For a lot of traditional insurance brokers, time seems to have stood still and the reliance on the phone has seen customer retention and new customer acquisition rates drop like a rock.
In the good old days, (not that long ago either) people would ring you for a quote. They would find you in the local paper, in Yellow Pages, from a direct mailing or door drop, and they would be ringing you.
That was marketing! You didn’t need staff outbounding lists of data as you had plenty of inbound calls or – better yet – walk ins…
Fast forward to today and that mindset is seeing brokers lose business as well as leaving them struggling to understand:
- how to compete – and more importantly who to compete with
- how to market in the current landscape
- how to find their customers
- how to set up systems and processes so they can meet client expectations
The other problem of course is the marketing landscape and the ways people find companies to work with these days are so very different and changing all the time.
Remember directory enquiries? People would ring them and ask for a local insurance broker or they would use Yellow Pages.
Now they still reach for their phone but they are probably either using Google or Facebook to ask for a referral.
If you don’t participate in these activities you will start – or may have already started to see -business erode. Most local brokers should have:
- a website – one that is up to date and works on mobile devices
- listings on all the major directory websites
- a Facebook Business page
- a Google Business page
And the savvy ones will also have:
- a blog
- relationships with other relevant web companies that can drive them referrals
- processes for capturing reviews such as Trustpilot or Feefo
- an email database of potential clients
- an email database of existing clients.
If you are struggling to get more business, the first thing you need to do is ensure you have the first four items on the list above and make sure they are as good as they can be.
If you have those yet you are still struggling, the one of the further issues we see is that those tools are not optimised to attract your target audience. This all comes about from not knowing who you want to target.
Targeting everyone serves no one. You simply cannot compete financially with some of the direct competition or bigger brands. So don’t bother. Pick a niche or a find a group of customers that you can target and only go after those people. Make sure your site and marketing messages all “talk” to that person.
This will make your marketing so much easier. You only have to find out where they hang out online, what their issues are, and then advertise to them. Ideas for groups:
- working mums
- over 50s in a particular area
- home workers
- part time workers
- classic car owners
- a profession
- personal trainers
- coaches
- servicemen and women etc.
There could be a huge opportunity finding an audience that no one else is specifically talking to.
That could be the way to get the ‘phone ringing again…
