Direct Mail Campaign Promotes Home Value Insurance
Home price insurance firm Home Value dropped a one million piece mailing in late October, targeting homeowners in areas where home values have declined at least 15% in recent years.
Target areas for the campaign include several cities in Ohio, including Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Dayton, saysHome Value Insurance Co. has launched a direct response campaign in Ohio to promote a brand new type of policy. This form of coverage—legal only in that state– insures homeowners against losses they might incur as a result of declining housing market values. The company is using direct mail, direct response radio and online media to introduce this to the market, says Teri Felix, CMO of the San Francisco-based company.
How do the policies work? If home prices in a given location decline and owners must sell their homes for less than the insured home value, the policy will help cover the loss. For example, if a home is insured for $200,000 but the owners were only able to sell their home for $180,000, the insurance policy would pay the homeowner the $20,000 they lost on the sale.
Copy in the mail campaign warns recipients about the dangers of falling real estate prices and how the policy works. The calls to action are a phone number consumers can call to find an agent, and the URL
www.homevalueprotection.com.
On the website, users are invited to enter their street address, home purchase price and whether it’s their primary residence. The site also tries to ascertain if they wanted to buy insurance directly off the site. Felix says that this information is mandatory for underwriting these policies. She notes that right now, Home Value has no plans for following up these leads for further marketing efforts but may do so in the future.
Online, search campaigns are being run through Google Ad Network to supplement ads on several home/garden and real estate sites. The company is ranked number two for the keywords “home value insurance.” Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are also being used to reach homeowners and independent insurance agents.
Sixty-second radio spots on several Columbus stations are being used to support the direct mail effort, which will run through the end of the year. DRTV may be added to the mix at a later point as the campaign rolls out further across Ohio, says Felix.
At present, home value protection insurance is only legal in Ohio because most states require a waiting period of up to four years before allowing new types of policies to be sold, explains Felix. She notes that other states like Georgia, Indiana, Oklahoma and Texas may soon allow the sale of such policies.
So far, Home Value has signed up about 75 insurance agents and plans to sign up as many as 300 in Ohio, she says.
Depressed housing prices across the nation are influencing the market for mortgage and other real estate-related lists and some brokers don’t thinks conditions will improve anytime soon. https://chiefmarketer.com/direct/non-print/data-roundtable-prospects-mortgage-real-estate-listslar3/index.html.
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