How are you communicating with your prospects? With your existing clients? Are the tactics enveloped in your marketing strategy aligned with your overall goals? Is your marketing strategy clearly defined, or are you starting from a blank canvas?
Regardless of where you are on your marketing journey, this paper will explore a few ways in which you can implement simple – yet effective – tactics to enhance awareness of your business, better communicate with your clients and prospects in a way that builds and maintains trust, and ultimately, win more business.
First, let’s clearly define who your client is.
While defining your client may seem elementary, it is in fact the most important component upon which the rest of your marketing strategy is built. Without it, your strategy simply cannot be as client-centric as it needs to be in order to achieve your goals.
So, what does defining your client mean and how can you get started? Think of defining your client as developing a golden profile. This profile is a symbolic representation of who your current clients are, and what your prospects might be like.
To build your own golden profile, you must examine some important data across your book of business. Some data points for consideration include:
- Insured Age
- Insured Net Worth
- Insured Job Title
- Insured Family Size
- Insured Annual Income
- Death Benefit Amount
- Product Types
See if you can identify commonalties or trends among the insureds in your care. Are most of your clients high net worth? Is there a particular age range under which your policy owners fall?
Based on this information, create a fictitious persona and attribute him or her with qualities that are representative of all your clients. Get granular and include everything from first and last name to age, family details, job information, and financial goals and objectives.
Having a specific persona to reference when you are working with your clients and prospecting helps you to better understand the goals and needs of those clients and prospects. You will uncover a new level of understanding that will allow you to communicate better with those individuals – meeting them where they are and establishing and maintaining their trust.
Of course, anyone seeking life insurance coverage can be considered a potential client. But by honing in on your golden profile, you can craft messaging that will resonate best with your target audience.
Now that we’ve identified your client, let’s explore the messaging aspect of your marketing strategy.
Messaging isn’t just about what you say. It’s also how you say it and where you say it. In fewer words, it’s about content, timing, and deliverability.
Content
Before getting into the weeds of the how and the where of your messaging, you must first decide what you want to convey to your clients and prospects. You have a lot of power to influence their opinion of your agency through what you say, and you’ve got to harness that power.
Like in other areas of their lives, people want to work with someone they can trust when they’re shopping for life insurance. With so many different product types in varying levels of complexity, it can be daunting to try to research alone and make an informed decision about what type of policy works best for them and how much coverage they might need. For that reason, there must always be a human element to selling life insurance.
That’s why it’s so important for you to maintain that humanity when you’re thinking of what to say to your clients and prospects. Sure, a certain level of professionalism is important to maintain. But at the end of the day, people want to feel connected to the people with which they conduct business.
Don’t be afraid to personalize your outreach to your clients and prospects. They’re more likely to engage with you if you take the time to be conversational than they are if you’re sending boring, dry email communications en masse.
Furthermore, transparency and authenticity are key. If you’re delivering bad news to your clients, be direct. Tell them exactly what’s going on and how you’re going to help them overcome the obstacles they might be facing, whether it’s a potential policy lapse or poor crediting rate performance. By giving them the facts and reassuring them that you’re consistently monitoring their policy or their entire portfolio, you’re gaining their trust. They’ll feel as if they can count on you not just to make sure everything is on track, but also that you will give them the truth – no spin.
Of course, the content of your messaging is just as much about how you say it as it is what you’re saying. Find a brand voice to help guide the tonality of your communications. Keeping a consistent tone across all verbal and written communications helps establish a sense of familiarity, almost like that of hearing from an old friend.
Timing
Once you’ve determined what you’re going to say, and the tone with which you’re going to communicate to your clients and prospects, you must determine the appropriate timing. This of course will differ greatly between your clients and your prospects, so let’s first explore the timing of your communications with your clients.
Though there may be a few exceptions, most of your clients will likely not be thinking about their life insurance coverage on a regular basis. It’s essential that you time your communications just right to make sure you’re staying present in their minds, but not overwhelming them with information.
According to Deloitte analysis, interacting with a life insurance agent is the fourth most important event to prompt consumers to think about purchasing life insurance just behind having children, changes to overall financial situation, and becoming a homeowner. That is a staggering statistic! Interaction with an agent surpasses other major life events such as marriage, impending retirement, death of a friend or relative, and even loss of employer-sponsored life insurance coverage.
By staying in front of your clients, you’re providing a constant reminder to them that you’re a resource they can continue using after the initial policy or product is sold. You’ll generate repeat business and perhaps even a couple of referrals.
Aside from the obvious check-in points like policy anniversary dates or when there’s a change in policy performance, when else might be a good time to reach out to your current clients?
Global crises, economic downturns and recessions all make for appropriate times to reach out to your clients and see how they’re doing. Like we’ve seen with the outbreak of COVID-19, policy owners are looking for guidance and reassurance. Whether you’re checking in to see if they’re looking for some extra cash flow from a UL product or simply letting them know that despite the circumstances, their policy is still on track, it’s the perfect time to touch base and reevaluate alignment between their ever evolving needs and the product(s) they have.
For prospects, those touchpoints will be a little more sporadic and spontaneous. A monthly or bi-monthly cadence is a great place to start. You could alternate between social posts and emails or incorporate both on a regular basis.
It’s important that these outreaches are driven by a desire to share relevant, educational life insurance content. By demonstrating that you can provide them valuable resources and thought leadership along the way, you’ll start to earn their trust from the beginning. You’ll help demystify the world of life insurance to them, and in turn they’ll feel more confident about the decisions you help them make in regards to what type of policy and coverage amount is most appropriate to suit their needs and their financial goals and objectives.
Deliverability
After you’ve established the content and timing of your messaging to both your clients and prospects, it’s time to consider deliverability.
What do we mean by deliverability? Fundamentally, deliverability simply means ensuring that the methods of communication you choose to leverage are as well received as possible. Using the right methods at the right time is crucial to having an effective marketing strategy.
It all ties back to that persona, or golden profile, you developed in step one. Consider that persona and where you might make the most impact on them. How can you get your message right in front of them and meet them where they are? Is it email? Phone? Social media? Webinars? Newspaper, television, or radio ads?
In our current digital landscape, we have unprecedented levels of access to consumers at all times. Use that to your advantage. Leverage two or three variations of available communication methods and measure what proves to work best for you and the people you serve.
Believe it or not, you have everything you need now to implement your own marketing strategy today!
It really is as simple as it sounds. There’s no need to immediately purchase additional software or programs to run your marketing campaigns for you.
All it takes is a golden profile to use as a reference point for your clients and prospects, consistent messaging, and consistent deliverability.
Don’t feel like you need to tackle everything at once to make an impact. Start in small, manageable steps and work your way up to a fully functioning marketing strategy. By even just considering what your marketing strategy is and finding ways to align your tactics with your overall goals, you will get closer to accomplishing those goals than you were before. You will better establish and maintain the trust of those consumers you serve, and ultimately, you will generate more repeat and new business.
About David Morris
David, as the Chief Marketing Officer at Proformex since May 2018, brings a rich history of leading marketing strategies in the technology and media sectors. His tenure includes significant roles such as CMO at MacroPoint, where he played a crucial part in its acquisition by Descartes, and founding the Communications Group, a platform that revolutionized digital revenue for media partners. With roots in media buying and strategic partnerships founded at Media Pro, Inc., David’s diverse expertise is complemented by his advisory roles in SaaS startups, board memberships, and a personal passion for both yoga and basketball.