Insurance

A successful Insurance Agency Social Media Marketing Strategy can begin simply enough by creating or leveraging quality content. Start with a relevant (to your target market) blog, quote, video, news release, client quote or knowledge nugget - then share it with your prospects and clients. For example, create a blog entry about Professional Liability Insurance for Engineers then Tweet it, Pin it (if it has a graphic), add it to Stumble Upon, Post it to Facebook, Post as a LinkedIn update, Share it with LinkedIn groups (start a discussion or add it as a comment), add it to Google+, etc. Remember to localize the content if you sell in just one area (New York Professional Liability Insurance). One easy way to share your content is by using the Social Media Chiclets on at the bottom of your blog. Or, take advantage of integrated social media offered by one of the major providers. For example, use LinkedIn to automatically Tweet your LinkedIn posting. Post a YouTube (video, voice over PPT, recorded webinar, etc.), and share in the same way as noted above (with your blogs or other content). You can use simple Social Media automation solutions to improve efficiency. When possible, expand your blogs into ePublished articles on one of the major, reputable directories. Once published repeat the social media sharing process again, utilizing the expanded article.
Insurance Agency Social Media Basics:

• Original content: Make the content your own, relevant to your target marketing. If you provide a link to 3rd party content, comment on it so it is a unique posting.


• Target your audience: Invest in the networks favored by your prospects, customers and partners.


• Identify your objectives: Determine what you want to accomplish and build a relevant online image, leveraging your "insurance agency branding" across all social media networks.


• Monitor and Measure: Google analytics (or other analytics solution) should be monitored for traffic trends. If lead generation is your goal, you will need to track leads accurately and determine their value.


• Learn the major social media networks basics: Learn LinkedIn basics (and groups), Facebook (including your company page branding), expand your Twitter audience with hash tags, establish a YouTube channel for your agency, get your friends to Like & Follow you, etc.


• Leverage both quantity and quality: You're not after a Pulitzer, a Nobel Prize in Literature or an Academy Award for Best Story. Be concise and accurate. Sacrifice some modicum of quality for consistent, relevant volume.


• Follow your associates/friends and have them follow you: Engage in a mutual following with as many of your partners, vendors, customers and as possible.


• Build your profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter: Build and refine your profiles, leverage your YouTube channel. Make sure your pages are engaging by including images, photos, logos and other appropriate graphics that will spice up your page.


• Watch for emerging Venues: Google+, Pinterest and other networks have become heavy hitters, your agency may also target narrower networks germane to your target industry.

Consistent Insurance Social Media Marketing will also help your insurance agency with your Insurance SEO initiatives. Your agents and marketers can save time leveraging social media marketing platforms and apps like Buffer and HooteSuite, predicated upon your Insurance Agency Social Media Marketing goals.

Everyone resists change, that's probably normal. The only person who likes change is a wet baby!
There are a number of keys to acknowledging and accepting change. And while we will most likely not hit all of them here, our experience tells us these may be the most important. The key may be to see which ones you identify with?
Key 1: Duplication - One of the keys to growth as leaders is to make sure we train someone (or several) in our teams to replace ourselves. In other words, make sure you are training leaders as capable as you.
Key 2: 80/20 Rule (David Schwartz) -

• 80% of your sales will come from 20% of your team.
• 20% of your team will make 80 % of the money.
• 20% of your priorities will give you 80% of your results - if your time and effort is spent on the top 20% of the priorities

Key 3: Recruiting - The most important activity for Leaders is recruiting - then training. Those mangers who are recruiting are growing. Your earnings as a manager will be limited by the number of agents you have writing business each week, so recruiting to replace those who are not writing is crutical to growth.
You will find you will recruit two kinds of people - Wanters and Needers.

• Needers - they see the potential during the recruiting session and they contract because they want to be associated with you. Once contracted, however, you find they NEED to know what they have to do to grow their business without having to be uncomfortable.
• Wanters - once contracted they will do whatever is necessary to grow their business. They say "where do I get..." then they go get what they need.

Remember people do not get in your business on logic alone - logic is not contagious - no one catches LOGIC!
People get in your business on excitement and enthusiasm - People catch excitement and enthusiasm - People don't catch logic!
You will recruit more people from the depth of your conviction than from the height of your logic.
Key 4: Training - Once you contract agents, it is important to train them on the things you want them to do the most in the order you want them to do those things.
You will find that you will be counseling agents as you help them get started and the 80/20 rule will apply... 20% of your agents will take up 80% of your time, if you're not careful. The most important aspect about training new agents who have not sold insurance before is that TRAINING IS SELLING NEW AGENTS ON THEMSELVES.
Do you accommodate your schedule to those who are not engaged in activity that will lead to production? In this business we have found that we teach what we know but we reproduce who we are. So don't ask, will my calendar be full? Ask who will fill my calendar? Every aspect of your time, as much as you can control, needs to be spent on the 20%... if you want to grow.
Key 5: Leadership - Effective leaders manage things and lead people. Spend your time with the WANTERS.
Don't give CPR to the NEEDERS!
How do you know if you are a leader?

