Taking the Marketing of an Insurance Agency to the Next Level
We’ve all reached the point when we’ve had a task looming over our head and we must get it done today. Waiting any longer to complete the task feels like it would kill us. The task has become such a thorn in our side that we have to pull it out before it does more damage. The underlying question is why we wait so long to do important tasks, especially when it comes to our business. In this post, we look at why annuity sellers should take the marketing of insurance to the next level. It’s time to stop putting off for tomorrow what we should do to make our business stronger today. The Importance of Customer Service I came across an interesting thought in Micah Solomon’s Harvard Business Review blog post the other day. He described how insurance companies could learn how to improve their customer service models by taking benchmarks from other industries. One way would be to look at how a hotel provides service to qualify for a 5-star rating. This starts with the reservation booking system and continues through every aspect of a client’s stay, including valet, pool-side services, concierge, customer service, dining, and housekeeping. Looking at Technology One place where your business model could be lacking in customer service is in the area of technology. For example, insurance companies may not stand out as offering customer experiences reflecting their use of the latest tech applications. However, in the insurance industry itself, I’m thinking more specifically of the sellers who market annuities and life insurance products for multiple carriers. Regardless of where your consultation office is located, you represent a client’s customer’s first experience. Clients may access customer service in the future by calling the insurance carrier’s toll-free number, but they should come to you when they want to add or delete terms to their policy and to purchase additional policies. Or, at least, you hope that they will instead of choosing another annuity seller. Efficiency Matters In one agency, Starkweather & Shepley, Solomon noted that greater operational “efficiency has been accomplished by keeping a close eye on technological tools that support customers directly, and those that improve the performance of employees as they engage in supporting customers as well.” Start Small and Then Build On It If you’re worried about taking the marketing of your insurance agency to the next level, you need to choose at least one way to use technology to make the customer service experience more efficient. We’ve written before on Facebook marketing, which means that you’re taking the time to respond to questions that people post as comments on your page or that they send to you through Messenger. Have you thought about using free apps to post informational content on your website, blog, or Facebook page? For example, you can create a series of video blogs and post them on a free YouTube channel. Each blog in the series could answer a major question that people have about annuities. If you’ve got a customer who wants to participate, you could create a video blog and answer her questions in an interview format. Put Clients At Ease What we love about selling insurance and annuities is that social media applications are the easiest way to reach a wider audience. You can post content on any social media platform without paying to create a profile. Most platforms also make it easy to track where your leads are coming from, which you can then download into your own client database. If you’re sitting back this summer and lamenting that business could be better, it’s time to think about how to leverage the many technologies that are out there. Expand your reach without spending a dime.
Marketing & Branding the Insurance Agency: You’re a Small Business Owner!
We may not always think of representatives who sell annuities for insurance companies as small business owners. However, at a minimum, being an agent for a company makes you a contractor. You will only earn enough to live on if you’re aggressively setting and achieving personal sales goals. That being said, you must focus heavily on relationships with clients. For this reason, it is easy to think of yourself as having the needs of other small business owners. Your little agency is a mini-organization with the needs of all similar firms. In a past article in Entrepreneur.com, it explains why it is important to know what your competitors are doing. Then use the same strategies. Chris Simpson explains below: “Look around your industry. Watch what’s going on. Study your competition. Follow what works. Why wouldn’t you? Your competitors are selling their wares to the same target market you are. And if what they’re doing is working, you can bet it could work for you too!” Take a Step Back This advice is immediately applicable to reps like us marketing annuities to consumers who are risk-averse but are unconvinced that they want to buy a product now. We must look at how other sales reps for insurance companies are effectively marketing their products and achieving more sales. On the one hand, you can call your contacts in the annuity industry and see what they are doing. On the other hand, you can read our blog and get ideas. Hence, an annuity-selling agent must try new strategies to establish and build those relationships with prospects. We are in the sales business, after all, to make money! Learn From Your Own Mistakes Simpson mentions that you can learn from the mistakes of your competitors, but you can also learn from your own. Last year, if you sent out a postcard to everyone in your prospect database and got only a few responses, this year you need to try a different marketing tactic. It could be time to consult with marketing experts about print or digital marketing strategies, but it could also be time to revisit your website and blog. For example, you should be able to look at your own blog and determine which posts have received the most hits in the past six months. You want to remove the pieces of content that had few clicks and to write more pieces like the ones that had the most clicks. You also want to read any comments and follow up with those individuals. They may have questions about your agency or about the annuities and other life insurance products that you sell. Create a Sense of Urgency Simpson also explains that people can use their marketing materials, whether email letters or glossy postcards, to build a sense of urgency in prospective customers. You want to write blog posts and other kinds of marketing copy that encourage people to learn more about annuities right now. They need to understand that they aren’t protecting their financial interests or those of their dependents without the right product. You can also create a sense of urgency when you talk to people in person, over the phone, or on email. You can say something like this: “Well, I am glad that you asked that question, Ms. Perez. A multi-year fixed annuity can give you minimum returns year over year, making it a predictable investment with an acceptable risk. Of course, I want you to bring Mr. Perez and your son into my office to get all their annuity questions answered too! We should really sit down and look at the type of annuity that best fits your needs.” With this kind of speech, regardless of the mode of communication, you are creating the need for the person to set an appointment, and then you can make the case for their purchase of an annuity instrument.