How do you know if you need marketing automation for your insurance marketing solution? Is it possible that some agencies or brokerages should not invest in marketing automation?
After all, if marketing automation can do these things, why not do it today?
- Automate workflows, so your team gets more done – and touches more clients.
- Boost retention and customer loyalty – by delivering an ongoing stream of value.
- Increase revenue per client – by enabling you to make compelling offers for people to buy more insurance.
- Generate more referrals – by making it easy to ask for them and having a more loyal client base. (Did you know that loyal customers are 590% more likely to buy more insurance from their provider than low-loyalty customers!)
Since the benefits of delivering ongoing value are so overwhelming, shouldn’t every agency invest in automating their customer communications?
You would think so.
But there can be exceptions. Consider these:
- Are you in the middle of a merger or acquisition? That burns up a lot of time and resource. Unless you have clear leadership and a strategic commitment to growth, you may have to wait.
- Are you in the middle of an Agency or Broker Management System migration? Quality marketing automation must integrate with your system. Unfortunately, you may have to wait.
- Just starting a scratch agency? You may want marketing tools desperately. But, remember, reputable marketing automation is not spamming. A good communication platform first builds on the strength of the book of business you have now.
When should you invest in marketing automation for your agency or brokerage?
Every agency wants to connect with the modern consumer. But we’re not doing that with the yellow pages anymore!
And, many of the ‘old school’ methods are just too expensive and time-consuming.
With triggered marketing, high-quality marketing automation lets you touch your customers 0ne-at-a-time. It shows that you respect them as individuals.
Well-crafted campaigns create deeper relationships – emotionally and financially.
And well-crafted content positions you as the ‘irreplaceable broker.’
If one or more of these 8 clues ‘feel like you,’ then it’s time to consider investing more in your customers:
- You’re seriously committed to growth.
- Your culture places a high value on customers.
- You understand that a customer’s experience directly affects their loyalty and lifetime value.
- Your agency has the ‘professional maturity’ to value higher retention, more polices per customer, and more referrals.
- You understand that the customer’s experience doesn’t stop after you sell them their first policy.
- You sense there may be a gap between the modern consumer and your agency or brokerage.
- You’re concerned about the influx of new, digital competitors (and the vast amount of venture capital devoted to disrupting our space.)
- You feel you might be stuck in ‘old school’ ways of marketing and managing customer relationships.
But…what’s the difference between one marketing automation system and another?
Marketing automation systems can be distinguished by three major categories of underlying design:
- The technology itself. How effective is the integration with your agency or broker management system? How easy is it to use? How modern is the software upon which it is built? And, of course, how well does it deliver on its promise?
- The content delivered by and within the technology. As it is popular to say in the digital age, ‘content is king.’ Does the content – the messages and communications received by your marketplace – reflect a deep understanding of the relationship between the insurance provider and the consumer? Does the voice reflect a tone that gets results – but you would also be proud of? (And is it easily customized?)
- The support system that guides your success throughout your usage. Does the company have a smooth on-boarding process? Is there a strong training and educational component? Is there a community of users that share successes? Does the company assign ‘customer success managers?’
When software companies design their marketing automation, they are ideally motivated by some core philosophical perspective.
This core understanding gives unity to the development, content and support teams, as they design the product and service for the marketplace.
Ideally, this core understanding represents a deep understanding of the vertical industry – insurance – and, from a marketing perspective, bluntly: where the money is.
In the broker channel, the source of ‘big money’ is easy to find. It’s not in spending a lot of money getting new clients… then giving them a weak or poor customer experience.
When that happens, customers leave early, buy less – and send fewer referrals. And, it’s expensive for the agency.
But, when the inverse happens – people feel taken care of and ‘delighted’ with their relationship, magic happens. They stay longer. They buy more. They send you their friends and colleagues.
Conclusion
How do you create stronger, deeper relationships with your customers?
- Marketing automation is the fastest growing software in business for a good reason. It makes it easy to grow.
- There are some reasons to wait. If you’re in the middle of a merger. If you’re in the middle of a management system migration. If you’re just starting out.
- But, if you’re agency has a yearning for growth, and you care about your customers, it’s time for you to explore marketing automation.
- Make sure the technology is well-designed and easy-to-use. Make sure it’s customized for the insurance industry – and shows a deep understanding of the modern insurance consumer. Make sure it has world-class content that you can use, or customize.