Tag Archives: follow-up process

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Create a Marketing System

Over the last few months, I’ve been working on a new marketing program for personal lines and small commercial business. (The personal lines program is scheduled to be released on May 1). As a result, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how important a successful marketing program is for an agency’s long-term health.

It seems as though agencies are beginning to understand how important marketing should be, based on the phone calls I’m receiving asking for help. The Internet really is changing how consumers research and purchase insurance. Yet even with the game-changing nature of the Internet, basic marketing principles still apply. Here are a few thoughts to help you begin strategizing about how you can develop a marketing program or enhance your existing programs.

  1. Measure everything: Wasteful marketing can be a real drain on an agency’s budget. Before you start any type of marketing, establish a way for you to measure the success, or failure, of each marketing strategy and tactic.
  2. Have a good lead generation system: Never in the history of marketing has there been so many ways to attract customers to a Web site or store front. The trick is to sort through the clutter to find what works for your agency and your customers. By knowing your customers, you’ll know exactly what medium your agency should use to attract new consumers.
  3. Know your customers: A successful marketing system isn’t just about attracting new business. In fact, retention and account rounding can pay much bigger dividends to the bottom line than just concentrating on new business. Knowing what policies your customers have, and don’t have, allows you to create a marketing process to get additional business.
  4. Compete on value, not price: Price is important, but too many agency owners think that consumers simply want the lowest priced product or service. Once you find what your customers value, you can charge a premium for it.
  5. Speak about your customers’ problems, not your products: Often, agency owners build an entire marketing system around policy coverages. For instance, the Web site and brochure describe what is covered and what is not. Instead, your marketing message should describe customer problems and how you can solve them.
  6. Create a follow-up system: I wrote an editorial about follow-up failure in August 2009. What I said then bears repeating: “The biggest reason agents don’t write more business is because they simply don’t follow up. If agencies fixed this one thing in their marketing process they would automatically increase the number of new clients…”

Technology is available to help you manage your marketing system. The first step is to understand the need for marketing. Then, create a marketing strategy for the agency, implement that strategy, and monitor its effectiveness. If you do all of these things, you can’t help but become more successful.

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Fixing Follow-up Failure

The biggest reason agents don’t write more business is because they don’t follow up. If agencies fixed this one thing, they would automatically increase the number of new clients.

Here is how most agencies operate: they spend the time, effort, and money to create a process that identifies potential prospects and educates them on how the agency can effectively handle their insurance. Once the prospect becomes interested, a producer (or, for smaller accounts, an inside salesperson) becomes involved and begins to work with that prospect.

What happens to all the other prospects who aren’t interested right now? They fall through the cracks.

Very few agencies have an organized process for staying in touch with prospects who are not interested in buying right now. That’s a shame, because those prospects will purchase an insurance product at some point in the future. They will become interested in what you have to offer, and may buy it from you, but only if they remember you when they are ready to buy.

I have been talking about this problem since 1991 when I started to build a book of new business from scratch in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. Part of my success was due to the fact that I created a follow-up process that worked. I created a system that printed a letter, which I signed and sent to every prospect I wanted to do business with. It was amazing to see how many appointments I obtained simply by following up.

Of course, technology has changed a lot since the early 90s. Systems now exist that can help you automate the process of staying in touch. Creating a system is critical because your producers can’t do this by themselves. The few agencies that are creating these kinds of systems are experiencing revenue growth—confirming that the system works, even during difficult economic times.

Your agency management system should be the platform that you use to manage this process. I have yet to find a vendor who really understands how critical a follow-up system is to agency success. Vendors, if you want to help your agency clients continue to be successful, give them the tools they need to bring in more clients.

If we are going to take back personal lines, following up will be critical. Similarly, if agencies want to increase their small commercial book, creating a follow-up process will be critical. If you want to grow, fixing follow-up failure is perhaps the most important improvement you can make.

What do you think?