Insurance Marketing Rejuvenation is 50% Attitude, Embrace Change

Fear of change has many agency owners pulling out their hair.

How many insurance agency owners wake up every morning and say, “I’m psyched to go into work today?” The answer, probably not many. In fact, it’s a safe bet that very few agency owners even have the word “psyched” in their lexicon, and the approach most days ranges from tempered enthusiasm to crippling dread.

It’s easy to get bummed when you see new leads evaporating, direct insurers advertising everywhere and formerly loyal customers jumping ship to save a few bucks. Outdated insurance marketing strategy, obsolete agency management systems and a sputtering economy are popular scapegoats for agencies mired in the red. However, if an agency is able to identify the problems, but chooses to do nothing about it, that’s a mental lapse.

Albert Einstein defined “insanity” as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. To be clear, IMHQ isn’t insinuating institutional insanity in the insurance industry, just making the point that too few agencies are getting the hint that they need to start developing a digital/web strategy. With a wealth of resources available from organizations like the Agents Council for Technology (ACT) and an increasing push from insurance trade magazines, it’s no longer a matter of “If” but “When” to start the transition.

Penny Insurance in Hendersonville, NC has a story many small agencies can relate to. Founded nearly 80 years ago by his great uncle, owner Will Penny was completely burned out on the business. Marketing and organizational processes that always worked in the past were bearing no fruit and his staff was just going through the motions, trying to get to 5 p.m. every day.

Penny Insurance, March’s Rough Notes E-Marketing Agency of the month then decided to stop the insanity and implement a multi-faceted technology, community building, customer service and sales strategy overhaul. Everything about Will Penny’s agency operations changed, including the attitude of his staff. In the article, From Stuck to the Fast Lane, Mr. Penny states:

“The excitement over growth actually translates into better customer service…Employees are eager to get to work, they view client issues as challenges, and they know they’ve succeeded when they resolve issues and the customer walks away from the transaction just as happy as he can be.”

By treating the transition as a positive game-changer and becoming intimately involved with the process, Will Penny is now reaching people over 500 miles away, and setting goals that were

Agency owner Will Penny embraced the change...and sports a handsome coif of hair.

previously unattainable. And, it’s become infectious. After a brief period where his staff thought Will might be on drugs, they realized his new mentality of “Being Psyched” was actually a result of an invigorated passion for providing insurance services in a more streamlined and customer-friendly way.

Sometimes the only way to turn a business around is to shake things to the core. 80 years is a long time to run a successful business, but what’s worked for 79 years will not always work for 80. Penny Insurance is special because they saw the potential and approached digital marketing with an all-in mentality, building a positive, productive culture and a bigger book of business because of it. Now the entire agency has a reason to be PSYCHED!