Navi Title, Arizona’s largest title company, and WeSERV, the Phoenix-area Association of REALTORS®, partnered with MicroFamous to launch a video show to boost Navi Title’s profile among agents and add value for WeSERV members.
Branded around “the 13%” of successful agents, leveraging the association’s email list, Navi Title’s local clout, the show drew 2,000+ registrations for its debut episode. Big name guests, tailored content and a sponsorship deal with Arizona’s largest real estate school now drive 1,000s of views and downloads across platforms each month. The show positions Navi Title and WeSERV as local leaders, strengthening relationships with key partners, and has created direct engagement between these brands and the REALTORS® they want to reach.
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The Challenge: Raising Profiles in a Competitive Real Estate Market
Lance Billingsley, Navi Title’s VP of Agent Development, came to us with a challenge: raise Navi Title’s visibility and credibility among agents statewide, positioning them for more referral deals, while getting more registrations to their educational portal.
Meanwhile, WeSERV, the Phoenix-area Association of REALTORS®, wanted to deliver greater value to its members and share timely, hyper-local updates on advocacy efforts, regulatory changes and industry trends.
Lance brought both organizations together, and the idea was for the show to be a dynamic platform to engage agents, highlight each organization’s expertise, and stand out in Arizona’s competitive real estate landscape.
Lance on his primary motivation: I just really want our industry to succeed. That’s my laser focus..If one agent says “Okay, I’m going to do that one thing”… then it was all worth it.
The Solution: A Hyper-Local Show with Strategic Branding
Lance brought the idea of “the 13%” – based on industry stats showing that 87% of agents leave the business within 5 years. The ones who remain in the business are “the 13%” – the ones who have built successful, sustainable businesses.
Lance wanted to call the show, The 13%. The easy path for an agency would have been to brand the show around mindset for agents, and call it good.
Instead, we shared our experience with running niche real estate podcasts, and how agents are far more engaged when guests share actionable, tactical content. Rather than relying on the strength of the big name guests, we pressed ourselves and everyone involved to look deeper and find the “bleeding neck” urgent problem the guest could solve. Then we built the promotional campaign for each episode around that problem.
We also advised Lance to start by leveraging Navi Title and WeSERV’s deep connections and email lists in Arizona. If they could dominate just the Phoenix market alone (25k REALTORS®), they could reach the top 1% of real estate shows nationwide.
Once they dominated locally and statewide, they had massive opportunities to grow nationwide beyond that. They would also benefit from nationwide viewers finding their YouTube channel organically along the way.
In other words, start with a hyper-focused niche, build a ‘home base’ of fans in that niche, then go broad later. That’s the MicroFamous strategy in a nutshell.
Key elements included:
- Branding and Positioning: We initially branded around Arizona-specific geography in the graphics to establish the show as hyper-local. This ensured agents immediately recognized it as a local resource, not a generic national show. Later we moved away from Arizona-themed geography to a more standard and hard-hitting yellow-on-black theme.
- Live Format: Lance initially wanted to run the show live to generate real-time engagement and hold all the stakeholders accountable to a consistent schedule. One overlooked benefit of live episodes is that the live viewer numbers help give instant feedback. As a host, you start to develop a “fingertip feel” for how the episode is engaging the viewers. This allows you to make quick adjustments to hook viewers in and keep them engaged. Lance and his team have also tested live Q&A via chat, which is a very powerful way to build a sense of community and shared mission.
- Promotion Strategy: The main workhorse of the promotional campaign was WeSERV’s email database, with ongoing episodes across YouTube, audio apps, and WeSERV’s educational portal. Initially, views came from live broadcasts and YouTube replays, but audio downloads surged and caught up as more agents follow the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. We’ve seen this happen before, as our agency’s original flagship show, Real Estate Uncensored, had 90% of its views on YouTube before the audio downloads surged and took over. Eventually that show had 3.5 million audio downloads, outpacing the YouTube channel.
- Targeted Content: Different episodes and guests catered to diverse agent profiles. From top producers and team leaders focused on lead gen, to content for lifestyle-oriented agents emphasizing referrals and work-life balance. Lance also pointed out that hyper-local guests focused on hyper-local challenges perform very well and create positive feedback.
- Guest Strategy: Lance and our team leveraged our networks to book big name real estate leaders as guests, creating instant credibility for the show. Early guests included Leigh Brown and Michael Maher, both business coaches, authors and major event keynote speakers.
- Sponsorship Model: A partnership with Arizona’s largest real estate school provided financial support through regular promotion and guest spots, offsetting production costs with potential to fully fund the show.
Debut Episode: Ingredients to Success
To maximize eyeballs, we wanted either a big name guest or big headline topic that would draw agent’s attention. Together we landed on the NAR settlement, and decided to feature WeSERV CEO Roger Nelson.
Roger has a long tracking record as a trusted voice in Arizona real estate.
So we combined a timely topic with a multi-email push to their educational portal, leading to a Zoom registration. We kept things simple to create a streamlined experience for the agents.
The promo emails were mainly text with very direct, clear sales copy focusing on agent’s fear of change, creating FOMO around inside information, and scarcity of attendance limitations due to Zoom (genuine scarcity, not hype).
All those elements combined to generate over 2,000 registrations to their educational portal.
The Results: Market Leadership and Scalable Impact
The Navi Title-WeSERV show has solidified both organizations’ positions as leaders in Arizona’s real estate community, delivering impressive outcomes:
- Audience Engagement: Boosted by the initial 2000, registrations continued to come in and episodes now generate 1,000s of downloads and views across YouTube, audio apps, and WeSERV’s educational portal. Audio downloads shot up 3X in the first 4 months of 2025 alone.
- Market Positioning: The hyper-local branding and focus on the top 13% have established the show as a go-to resource for Arizona agents. With 25,000+ REALTORS® in the Phoenix area alone, capturing a meaningful percentage would rank the show among the top 1% of real estate shows.
- Diverse Reach: Tailored content for top producers, lifestyle agents, and industry trends ensures that Navi Title and WeSERV creates relevant content for all the different types of agents they serve.
- Sponsorship Success: The real estate school sponsorship offsets production costs, with potential to eliminate costs entirely, demonstrating a scalable model.
- Industry Influence: Timely content on topics like the NAR settlement, tech, and AI positions Navi Title and WeSERV as thought leaders, boosting credibility. Lance has built an entire in-person class based on content pulled from his podcast. Leverages the expertise of his guests and promotes the podcast to new audiences in person.
- Relationship Building: Guest appearances by real estate leaders foster referrals and collaboration opportunities.
Lance on the unexpected reach of the show:
I go into a room and talk to 40,50 agents. Half of them will say “I’ve never heard your show but I’ve seen the posts” The other half will say “I’ve never been on it live but I listen to it every week.”
Why It Worked: Hyper-Local Strategy and Targeted Execution
The Navi Title-WeSERV show success reflects MicroFamous’ strategic approach:
- Claim an Unclaimed Niche: In this case, focusing on Arizona with specific graphics, bringing on “locally famous” guests created instant relevance for area REALTORS®.
- Establish a ‘Home Base’ First: Focusing on the top 13%, as well as diverse agent profiles who aspire to be in that top 13%, paired with email promotion to a large email list, ensured the show captured a “Home Base” of early fans.
- Targeted Content: Topics like the NAR settlement, AI developments and hyper-local challenges attracted attention and established authority.
This case study showcases how our team, using our MicroFamous strategy, delivers a tailored solution to dominate niche markets and set our clients up for even bigger opportunities.
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