Email Marketing for Insurance Agents

You might have tried to do email marketing before for your own insurance company or you have thought about it.  If you’re not utilizing email marketing it’s the time you started. It is easy to process and set up with huge potential upsides, particularly on the growth of clients or retention. Email marketing refers to the process through which regular and branded emails are sent to an audience that wants to hear from you. This ensures your business name remains in front of the current or prospective clients in order to increase opportunities for sales and establish a relationship with the customers. Can you assume having a current book with thousands or hundreds of business lists or prospects?  Keeping your insurance company in front of such people regularly through an email and in a way that they enjoy increases the likelihood to generate new businesses and renewals every year.     

Benefits of Email Marketing in the Insurance Industry

Email marketing has continued to prove itself as the smartest way of growing your business. It can deliver at least $36 returns on investment on average for $1 spent. And for insurance agencies, not many other marketing approaches can support their goals well. Email marketing has always provided a simple way of sustaining regular communication with clients or prospects who support efforts of relationship building. Additionally, providing educational content through email helps build trust, especially in your knowledge. This is an important element when it comes to success in the insurance industry. An email is also useful when communicating the client’s key information for example renewal reminders or cross-selling other coverage lines.

Insurance email marketing

Email marketing for insurance agents is underutilized by agencies and agents for many reasons. It’s shameful since insurance agents understand some of the easy deals they can close are the referrals that emanate from the existing policyholders. Although you spend your marketing dollars to buy a new lead list, send direct mail pieces out, and give out branded products in local events, you could as well be sitting on a treasure drive of referral gold. These are the existing policyholders. You could be utilizing email marketing but chances are that you may not be doing it correctly. It could be possible that you’re sending out emails based on a template drawn from the parent company. Maybe you have an automated program that you use in sending people happy birthday notifications. Perhaps you’ve not done it as often as it should be done. Nevertheless, there’s still room for improvement. Essentially, email remains the direct means of communication for the current policyholders as well as other prospects. People might not buy from you right away but when ready, they will give a phone call to whoever comes top of mind. For this reason, an email is a powerful tool. Focus on those people sending you referrals rightly but not those sending annoying email spam. They will assist in growing your business but be inspiring, helpful, and do not sell.

Ideas that help insurance agents succeed in email marketing

  1. Know your audience

Your list should just be a starting point. Your goal is not collecting emails and spamming your massive lists with a barrage of offers and information. Get to know your target audience then send emails that resonate with those on your list. And before you begin shooting out your emails, there is a need to consider factors that touch on your audience for example gender, income, lifestyle, and homeownership. If your insurance business has been built primarily on affordable life insurance products for middle-income policyholders aged between 20 and 30, start sending emails that deal with insurance for long-term care. These clients can easily send your emails to the trash even before reading them. As such, ensure your focus is on information and products relevant to them. Further, personalize the emails you send with their names to directly speak to them. As you continue growing your list, you will perhaps add different clients and prospects to the mix. It might not be possible to target everyone in a single email campaign. Therefore, segment your lists to target your audience subsets better through fine-tuned campaigns.

Emails have on average an open rate of at least 21.36% in the insurance industry. Only 2% or thereabout of the recipients click on a link you have provided in the email. It means then for the effectiveness of email marketing, there is a need to develop a substantial email list. After sending out emails for marketing, do your best to ensure the list you currently use is larger compared to the one you used previously. Find ways of adding prospects and customers to the email list. Every time you contact a lead, ask them whether to add them to the list to share helpful information or insurance tips. Ensure there are email signup fronts and centers on your website and networking events. Further, check it regularly in order to ensure an up-to-date email list. For those emails bouncing back, make a follow-up to get their current contact details. More importantly, include the “unsubscribe” option in your email footer. This is also needed to ensure you’re CAN-SPAM compliant. You will realize that not many people would use the option particularly if you have asked for their consent on including them in the email list. However, they do appreciate such a choice.

There are various ways of engaging your email lists, with the more effective being the opportunity it provides of educating your audience. Ideally, the insurance world is a mystery to those outsides. You can write email series about insurance myths and some tips useful in determining the coverage they might require. Think about ways of addressing those issues people do not commonly know on policies to provide value to the readers.

For outreaches made, including offers. And while working on insurance prospects, it’s recommended that:-

A powerful technique in email marketing is including a hyperlink for the recipients to access the agency’s website. Again, include the website link as you sign off the email. Even better, include links to your site as you write your email because people would most likely click the link and ask for a quote on seeing your offer many times.  

It’s likely that most of your insurance policy holders live in your metropolis. Additionally, resources are available out there starting with a free local newspaper at the grocery stores to a blog or a website often dedicated to the city you live in. It is recommended that you find the resources while putting together monthly emails to pick out at least 10 of those things happening in your area and seemingly interesting, This will assist you to become such a person that people look upon every month for information and local events.

Just like all other marketing strategies, email marketing may take some time to realize results. Consistency is key in marketing no matter the approach adopted. Once you have gotten started, you could be tempted to skip sending your newsletter. However, consistency ensures there’s trust while creating a rhythm that your audience relies on. And as such trust and the list grows, you will reach more audiences with the same efforts you have put in place. Ensure the email schedule you choose is easy to keep up with and further resist an urge to skip often.

Do not think more frequent emailing is the best for your business. People in many cases appreciate some contact. However, too much of it is overwhelming and can be a cause for them to opt-out of your emails. Monthly emails can even work wonders. It is comforting because it shows the little time needed in order to invest in the email marketing strategy. Thus, pick on a newsletter frequency that is achievable and stick to it. It’s possible to increase such a frequency later on.

Once a client has bought an insurance facility from you, do not consider the email irrelevant since you need them to give you referrals. Additionally, you want them to make a renewal next year. For this reason, ensure to engage them after the purchase. Engage through an email that contains an expression of happiness or thankfulness, instructions on what they should do next, and where to contact if they have any issues.

Conclusion

As an insurance agent, you need to set goals, measure performance, optimize, and repeat. The best marketing tools ensure you can track most aspects of your email campaigns. Set goals for click-throughs, open rates, email sharing as well as email management. Also, you may need to set other goals for referrals that you generate based on the educational email content. Track your metrics for the engagement your posts get then include an option for the customers to submit a request for more details for you to make follow up. Monitoring the results and making adjustments ensures you can support your goals better along the way.

Having said that, should you need help with your email marketing campaign please reach out to us via engage@maxalternative.com or chat with us via the WhatsApp pop-up.