• Leaders initiate - Followers react - So LEAD!
• Leaders spend time planning - Followers live day to day
• Leaders anticipate challenges - Followers react to challenges
• Leaders invest time with people - Followers spend time with people
• Leaders fill calendars by priority - Followers fill calendars by request
• Leaders recognize they can't lose something they don't have - Followers are worried about losing an individual agent - regardless of their production.

So there you have it, keep your focus - Recruitng and training. The truth is you can expect adversity in growing your business - the good thing is this business is just hard enough to weed out those looking for something for nothing.

Have you been thinking about getting insured? If so, you need to be careful while choosing an agency. One of the biggest mistakes people make is to find out about insurance from unofficial sources. Because of this, many untruths are passed on to the 'new comers' about insurance policies and premium rates. Some of the most common misconceptions are;
1. It is a waste of money
Some people believe that taking insurance is a major waste of one's financial resources. This is because there are those who think they can prevent accidents. Other people believe that calamities rarely happen. Just because you have not experienced a disaster, does not mean you are safe from one.
2. The company pays for everything
If you can afford to get your tooth removed, do so. You do not always need to dig into your insurance kitty for every small matter. The more you access your funds, the more your premium may rise. Sometimes, it is better to save your insurance funds for a rainy day.
3. The cover works outside internationally
You have to be sure that your policy covers you in other countries. If you get and accident or health complication outside your country, do not assume it will.
4. It will cover your premium totals
It is believed that the more you pay as premiums the higher your security. A good policy should make sure that if you have an urgent need, you have cover for the entire damage incurred. You should try to understand the full scope of your insurance package before you settle on it.
5. You do not need life insurance
All those perceptions you have heard about life insurance are a lie. Contrary to popular belief, life insurance is the best way to support you and your dependants. If you have a steady income and a family, this insurance is essential. Your future and those of your loved ones may hang in the balance depending on whether you have a permanent or term life insurance rate.
6. Young people do not need it
As a young person, you may not find it necessary to subscribe to long term insurance policies. Most people think this is for the 'older 'generation. Coincidentally, the younger you are, the cheaper it is to start paying for insurance premiums. The truth is young people are the ones who are most vulnerable to accidents. They also fall victim to many diseases.

What is eCollateral, and why is it an important aspect of insurance agency marketing in general and insurance agency leads specifically? Let's begin with a definition of eCollateral. Marketing collateral is the collection of media used to support the sales of a product or service. This collateral is intended to make sales and marketing efforts more efficient and effective. Branding is usually incorporated in this type of collateral. eCollateral is the electronic version of marketing collateral, sometimes referred to as digital collateral or digital fulfillment.
Traditional, paper based insurance marketing collateral was always an integral part of an effective insurance agency marketing program, often tightly integrated to help produce insurance agency leads. Two decades ago, for example, agents would often "canvass" theirs prospects, snail mailing or physically dropping off targeted collateral. Today however, with so many agencies using web centric communication including personalized emailings, eMarketing campaigns and other web marketing initiatives, eCollateral is, or at least should be used far more often than traditional paper based collateral materials. And, of course, the eCollateral should be tightly integrated into an insurance agency or broker based marketing and lead handling process.
Many agencies do not have a well defined or documented lead handing process, and many agents still don't have professional eCollateral to use for digital fulfillment. In the past, agents might have used the term "leave behind", as they would leave behind an agency brochure after each sales call. Today, though there are still opportunities to do so, a significant portion of communication is email and web based, and quality eCollateral is a must for any agency.
As agencies invest more time and resources in digital marketing, including updated insurance agency websites, eMarketing, social media marketing, insurance SEO, blogs, ePublishing, and video to mention a few of the more common web marketing initiatives, it is important that agents evaluate their eCollateral offerings and integrate these into their insurance agency marketing and lead generation programs. This is often an underappreciated exercise, but it's an extremely tactical important component for agents, and is something that can and should be used every day.
For example, let's say that your agency received an inbound insurance agency lead. There can be many types of inbound leads, and they may cross over many types of products, from PLI to P&C to Benefits. Lead sources can be both traditional and digital, such as:

• Call in
• Web form
• Appointment Setting (Telemarketing Campaign)
• Response to email campaign
• Word of mouth
• Traditional Advertisement
• Referral
• Pay per Click (PPC)
• Social Media
• Banner Ad

