(Plus 6 Quick Wins You Can Implement Right Away!)
As an insurance broker, effectively marketing your offerings can mean the difference between growing your business or losing another client to a competitor. For our October webinar, we brought together two insurance experts to discuss the cost-effective marketing strategies that they have found to be successful.
NIP Group’s Ron Samson moderated a discussion between Heath Shearon, sales coach at Agency Performance Partners, and Rory Anderson, an insurance broker with Rancho Mesa Insurance in San Diego, California. Anderson has been a broker for four years, and Shearon brings nearly 20 years of experience in sales, insurance, and marketing.
Here are their top three suggestions for kick-starting your marketing, plus a few ideas that you can implement right away for some quick wins.
- Choose a niche
A niche is when you narrow down your focus to a specific group of professionals instead of trying to provide insurance for anyone and everyone with a business. While generalizing may seem like it offers a bigger net for more clients, specializing allows you to really understand the needs of that particular industry and can be a highly effective method for building a lucrative and stable book of business. “When I first got started as a broker, I decided to specialize and really focus on one specific industry. For me, that was the tree care industry,” explains Anderson. Choosing a niche vs. being an insurance generalist has allowed him to become an expert, communicate with his clients more effectively, and fully understand the risks of the industry so that he can help properly insure his customers’ businesses. While at first it may feel like you’re turning down opportunities, admits Anderson, in the long run, staying focused on one specific group is going to lead to more opportunities. Tip: If you are having trouble determining your niche, Shearon advises examining your existing book of business. You may be surprised to find that you already have many customers in a specific industry. - Define your ideal prospect
Once you choose a niche, it’s important to understand your audience. Getting clear on what your ideal prospect looks like — including the type of company, number of employees, and annual revenue — ensures that you don’t waste your time on a customer that might be too big, too small, or just not a good fit.If you want to dive even deeper, think about what their goals might be, what their pain points are (marketing speak for their specific problems or risks), and why you are the best person to help them with their insurance needs. Tip: This is where the expertise you’ve gained from specializing can help you speak their language and stand out from your competition! - Create a sales plan
When it comes to marketing effectively, developing a plan or a blueprint for everything from prospecting and sales to cross-selling and retention is essential, says Shearon. He recommends writing all of your ideas down and then breaking it into a 90-day action plan with smaller steps towards your goals. A documented plan helps you define your goals, outline tactics to meet those goals, and identify any potential roadblocks that might pop up along the way. Tip: Don’t forget to include benchmarks and performance metrics to track the effectiveness of your strategies.
6 Quick Wins That You Can Implement Today
If you’re looking for a few ideas that can help you gain momentum quickly, Shearon suggests:
- Register to attend an industry event
- Ask existing customers for referrals
- Establish referral partners with companies offering complementary services
- Join a networking group
- Use social media to your advantage (Skip to the 40th minute of the webinar to learn how often to post on social media and which social media platforms are the best for brokers!)
- Pick up the phone and make some cold calls
In closing, if Shearon had to start his agency all over again, “I would do it all organically,” he says. “Too many people waste a lot of dollar bills on buying leads or buying referrals or spending money on those things, but I don’t think you have to.”
Want more marketing tips about specialization, developing and refining your marketing strategy, and other essential marketing tactics for brokers? Watch the entire webinar on demand here.