Tag Archives: marketing

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Understanding the Post-Recession Consumer

Understanding consumer behavior is a key to making sure your agency will continue to prosper.

In this TED talk by John Gerzema, co-author of the book The Brand Bubble, he says there’s an upside to the recent financial crisis — the opportunity for positive change. Speaking at TEDxKC, he identifies four major cultural shifts driving new consumer behavior and shows how businesses are evolving to connect with thoughtful spending.

How is your agency changing to meet the needs of your clients as these cultural shifts take place?

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Strategy First; Technology Second

In a previous post I stated the case for why an agency that wants to grow must have a comprehensive marketing system. I ended with this paragraph:

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.

As a result of recent conversations I’ve had with various people within the insurance industry, I want to emphasize that creating an effective and engaging Web site is only 25% of what’s necessary to be successful in growing your agency. The questions I’m receiving now from agencies include, “Can you recommend a Web designer?” or, “Can you help me with search engine optimization?” The first question should be, “What marketing strategies can we implement that will help us grow a profitable book of business?”

Technology doesn’t market. A Web site doesn’t sell. These are simply tools that help an agency support a well thought out and developed marketing strategy. Strategy should always come before technology. Only after the strategy is created should you look for the technology tools that will help support and implement the strategy. When this process is reversed, the likelihood of failure is much higher.

Your Web site could have the best design and most compelling content and engaging video, but if you don’t have a strategy in place for what to do with the prospects who visit your site, you will fail to convert them to clients. What is the strategy that will bring prospects to the point when they finally make a buying decision? All the technology in the world is useless if it doesn’t result in a sale.

Opportunity awaits

I fully support industry initiatives like the new Personal Lines Growth Alliance. There is tremendous opportunity for an agency to build a high margin and profitable book of personal lines and small commercial business. And technology is playing a significant role in making this possible.

A successful personal lines and small commercial strategy needs to include at least four elements:

  1. Keep: Keeping the business that you already have is the core of a profitable book.
  2. Upgrade: Adding additional coverage to existing policies is the most profitable revenue you can generate. It also goes a long way to enhance your E&O protection.
  3. Round Out: Adding new lines of coverage or policies cements your relationship with clients and helps you retain them longer.
  4. Get More: New business generation is an important part of the overall process.

Notice that generating new businesses (#4) is only one-quarter of the overall strategy of building a profitable book. The other three items will generate more profit than just relying on obtaining new business.

Remember, make sure you have a strategy first. Then—and only then—look for the tools to implement your strategy.

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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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Diving into Internet Marketing

The cover story in the December 2009 issue of American Agent & Broker is an article by me where I describe the different ways the Internet can be the best marketing tool an insurance agent can have at their disposal.

Consumers’ buying and shopping habits have changed. Think about what you do when you’re thinking of buying a new product or service. For most people, the research process starts by going to the Internet and searching for that product or service.

To read the entire article simply to to the American Agent & Broker web site by clicking the link below.

http://www.agentandbroker.com/Issues/2009/December-2009/Pages/Diving-into-Internet-marketing.aspx

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ACT Podcasts on Agency Productivity and Internet Marketing

I have been involved in one way or another with the Agent’s Council for Technology (ACT) since its inception in the mid 90’s. ACT is a partnership of independent agents, companies, technology vendors, user groups, and associations dedicated to enhancing the use of technology and improved work flows within the Independent Agency System.

ACT held their fall meeting in conjunction with the IIABA Leadership Conference in New Orleans in September. Part of that meeting was a Special Event with Young Agents and IIABA State Officers. Two panel discussions were held and recorded. They are both well worth listening to. The podcasts of both panels are available online at www.IndependentAgent.com/act.

Each panel runs about an hour and provides a great summary of the breakthrough strategies agencies are employing to enhance their productivity and transform their marketing to fit the online world.

I was a participant on the “Transformation in Agency Marketing” panel. As you will see from the details below, some great people with practical experience participated on both panels. Jeff Yates, Executive Director of ACT said about both panels, “I think you will agree they hit the ball out of the park in clearly presenting the opportunities available to agencies today to become more efficient, save time and attract new sales to their business.”

I do recommend you download both of these podcasts to your iPod and listen to them on a walk or while you are driving. Each panel participant provides a host of tips and techniques they are currently using to enhance productivity and increase sales. I promise you this will be two hours of well spent time!

More Details on the Podcasts:

Podcast # 1: “Practical Strategies to Enhance Agency Productivity”

  • Brian Bartosh, Top O’ Michigan Insurance
  • Stu Durland, Seely & Durland Insurance
  • Lisa Parry Becker, Parry & Son
  • Cyndy Smith, Haylor, Freyer & Coon
  • Ashley Whitney, Harbor Brenn Agencies
  • Jeff Yates, ACT Executive Director, Moderator
  1. The most effective workflows & technologies being employed successfully within agencies to enhance productivity
  2. How agencies are transforming the roles of their staffs to more pro-active service and sales

Podcast # 2: “The Transformation in Agency Marketing”

  • Steve Anderson, Steve Anderson Consulting
  • Katie Herbst, Westfield Insurance
  • Angelyn Treutel, Treutel Insurance Agency
  • Rick Morgan, Rick Morgan Consulting
  • Rick Dinger, Crescenta Valley Insurance
  • Peter van Aartrijk, Aartrijk Group, Moderator
  1. How agencies are rebalancing their marketing strategies to more of an online focus using their websites, social media, and search engine positioning

The PowerPoint for “The Transformation in Agency Marketing” panel is also available on the site.

www.IndependentAgent.com/act