In this example, we'll assume the inbound lead resulted for a web form which was filled out by a prospect from an email campaign. Your Producer called the prospect, qualified them and then scheduled an on-site meeting, for one week later. The next steps in the lead handling process are very important, require professional eCollateral, and should be well orchestrated. This Producer has an entire week to continue the rapport building process which was established in the initial conference call. It is an opportunity to demonstrate professionalism, credibility, organization, and attention to detail. He or she has one week to help set expectations for what should be a great first meeting. One example of a leading handling process which integrates eCollateral might look like this:

1. Immediately email a professional Outlook invitation, including the agent's contact information.


2. 48 to 72 hours later, follow up with an email and attached eCollateral about the agency and/or specific solutions or information applicable to the prospect. This information should be professional and succinct. For example, a one or two page Company PDF or Case Study (or both). The Case Study should be directly applicable to the prospect's needs, P&C, Benefits, PLI, etc. The eCollateral should be up to date, branded and convey the professionalism and value proposition of the agency.


3. The day before the meeting, follow-up with a quick email, confirming the time, call in # or web meeting or other details.

This process would make sense for a meeting scheduled one week later, but would need modification if the meeting was scheduled closer to the initial conference call, or further out from the initial call. Regardless of the scheduling latency, a professional one or two page eCollateral PDF will help convey the professionalism and expertise of any agency and Producer. If your agency does not have a eCollateral content library for your producers, this should be a high priority marketing item.

An effective insurance agency telemarketing script is one of the key components in a successful insurance agency lead generation initiative. There are, however, many other important elements to be added to ensure continual, in profile, insurance agency leads. Beyond the telemarketing (appointment setting) script, agents should also create buyer personas, targeted prospect lists, niche marketing segmentation (verticals whenever possible), professional eCollateral and a well documented lead handling process. Let's explore an insurance agency lead generation initiative from an appointment setting perspective.
Perhaps your insurance agency is targeting a niche like trucking, and your agency has a strong close ratio, but lacks sufficient prospects to sufficiently increase revenues. Using a baseball analogy, your trucking insurance agency might have a Ted Williams batting average but you are only playing as a pinch hitter, so you lack sufficient at bats to build your book of business. One solution to increase your pipeline activity is a targeted appointment setting campaign. This can include eMarketing and appointment setting calls, or if budget is insufficient, simply the latter. Before embarking upon your initiative, you should consider the following building blocks for your transportation insurance lead generation campaign:

1. Buyer Persona: A short narrative on the type of person who can and will buy your solution.


2. Prospect Scorecard: Create a Prospect Scorecard to quantify your approach to prospecting and pipeline building.


3. Targeted prospect and email list: Once your agency has clearly identified your target market, you need to build a high quality prospect list. Some refer to this as a suspect list.


4. Compelling Telemarketing Script with your value proposition and top 3 differentiators: You only get a short window of opportunity for you (or your outsourced appointment setters) to deliver your pitch. It should be concise, compelling and explain your value proposition.


5. Professional Appointment Setter: Your appointment setter (note that I didn't refer to them as a telemarketer), needs to be professional, credible, and insurance industry knowledgeable.

