If you make your living as an insurance agent, you’re probably a pretty good salesperson – you can build rapport with customers and help them solve their insurance problems in a snap. But how is your marketing? Continued, reliable contact with current and potential clients is an essential piece of the insurance agent puzzle. How naturally does that come to you? Can you comfortably slice and dice an Excel spreadsheet to track client progress, create customized emails and personally reach out to every new lead and contact?
If you’re not sending regular touchpoint emails to nurture current clients, reaching out to new leads, or sending out newsletters with useful tips and tricks, it may make sense for you to automate your marketing! Purchasing a customer relationship management (CRM) software is a great place to start, as the program will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you, like moving contacts through a drip campaign with automated emails. Here are a few indicators that the time may be right to automate your insurance marketing:
1) You Have the Wrong Number of Leads
Whether it’s feast or famine, having too many or too few leads can mean something is off with your marketing. Too many can mean that you’re forced to neglect either your leads or your marketing, while too few can be a sign that your marketing could use some help. Like Goldilocks, you should be aiming for “just right”.
Automated marketing can free up your time to work leads and ensure that you are consistently reaching out to keep your customer pipeline filled.
2) Your Competitors Are Out-Marketing You
You’re probably familiar with who your competitors are; it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with their marketing, too. Create an email address and sign up to receive information from other insurance agencies, or ask friends or family members in your area to share the insurance marketing materials they receive with you.
Every market will be unique, so don’t assume you know what your competitors are up to without doing some kind of survey like this. If you find you’re not keeping up with the Joneses, it may be time to automate your marketing.
3) Marketing Isn’t Your Thing
Anyone can buy a snake to unclog a sewer line, but how many of us want to? If the idea of doing the work to regularly market your agency makes you cringe, it may be money well spent to take that particular chore off your plate. CRM software can be just the tool you need, especially if you’re not a detail-oriented person.
Do an analysis of the amount of time, money and energy you would save or spend if you automated your marketing. Then multiply it by your personal “yuck” factor to determine if the cost/benefit is worth it.
Once you decide to make the leap and automate your marketing, be aware that setting up a CRM can be an up-front investment of your time and energy. We recommend scheduling implementation during a slow period, or hiring someone to help with the implementation and get everything set up.
Most companies that sell CRMs have support available for your initial setup but may charge a fee for ongoing support. Finding a freelance marketing expert in your area may be cheaper way to go, and putting them on retainer for a few hundred dollars a month could make your life a lot easier!
There’s another you reason you may have too many or too few leads—when’s the last time you tuned up your lead settings with Hometown Quotes? Call your Regional Director at 800-820-2981 and we’ll do a quick review of your account to optimize your flow of high-quality insurance leads.
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