. It could be great for businesses that are serving customers that do not need a lot of segmentation. (e.g., shampoo, grocery, body lotion.- well, most people will use them regardless of their age, occupation.).
But it might not work so well for your notary signing services as you need to target a specific group of audience. A considerable part of your marketing effort could be wasted since many viewers are not your potential clients.
Besides, the advertising on these traditional platforms is often very expensive.
Most online advertising platforms would give you access to helpful data so that you could adjust your marketing campaign accordingly. The nice thing is there is no commitment or contract. You can always increase, decrease or even stop the online ads.
Advertise based on viewers’ characteristics
One thing I like about online ads is the ability to show your ads to a pre-defined group of audiences. You could target ads viewers by their age, gender, interest, occupation, geographic location.
To give you an example, you could try to target anyone between 30-50 years old who are escrow officer, interested in real estate, and living in Sacramento and Los Angeles of California.
I believe both Facebook and LinkedIn ads would have this targeting feature. But frankly, LinkedIn should be a more appropriate platform since it is more business-oriented.
Advertise based on searcher’s intent
Google ads are excellent at targeting online users with specific search intent. For example, suppose someone is typing “notary loan signing agents in (Your city)“, then it’s likely that person is in need of your services. Therefore, the conversion rate could be a lot higher.
If you place your ads on Google based on those keywords or phrases, then your marketing message could appear in front of those particular viewers.
Typically speaking, the more common the phrase, the more advertisers are going after it. Thus, the more expensive cost per view or click. Rather than placing ads for the entire state, try to narrow your phrase to specific cities or towns.
Appear as a notary signing expert
Find out what is the industry magazine or newsletter that your targeted audiences are reading regularly.
Rather than placing a tiny ad that most people would neglect reading, you could contact the editor or publisher and see if they are looking for any guest posting.
Some of them could be happy that you reach out because they also have a difficult time always trying to come up with new content. However, don’t just focus the article on promoting yourself. You must provide helpful tips that could intrigue their readers.
In there, you could also share some interesting experiences when you were going through a signing process. (Needs to be interesting to the readers, not just interesting to you.) Also, avoid mentioning names unless you get the proper consent from the other party.
Similarly, you could become a guest interviewee on an industry podcast. I remember there are channels that are hosted by mortgage brokers. Just search on the Podcast app on your smartphone.
You may also reach out to become a presenter at an industry tradeshow event.
However, some of them may require you to pay for sponsorship. So you need to look at their demographic and traffic to determine whether it could justify the cost.
Can a notary signing agent advertise on time 24/7?
Yes, you could advertise to take on signing appointments 24/7. But frankly, it’s unlikely you would receive too many late-night meetings.
I heard from numerous loan signing agents that they used to advertise going for appointments 24/7, but they only did a handy of them in a few years.
In one case, the signing agent received a call at midnight. The loan borrower needed to get the document signed the next day. The urgency was that he was leaving on a flight and needed to be at the airport by 4 am. You could imagine how tight the schedule was for the appointment.
Another case was that the signing agent received a call at 3:00 am. Rather than setting up a signing appointment, he had a bunch of questions for the agent. Since she advertised to work 24/7, she felt bounded to answer the questions.
Although you could receive a higher service fee for late appointments, several signing agents feel that it is too stressful as you always need to be in business mode.
After all, most of us decided to run a business because we enjoy the flexibility and control of our work hours.
Therefore, most of them removed themselves from the 24/7 status. But the good thing is it didn’t have any impact on their business.
Can a notary use their seal on business cards?
No, a notary cannot use their seal on business cards.
A notary public shall not use the official notarial seal except for the purpose of carrying out the duties and responsibilities as set forth in this chapter. A notary public shall not use the title “notary public” except for the purpose of rendering notarial service.
California Legislative Information- Gov’t code 8207
Although the above code applies to California and every state could have its own law, I would not recommend risking it.
How do you promote a notary?
In the previous section, I talked about using ads to market your notary signing services. But if you’re just starting in the industry, you might not have the budget for it.
So here are some affordable ways to promote your business.
Engage in social media
The purpose is to let connect with more real estate professionals (e.g., escrow officers, mortgage brokers.). This way, whenever they need loan signing services, they would immediately think about you.
A good platform to use is LinkedIn. In there, you could easily search and connect with people based on their occupation. You could even join professional groups that give you more exposure to others.
Here’s an Escrow Officers group you may want to take a look. At the time I’m writing this post, it has over 1660 members.
However, just randomly adding a lot of people to your connection is meaningless. You need to spend the time to engage with them so that you could get to know about you more as a person.
When your targeted connection shares a post, you may participate in the discussion and provide constructive comments. If it’s a post that worth re-sharing, then be sure to do so.
Furthermore, you could share industry updates or helpful tips for business practice. For example, a while ago, I wrote an article: “Safety Tips for Real Estate Agents -Don’t be the next victim!“. It consists of many practical safety ideas that many real estate professionals find it helpful.
Build connections the traditional way
When it comes to building a trusted relationship, there’s no replacement for direct interaction. To get to know more escrow officers, you may visit the escrow association in your state. Below are a few that I found for your reference:
- American Escrow Association (AEA)
- Escrow Association of Washington (EAW)
- California Escrow Association (CEA)
If possible, try to become their member and participate in their events. This could be a huge opportunity to build connections with their escrow officers.
So what’s next after you built a database of contacts?
Regardless of how the person was added to your contact list, I’m sure they would do an online search for you.
The first thing you should have is a professionally designed website!
On there, it should contain your contact details, servicing regions, pricing, and your standard turnaround time for a signing appointment.
Also, it would be nice to have a blog section where you could provide loan signing tips and updates about your business.