Buyer Persona
Let's begin with the Buyer Persona. A Buyer Persona is a one or two paragraph written description of your ideal buyers. A trucking insurance agency Buyer Persona might sound like this: Mike Jones is an owner or CEO of a trucking company, with a fleet size between 10 and 150 power units. He's held this position at least three years and seeks an insurance agency that understands transportation insurance and offers both coverages and expert guidance. He does not make quick decisions, but is willing to try a new agency if they offer deep expertise and competitive pricing. He can make the decision to purchase, but may seek to validate it with other team members. Once he decides, however, the sale is very likely to move forward.
You should create Buyer Personas for each major industry you're targeting, assuming that the key attributes of each buyer and industry are different. If you're unsure of the key attributes for each prospective buyer, you should utilize a Prospect Scorecard to define, measure and qualify your prospective buyers, by target industry.
Prospect Scorecard & Targeted Prospect List
A Prospect Scorecard can be used to determine the five to ten ideal attributes of your most coveted prospects, and to quantify these to help determine the overall quality of your agency pipeline. This ingredient can be used to ensure you are contacting ideal suspects, thus optimizing your appointments setting campaign. More targeted suspects result in better prospects and will increase the number of prospects which ultimately close.
Once your agents have identified the ideal prospect attributes, by targeted industry, including, industry, type of business, revenues, employees, title, geography, ex-date, etc., you should then build a comprehensive, up to date suspect list. If you're target small businesses, focus on only one or two titles (Owner, CEO, President). If your targeting large businesses, call high and wide, as the decision making process is often distributed and obtuse. A good, current list, with ex-dates whenever possible, will dramatically improve campaign results. And if you are augmenting your appointment setting with insurance agency eMarketing, ensure you have quality emails and follow all opt-in/opt-out and Can-Spam regulations.
Insurance Agency Telemarketing Script
Once the list is assembled, it's time to create a compelling call script. A very simple example is below:
Hi (Your Prospect Name) this is Mary Smith calling with XYZ Trucking Agency. We work exclusively with trucking companies, helping insure their small fleets, providing creative approaches to optimize coverages while reducing premiums. We handle your most difficult challenges, from P&C to Benefits Compliance, and take the hassle out of your renewals and administration. With over 60 years of trucking insurance experience, we know what it takes to help ensure your success. It will only take a few minutes to get a second opinion on one your largest cost centers - do you have 10 minutes to meet with one of our trucking agents?
In this simple example, we note that you should use industry jargon to convey expertise. You should include your top 3 differentiators in your telemarketing script. Also note that effective appointment setting campaigns are uncovering companies which may be considering a change. Perhaps their current service levels are inadequate, their renewal was frustrating, or a new executive was recently hired and is seeking to improve operations. So timing is everything, and continuously casting a broad net, will help improve the odds that your producers are in the right place at the right time. Think of this from a metric standpoint. If your appointment setter is working 20 hours a week and dialing the phone 25 times an hour, they are making 500 calls per week, or about 24,000 calls per year. If your targeted prospect list is 1,500 companies, with three contacts each, that means the campaign will reach out to each contact about 6 times per year. Though they will not reach them 6 times (voice mail, out of office, in meetings, etc.), they are very likely to reach them at least once, providing an opportunity to carry your unique value proposition to thousands of prospects.
Professional Appointment Setter - In-house Vs. Outsource
Finding, training and managing a professional and effective appointment setter is somewhat more complex than most agents might perceive. It's rare that an agency can hire one appointment setter, and be successful with that single hire. This is somewhat analogous to assuming every producer hired will succeed. It's more likely that one of every two or three appointment setters hired will succeed. This metric is influenced by the support systems and infrastructure used and the supervision provided to support the insurance agency telemarketing initiative. Agents will need to train, manage and measure the results of each appointment setter, and every campaign. The agency also needs to create and refine their call script, and clearly document a lead handling process for both the appointment setter and producers to optimize appointment setting campaigns. Many agencies, may lack the internal resources and expertise to accomplish all the items above.
A long term approach with appointment setting works best, and campaigns will typically record their best result when accompanied by a professional insurance agency eMarketing and branded fulfillment program. And it's very important that producers utilize a simple and consistent qualification process like the Prospect Scorecard mentioned above.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7956205

The other day, I sat down for dinner with a couple that had an insurance agency in Hawaii. We got on the topic of living on the beach and the threats of Tsunamis and Hurricanes. They of course offered flood insurance at their agency - and it wasn't cheap to day the least. Recently the Federal Government had in response to Hurricane Sandy redrawn the flood maps, most moved inland quite a ways, miles in some cases. Let's talk.
This solves two problems for the Federal Government, National Flood Insurance Program, and FEMA, namely, it helps pay for FEMA costs after disasters leaving a large pool of money from premiums. It also means you have more people paying into the system.
For an insurance agency, this gives them the opportunity to educate homeowners and business owners about the National Flood Insurance and ways to deal with such insurable risks - insurance agencies can offer free seminars to get new clients, or have an excuse to call on long time clients to re-adjust policies and potentially sell them more insurance, good news right? Not so fast.
There was an interesting article on MSNBC Money on September 5, 2013 titled; "Report: Tsunami would swamp California's economy," by Alicia Chang. I suppose that goes without saying really, but the same could occur anywhere along the Pacific Rim, further many of the major Earthquakes in Alaska have sent the Tsunami out into the Pacific not downward along the shoreline. Further, if you look at a globe you can see why this report is misleading in many regards. The article stated;
"The potential impacts, based on a hypothetical magnitude-9.1 jolt off the Alaskan peninsula, were detailed by a team led by the U.S. Geological Survey to help emergency responders prepare."
What bothers me is that all these hypotheticals we see all the time really push the limits of advice to policy makers, almost to the point that no one would be allowed to build a home anywhere near the coast, imagine the cost to the economy in that case, if we were to move everything now, or raise flood insurance costs through the roof, to the point no one could afford to live there?
One could ask why the US government is suddenly getting into the insurance business, they are with health care and now they see dollar signs with the National Flood Insurance program and more money for FEMA, both are completely out of money, well so is the Federal Government which is deficit spending each year. Maybe we need less government, but either way, you'll need more insurance in case of flood if you live in low lying areas by the coast - because the government says so. Please consider all this and think on it.