8 Must-Have Marketing Strategies for Insurance Agents

Growing your business by marketing your agency can be an extremely daunting undertaking, especially if you don’t have any marketing experience. For this reason, the Kaplan Financial Education team put together some best practices and ideas for insurance agent marketing.

1. Set Goals

Before you embark on a marketing strategy, it is important that you first sit down and set your marketing goals. It is best to make them SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused, and time-bound) goals, so you will be able to measure your results against them. Consider setting goals for producing, prospecting, sales production, and cross-selling and retention areas. Write down what you want to do, how you want to accomplish it, and when you want to accomplish it by. This will help drive your new marketing ideas.

2. Make a Marketing Budget

Once you know what your goals are, the next step is to make a marketing budget. Allocate a certain amount of spend for each marketing channel you want to utilize. If you can, look back on what you spent the previous year to get an idea for your estimates. Are there channels that didn’t perform well? Consider cutting the budget on those in favor of new or more profitable channels.

3. Set Tracking Metrics

Tracking every piece of business is important so you know what channels of your marketing are working. Ask every new client how they heard about you and keep track of their answers. This will help you go a long way.

4. Create a Referral Program

Your customers are your best referrals. Offer an incentive for your current clients to spread the word about your agency. Offer your clients a discount or a gift card for bringing in new referrals and your referrals a discount or gift card for choosing your agency. You can even create marketing pieces explaining the referral discount and hand them to customers to give out to their friends and family. Post the program on your social media accounts and website. Add a link to your referral program page on your email signature. Let your clients do some of the work for you.

5. Encourage Positive Online Reviews

According to a BrightLocal study, 88% of consumers have read reviews to determine the quality of a local business. In other words, nearly 9 out of 10 people have read online reviews of your business before deciding whether to trust you. This means that it is vitally important that your agency get good online reviews in places like Facebook, Google Plus, Yelp, and Yellow Pages. There are many easy things you can do to encourage reviews. Add links to your agency’s profiles in your email signature with a callout to leave a review. Post a sign in the office. Mention it to happy customers as they are leaving your office. Be sure to also read reviews regularly and respond to both positive and negative feedback. The time you put into responses will showcase how much you care about your clients.

6. Get Involved in the Community

Becoming involved in your local community is a great way to get your agency name out there. It also shows that you are invested in the community. Consider sponsoring youth sports, community events, or local non-profits. You may bring in new clients who want to support the league, event, or organization you are sponsoring!

7. Utilize Social Media

Nothing connects you faster to your customers than social media. There are many things your agency can do to take advantage of social media. You can utilize social media ads and target people in your local community fairly inexpensively. You can offer a discount to anyone who checks in to your agency online. You can join relevant groups on LinkedIn and offer expertise to others. All of these things will help you network and get more exposure for your business. Check out our article on social media tips here.

8. Do Customer Surveys

Hear from your customers how your agency is doing through online surveys. Ask for open-ended testimonials from your customers and use that information for marketing materials. Ask for ideas of how your organization can improve. Consider offering a small incentive like a gift card for completing your survey to increase your response rate.

Looking for more tips and tricks in the insurance industry?

Check out Kaplan's Career Corner for more great articles related to insurance. Be sure to check out our Insurance Licensing, Insurance Continuing Education, and Professional Development programs as well.