You may have heard the term “marketing automation” and wondered what that really meant. It is one thing to talk about it as a concept, but if you were to implement an automated marketing system, what would it look like? What would be the components?
Marketing automation is a strategy that leverages technology to magnify your marketing and branding efforts. By implementing an automated insurance marketing system, agents can more easily decrease costs and increase sales.
An Automated Insurance Marketing System Keeps Your Audience Engaged
Marketing automation is the use of technology to exponentially increase a service provider’s ability to attract prospects and convert them to clients. The most important components of an automated marketing system are its solutions for content, publishing, and lead gathering.
Content
Content is the fuel that runs an automated marketing engine. By consistently delivering quality content and personalized communications, an agent shows dependability, expertise, and concern. By using automated marketing technology, they can deliver that content consistently to a large audience. Marketing automation allows you to have 1:1 experiences at scale.
To get potential clients to trade their information for your content and then continue to engage with your agency afterward, you need to offer content that brings actual value to their lives. Value-driven content aims to teach more than to sell. It draws on your expertise and gives them the gift of your knowledge.
Content marketing with an automated marketing program covers all the bases. From your agency’s landing pages to insurance blogs and gated content, an automated system can help you send the right message to the right people at the right time. Whether you’re distributing content like a newsletter regularly or enticing prospects to exchange their email for a white paper, insurance marketing automation makes distribution easier and more effective.
Publishing
Marketing is tough. From posting on social media to publishing blog posts to sending email campaigns, any marketing effort will eventually lose its consistency when done manually. It is just not feasible for most insurance agents to maintain a serious marketing effort. Marketing automation seamlessly orchestrates the distribution of your content through your social platforms, website’s blog, and email campaigns.
By establishing a consistent cadence in your email and blog publishing, you will give your content marketing effort a firm foundation from which to launch. Your audience will grow to rely on and appreciate the insights you deliver regularly.
Lead Gathering
Even if you already have a strong roster of existing clients, generating qualified leads should be at the top of every agent’s to-do list. However, we know that might be easier said than done – especially for busy offices.
Opt-in forms, paired with value-rich content and clear calls to action (CTA) act as an incentive for prospects and clients to share information and give permission to receive more content. When a visitor to your website fills out a form for your newsletter, that is a trigger. Not only is the interested party added to the CRM as a prospect, but they can also be added to ongoing nurture campaigns to increase the chance that your agency will be top-of-mind when they need you most.
Marketing Automation Helps Streamline Insurance Agency Operations
An automated marketing system can help nurture more of the leads you gather, communicate with customers, and improve your agency’s workflow. Here are three of the most effective agency operations tools you’ll find when you put marketing automation to work in your agency.
- Email Campaigns
Roughly half of all consumers (and of those surveyed, almost 90 percent of millennials) say email is their preferred method of communication with businesses. Prospects and customers are entered into an automated campaign, which automatically sends targeted emails at intervals you can customize.
Once you’ve set up your lead nurturing or loyalty program campaign, everything is handled automatically. Your recipients will receive targeted, personalized communications at just the right time. Your agency saves time and your customers and prospects enjoy a better experience, all while you build your brand automatically!
- Automated Reminders
Agents can set reminders and trigger notifications to prospects and customers at predetermined times. Whether it’s a follow-up email to a prospect or a policy renewal reminder to customers, these automated messages keep customers in the loop with personalized communications. Agents will have more time to work with clients, stay abreast of industry trends, and build their expertise. - Workflow Automation
With workflow automation tools, manually entering data and other labor-intensive tasks become less time consuming. All customer engagement is tracked automatically and the data is readily available to agents. You can set triggers to access data at predetermined times to help build marketing campaigns, initiate text messaging, or even connect leads with live agents.
Marketing Automation’s Impact on Agent Retention
In an industry where one of the greatest challenges is retaining agents, agencies, especially independents, are often short-staffed, short on time, and experiencing slow growth. Marketing automation can improve your sales processes and production. Better, less labor-intensive processes improve output, lead to new business, and allow agents to be more successful.
When you adopt marketing automation in your agency, your agents can close more deals in less time by focusing on leads that are ready to convert. They save time on repetitive tasks such as email replies, data entry, and scheduling. Most importantly, agents have time to make more money for themselves and the agency.
Automated marketing systems can give your marketing department a boost, too. Automated campaigns free marketing personnel to focus on other tasks and gives them more time to design marketing strategies. Lastly, automating insurance marketing can help unify sales and marketing with better communications and support.
Marketing Automation’s Impact on Branding
When it comes to your agency’s brand, you only have a few opportunities to make an impression. These moments of influence are referred to as “touch-points” and their combination equals an individual’s entire perception of your brand. Touch-points clearly and distinctly communicate your brand in the small amount of time your audience’s attention span will grant you.
Automated marketing helps manage your brand through consistent representation. Marketing automation gives you the ability to maintain your brand across multiple touchpoints. The more positive experiences a prospect or client associates with your brand, the more your relationship with them deepens.
Is Marketing Automation Right for Your Agency?
Marketing automation is a way for your agency to attract clients 24/7 for a fraction of the effort you’ve spent on it so far. As a recent client explained: “It saves countless hours of staff time automating the claims process in a way that gives customers the attention and follow-up they deserve.”Are you interested in learning how an automated insurance marketing system could transform your business? Contact us today for a demonstration of our technology.