Whenever you consider adding another marketing method to your agency’s marketing plan, you must consider the method’s value proposition. A new marketing method that offers little value beyond those which you already use might not be a good addition—but a marketing method that has a greater value proposition could be a gold mine.

Email insurance newsletters are one marketing technique that has a value proposition that is fourfold. Email newsletters provide:

• A tool to ensure persistency and client retention.
• A means to generate leads.
• An educational resource that can show prospects and existing clients what they need.
• An affordable marketing solution.

Making the Most of Persistency

When an existing client gets the impression that you care about your relationship with them even after the premium has been collected and the policy issued, they are more likely to remain a client for the long term. That means any new insurance needs they have will be discussed with you and they will feel comfortable discussing with you any claims made by competing agents. You also gain the benefit of positive word-of-mouth as your client spreads your name to his or her friends and family.

Generating Leads with Email Newsletters

When you educate and empower people you not only make them feel good and trust you, but you also help them understand why they need insurance. While your email newsletter should never come out and ask readers for a sale, it should educate them enough that they understand the need for insurance on their own. This education will compel them to use you as their agent and to buy insurance that they may have thought unnecessary before reading your email newsletter articles.

What Makes Email Newsletters Affordable?

The best direct mail marketing pieces are professionally designed, color and content rich, and expensive to print and mail. Email newsletters offer you customizable, professionally written ghostwritten articles and a professional design with no postage or printing expenses. As long as you follow good emailing practices you can avoid the SPAM folder and build your email as a good resource.

The internet is beginning to really change the face of prospecting. And while it might make that process easier, it doesn’t change the fact that selling comes from building trust between you and your prospect. After all, the best sales environment is one in which the client trusts you and your judgment and has a desire to work with you to fulfill their insurance needs.

When you host seminars, cold call, or meet clients who’ve been referred to you, you are focusing on presenting yourself as an authority in the industry and establishing that trust. Luckily, there is an easy way to create that authoritative, trustworthy persona online as well through a simple exercise referred to as blogging.

What is Blogging and How Does it Help?

When you blog, you create 300-500 word articles about a topic within your market. In doing so, you show your personality, your knowledge and your authority within the niche. When prospects read your blog, they get a sense of all that, and this gives them an instantaneous bond with you. The more regularly you blog, the stronger this bond can become.

Many people consider blogging to be the same as online networking, which is referred to as social networking. Blogging isn’t exactly social networking because it’s not a two-way conversation, but it does have some similar traits. Your blog readers can (and many of them will) comment on your blog posts, ask questions and even request that you cover specific topics. Commenting back and continuing to be personable is a great way to really cement your relationship and start getting sales.

Creating Good Blog Content

The key to creating good blog content is to write relevant posts that are easy for a web reader to scan. Since blogs are more of a social medium, you can write more casually and include your opinion. Keep the content general so your compliance department doesn’t get uncomfortable and don’t give too many glossy overviews or your readers won’t feel the value of your blog.

If you are not a writer, or aren’t even sure where to begin with creating your blog, don’t worry. You can purchase pre-written insurance content for you blog right here.

If you’ve been in the insurance industry for any length of time then you know that there isn’t always a direct correlation between the amount of marketing you do and the sales you close in a week. You don’t get one sale for every phone call you make or flyer you send, which means you don’t get an immediate return on your marketing dollar.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you get no return—obviously marketing works in the long run or it would not be done. So how, exactly does marketing work if it doesn’t generally result in an immediate sale?

Taking Up Brain Space

Marketing of any kind works by placing your business, your service, and you in the minds of your potential clients. Your radio ads, direct mail pieces and follow-up calls all work to carve out a space for you in the subconscious of your prospects. Then, when they actually have a need for your service, they remember you from your tireless marketing efforts and, hopefully, call you.

Of course, some marketing efforts work better than others and some are viewed by prospects as annoying or pushy. That’s why finding the right marketing method is important.

Marketing with Newsletters

One of the easiest ways to stay on the minds of your prospects without being relegated to the “annoying and pushy” column is to send those who opt in a regular newsletter. Newsletters work in two ways:

• First, they are a form of marketing that is not considered pushy, urgent or invasive. They get the word out about your business but do not aggressively ask for a sale.
• Second, newsletters are valuable on their own as sources of information. Most marketing pieces do not have any intrinsic value. They are simply tools to create sales. Newsletters teach readers about the insurance they own, inform them about different types of insurance they may not have considered before, and can help bridge the gap between insurance as an intangible product and the tangible needs it can fulfill.

When you send a newsletter to your prospects you not only get the benefit of a consistent marketing effort that keeps you and your agency on the mind of your prospects, you also create value within the relationship that increases the likelihood of your prospects calling you for their insurance needs.

The ideas we’ve gone through so far are the cornerstones of branding and marketing. But in 2010, why not take it a step further? Why not take your marketing to the extreme? Here are some additional brand awareness ideas: Continue Reading »

It’s time to enter the 21st century, even if you have to do it kicking and screaming; and by that, we mean it’s time to get a Twitter account. Wait! Before you start thinking that Twitter is only useful for finding out how Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore’s relationship is going, you need to understand just how great Twitter could be for your insurance agency.

Twitter is one of the quickest and most effective ways of connecting with millions of people and developing a relationship with them. Sure, you aren’t going to become BFFs (uh, that’s Best Friends Forever in case you were wondering), but you can create a personable agency identity and sew the initial seeds of your relationship with millions of people who need insurance. Continue Reading »