Keep in touch with your contacts regularly
Emailing marketing is a great way to touch base with a large group of audiences. If you already obtained their consent, then you could include them in your emailing list.
Keep them posted with industry updates and ideas which could be useful to them. However, people tend to have a shorter attention span these days. So try to keep your message short and simple.
If you have written a blog post on your website, you could email them a snippet of it, then include a link where they could read further if they are interested.
I prefer email marketing tools that allow you to set up an automatic sequence of emails. Rather than contacting each subscriber manually, this really makes the marketing effort automatic.
If you want to create a professionally looking website and set up effective email marketing campaigns, here are some helpful business tools. They are easy-to-use, affordable, and great choices for DIY.
Contact important business partners directly
According to the 80/20 rule, it’s likely that 80% of your business could be coming from 20% of the people. This could be the escrow office owners or your referral partners.
Therefore, it is a good idea to contact them directly every once in a while. Give them a call, go for a coffee or lunch, and continue maintaining the trusted relationship.
Sometimes it could lead to opportunities such as hosting a seminar at their office or co-hosting a webinar for other real estate industry participants.
How do you market yourself as a loan signing agent?
In this section, I’m not talking about the method you will use to market yourself. Well, the above ideas should be enough for you to try it out for now.
Rather, I’m talking about how do you portray yourself as a loan signing agent. What is so unique about you that escrow offices would want to pass their signing appointments to you?
Therefore, you must put yourself in the shoes of the escrow officers. What are things that you must demonstrate before they would give you a business?
It is not the gift you buy for their birthday or the lunch that you treat. Instead, it is the commitment that you won’t screw up their deal. After all, many parties (e.g., buyers, sellers, mortgage broker, real estate agent) are depending on the completion of your signing work.
If you were doing a poor job at it, the escrow offices could be put accountable for your negligence. Even if not monetary, it could surely ruin their reputation.
Show them that you have a standard procedure in place
Managing clients’ expectations is the key to running a business. Escrow officers could hesitate in giving you the signing business if they are unsure whether you can properly do the job.
It’s better to communicate upfront about your standard procedure with them so that there wouldn’t be any unwanted surprise or misunderstanding.
For example, you must be able to communicate the following clearly:
- What is your servicing area?
- Are you willing to travel to a hospital, nursing home, office, or private residence to perform your duties?
- What is your standard turnaround time? And servicing hours?
- What is your pricing schedule?
- Will you charge an extra fee if the signing appointment is outside of your servicing area, or it is on a tight deadline?
- What kind of security measure you have to protect confidential documents?
Show them that you are serious in the notary signing profession
Even though you have already obtained the notary public commission certificate, it’s better to keep posted with the latest industry updates and take continuing education courses that could improve your loan signing business practice.
If you regularly share what you learn that could be helpful to others, that is one way to show that you are serious and being active in this profession.
Consider becoming a Certified Notary Signing Agent. This designation could demonstrate that you have reached a considerable level of knowledge in the notary loan signing industry.
Also, if the remote notary public certificate is available in your state, you should definitely get it. The paperless trend of doing business is already here, and I don’t see this will be going away. Being able to notarize documents electronically will give you a competitive edge.
As long as clients know that you are willing to spend the time and investments to continuously staying sharp in this profession, it would give them greater confidence in assigning job orders to you.
Show them feedback from satisfied customers
Anyone could say great things about themselves. But it really counts only when the compliment came from a third-party.
Whenever you have complete a signing order, ask your clients if they could provide you with some feedback. For example, are you being punctual to the meeting? Did you go through the signing process clearly? Were the documents delivered back to the escrow office completed and on time?
Make sure you obtain their proper consent to publicize their feedback. Then you could post them on your notary business website and show them to your next potential client.
Learn from successful loan signing agents
Rather than reinventing the marketing wheel, you could learn from someone who has tremendous success in this field. Mark Wills is one of the top-notch coaches in the loan signing industry. Click here to find out effective ways to market your notary business in his training program. (**)
How do you get a loan signing job?
If you haven’t established an adequate client base, but needs signing appointments, then you could check out signing services companies.
They work as a broker for notary loan signing agents, where they would receive signing orders from escrow companies, then would outsource them to you.
Therefore, rather than going through all the marketing work, you would receive a notification, usually by text messages or emails, whenever there is a signing appointment available.
Since they help you to find the signing business, they would take a cut of the signing fee.
Snapdocs.com is one of the websites that help notaries to find signing orders. You would need to complete your profile on their website. The more often you use Snapdocs, the more visible your profile will become. Thus, more signing orders would be available to you.
You may also check out websites such as SigningAgent, 123notary, NotaryCafe. I’ll leave their links in the reference section at the end of the post.
The Bottom Line about Notary Signing Agents Advertising
I personally prefer to use online ads when it comes to finding customers. It allows you to target a specific group of audiences, thus leads to a higher conversion rate.
But regardless of which advertising you use, be sure to keep track of its performance. This way, you could determine whether the return can justify the investments.
Of course, the best way is to mimic those who have achieved great success in marketing their signing services.
If you want to succeed in the loan signing industry, you must check out this loan system training program. If you review the testimonials of his students, you’ll be amazed at how the notary career changes their life after they learned from Mark Wills. (**)
Reference:
- Hootsuite.com- How to use LinkedIn Ads to grow your business? (Source)
- California Legislative Information – Gov’t Code 8207 (Source)
- Florida Department of State, Division of Corporations- Could you give me some advice on how to advertise my notary services? (Source)
- Snapdocs – Grow Your Notary Business (Source)
- SigningAgent (Source)
- 123Notary (Source)
- Notary Cafe (Source)
