What Insurance Agencies Need to Know About Increasing Sales with Marketing

I’ve worked with insurance agencies for over 14 years, and they typically have great salespeople with good personalities and a desire to help their clients. But one thing they often lack is an understanding of how good marketing can help drive organic growth at their agencies.

The first thing to know is that “Marketing” is any activity that helps generate demand. With that in mind, here are 5 things they should know about marketing increasing sales:

Your Brand is Your Reputation, and Your Reputation is Your Brand.
About 10-12 years ago, if your insurance agency didn’t have a good website, you were falling behind. It wasn’t because people wanted to transact business on your website, it was because when a prospect began to decide who their next agent should be, they researched it online. Even if a friend referred them, they checked it out online to see if the agency looked “legitimate” in their online presence. Now that’s even more the case, with Google/Facebook reviews, social media, blogs and other content all playing a part. That’s your online reputation, and it’s often their first exposure to your brand.

Specialties and Niches Make it Even Easier to Market.
Too often, I see agents spend what little marketing budget they have on “mass marketing” efforts. Billboards, radio ads, little league sponsorships and the like have value to build brand and community - but they’re not as effective in driving sales. If your agency has a niche - especially commercial - go where those prospects are and get your message in front of them. The targeting tools available to help you market your agency make it possible to segment audiences with great effectiveness. If you want the CFO at a manufacturer or the GM at a restaurant to know you could help them with their insurance, why aren’t you targeting them with your marketing?

It’s Not a Short-term Play.
I have worked with agencies that ran newspaper ads for a few weeks and stopped when they didn’t get much response. I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way. Why do Coca-Cola, Amazon, Budweiser, Geico and McDonalds advertise all the time when we all know who there are? Because they want brand recognition and time-of-demand advertising. The good news? You don’t have to spend like them to achieve this.

It Helps All Your Other Sales Efforts.
Have producers that are great at cold calling? Excellent, think how much better they’d be if those prospects said, “oh yeah, we’ve heard of you guys,” when they got that call. Then, when that prospect follows up with research, they find information online that supports them trusting your agency to quote.

It Can Be Measured.
The more you target your marketing, the more it can be measured. Want to see ROI? Utilize marketing in segments that allow you to track data with incoming demand. Just ran a campaign to Pigeon Forge cabin owners that resulted in 8,000 views? If you quoted and bound policies in the weeks that followed that campaign, you can bet the marketing played a part. Want even more tracking? Build out segment landing pages for your campaign so you know more about your traffic.

There are simple tactics to begin all the processes above. Don’t have the time or the expertise at your agency to get started? Let us help you with driving organic sales demand. Please call Daniel Smith at 423.503.0388 or email dsmith@insurors.org for more information.