Posts Tagged ‘ agency management system ’

Insurance Marketing Rejuvenation is 50% Attitude, Embrace Change

March 8, 2010 by admin

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 Outdated insurance marketing strategy, obsolete agency management systems and a sputtering economy are popular scapegoats for agencies mired in the red.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

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!

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Are you chasing leads or are leads chasing you?

February 22, 2010 by admin

Most insurance agencies existed before social media exploded as the de facto marketing initiative all small businesses must master. In that vein, Denise Zimmerman of imediaconnection.com wrote a must-read blog post, “7 things social media can’t do,” offering the following limitation, “Social media can’t change the inherent popularity, appeal, or success of your brand.”

Simply put, if you’re not already cool, participating in social media won’t make you cool. Insurance just isn’t that interesting to the layperson, so if you’re operating behind a curtain and participating just to be “out there”, chances are, it’s not doing much good. In general, people only care about “your brand” if you affect them is some positive, negative or useful way. If you’ve helped a lot more people than screwed, your brand is probably ripe for social media since the “popularity, appeal or success” will be based on positive experiences. But ripe and ready are two different things.

To be clear, Ms. Zimmerman is not stating that you CAN’T change popularity, appeal or success. The key word is “inherent.” If the inherent goal for social media is to solidify customer service, strengthen bonds with existing clients and improve the perception of your business, than you CAN change popularity, appeal or success. If the inherent goal is to play along because everyone else is, change is less likely.

It’s all about setting the objectives and sticking to them. If you have a colorful past, consider how it might be re-hashed and plan accordingly for the worst. If you’re unknown, decide what you want people to associate with your agency’s brand (quick and friendly service, charitable endeavors, serving the local community, niche insurance expertise) and build your social media presence accordingly.

We all want to be perceived as pillars of the community, but the ultimate goal of marketing, social or otherwise, is to generate business. In this case it’s done by driving audiences from a blog, Youtube channel, Facebook page or Twitter feed to your website where they can share information and become a lead. The lack of an intuitive insurance website or agency management system means you risk losing the biggest measure of ROI for any social media program, actual customers using the website to request your services.

Without a website or management system, there should be no social media. It’s presence alone ensures someone (or thing) is working 24 hours a day to harvest potential leads with little or no human effort. Establishing and analyzing specific social media ROI metrics is more complicated and will be discussed in a future post.

If you take nothing else from this post, understand your agency represents a brand. Aside from actual insurance services, everything from the look of your website and wait time for a policy to the manner in which employees answer the phone affects perceptions of the brand. With that in mind, every conversation, post, comment, video or online communication should reflect the objectives and values agreed upon by agency owners.

Over time, the consistency of useful content will compel people to follow your updates and become fans, which is one step closer to becoming clients.