Every day we are communicating with coworkers, businesses, and even friends and family — our lives are in our inbox. When it comes to our spending habits, most of us expect businesses to communicate with us through our email address, providing us relevant information on promotions, deals, or changes to their service. Gone are the days of sitting on the couch on Saturday morning sifting through catalogs and magazines for the best coupons — now we want to have emails sent to us directly showing us where we can get the best deals.
According to MarketingSherpa, 91 percent of US adults like to get promotional messages from the companies they do business with. Who doesn’t want to hear that Pizza Hut is selling pizzas at 50% off, or that your favorite clothing brand is running a weekend sale? Sure, an insurance agency may not have as many promotional offerings, but you can still interact with your client in a way that is personal, relevant, and helpful. If email marketing isn’t near the top of your priority list for the coming year, here are a few reasons why it should be.
3 Reasons You Should Be Email Marketing
- You have info that your clients would like to read!
People are waiting for relevant emails from the brands they trust. As an insurance agent, you may not have sales, but you do have relevant information your client would like to read. Are rates in the area changing? Let them know, and remind them that you can shop their policy around for the best rate. Is their policy coming up for renewal? Let them know and provide times for a phone call. Are there events going on in the area that might effect their insurance, such as natural disasters or increased accidents? Make sure they’re aware you’re here to help and provide information about claims. With the pace of modern life, it is easy for your clients to forget this information, so provide it to them before they ask. - You can save yourself time on servicing
According to Forrester, people are twice as likely to respond to your emails than they are to interact with your social media post, and personalized emails get six times the response rate of generic emails. Sure, emails can’t be a direct replacement for a phone call — however, you can automate emails with the client’s name and personalized info. This not only gives the client what they want and generate interaction, but it saves you time with servicing! Do you ever struggle with customers not updating you with information until you directly ask them questions? Do you have clients forget who they need to call? Do you struggle with customers calling you frequently with the same questions? Preemptively automate the messages that you send out addressing these common questions and pain points, and then focus on your clients individually as they respond. - You will build brand recognition
A large part of client retention is loyalty to the brand. They can receive their insurance policies anywhere, but can they get the service you provide them? The information and service that you provide should be constantly in your clients’ minds. With touchpoints such as birthdays, anniversaries, or even information about local events, you can stay in front of your clients throughout the entire year. By sharing information about you, your agency, and what you’re up to, along with personalized information about their policies, clients will begin to associate their policy with you.
So what should I do?
These and other reasons are why so many companies are beginning to use email marketing systems to help their company grow. Especially as a small agency, it’s easy to get so overwhelmed with servicing and writing new business that there’s no time left over for cross-selling and client interaction outside of necessary phone calls. By using an email marketing platform, you can solve all these problems with relatively little setup and cost.
If you’re interested in email marketing, ASNOA can help. With our email marketing solution, we can integrate your emails with your data in Epic, letting you effectively cross-sell, address your clients by name, and send out birthdays, anniversary, PIR emails and more, all based on dates in Epic. Stay in touch with all of your clients, while also providing yourself with more touchpoints to build your brand. For more information, feel free to reach out to the marketing department and we’ll talk you through how we can help your agency. Reach out to Meghan Lang, Marketing & Communications Manager at mlang@asnoa.net.
Interested in how to get more new clients and generate more leads? Stay tuned for more information about that!