Insurance agencies are always looking for the best ways to serve their clients. Whether that be through enhancing their services or increasing their communication. There’s always more an insurance agency can do to improve how they present themselves to their customers. If you’re an agency that’s looking to upgrade its client communication and customer service then you should be using text message marketing.
Fuse’s New and Improved Text Messaging
With Fuse’s updated and new text messaging system, helping clients is easier than ever. Allowing agents to manually or automatically respond to client requests. Giving agents the ability to send text messages, images, and files directly to clients through Fuse’s texting tool. Fuse also has a webchat-to-text function for live conversations and the ability to alert specific team members of new replies and messages. Making it a diverse and flexible tool.
Why Text Messaging?
Many insurance agents might see the blog title and wonder how text messaging can be a good medium for marketing or communication. According to SimpleTextin, in 2021, 42% of digital marketers texted their customers and in 2022, it increased to 55%. Even more, 60% of those businesses are seeing higher opt-in rates and stronger conversion rates from campaigns that include SMS (text) marketing.
In this day and age, companies are taking digital marketing to the next level by making use of video, email, and text marketing. Being able to automate text marketing campaigns is something that makes the idea so appealing. Much like email marketing, text marketing can be set up to trigger at certain events making it automated. Examples include sending automated texts for client birthdays, policy renewal notifications, and upcoming events.
Another use of text messaging is a means of fast and efficient customer service and communication. With the recent text integration on Fuse, Agency Revolutions users can now quickly and easily communicate with their clients and vice versa. If a customer has a question, they can simply use the built-in texting function on Fuse and directly message an employee. Texting is useful for easy-to-solve client queries that can be answered without going into a deep explanation.
Marketing with Text Messages
Marketing with text messages is similar to email, just usually more concise and to the point. When agencies create text messages, they know it’s on a smaller screen than email since texting is phone exclusive. It’s also important to keep things conversational. It’s good to keep things personal since texting is inherently conversational in nature. Usually, a back and forth between two parties, which means your marketing should match that format.
Remember that in text message marketing, your job is to inform and not promote as much. Due to the fact that text message marketing is easy to opt out of, you should be incredibly considerate of your customer’s inbox. Promotional messages should be few and far between with most messages being related to a client’s service or product whether that be the status of their products/services or feedback on said products/services. Use text marketing to engage with clients, since it’s a dialogue-driven vehicle, use it to ask for feedback or opinions.
Best Practices for Text Message Marketing
Like any other form of marketing, text message marketing campaigns have their own set of best practices to ensure your advertising is successful. These practices will help ensure that your messages are received positively and are impactful.
Get Permission
No one likes to receive unwanted messages whether it’s through their email or their SMS text messaging. Always remember to get permission from clients when signing them up for your automated text messaging campaign. To entice them, try offering messages that contain special deals, new products/services, or important updates that they’ll want to be on the lookout for.
Be Clever and Concise
You’ve gotten permission from your client to send them messages, now it’s up to you to get them to stay. It’s not hard for businesses to send messages that are overly corporate and too long. That’s why you need o be clever, engaging, and brief. These are text messages, not emails, they’re meant to be short and sweet. Use text to engage your audience, not just sell to them.
Have a Conversation
Text messages are a means of communication, so use them as such. When you send a text message, you’re directly connecting with clients. Whether it’s through the phone, an online messaging system, or Fuse. As an insurance agent, your first thought should be to talk to them like they’re a person, not just a customer. Fuse has an autoresponder that can be triggered by just about any kind of activity or timing. Making it extremely flexible and great for an automated response.
Use a Brand-Friendly Short Code
Short codes are simply 5-6 digit phone numbers specifically made for commercial use. If you’re using text for large-scale marketing purposes, it’s a good idea to look into getting one for yourself. These numbers are optimized for marketing and can send messages at a much faster rate than a regular phone number.
