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April 27, 2015 at 10:36 AM
While insurance policies have been around since ancient times, that doesn’t mean your approach to marketing as an insurance agent should never change. In fact, there are a number of compelling reasons why independent agents need to shake up the industry’s traditional marketing tactics:
Low consumer trust for insurance agents: Consumers around the globe don’t hold the insurance industry in very high regard, according to a new survey from Ernst & Young. In fact, the study shows that they trust the insurance industry less than they trust banks, car manufacturers and supermarkets. This means there is plenty of room for agents to improve their relationship with consumers, and updating their marketing methods is one way to do this.
Retirement is an underserved market: Almost a third of workers (28 percent) have less than $1,000 in savings and investments that could be used for retirement, not counting their primary residence or defined benefits plans such as traditional pensions. And 57 percent say they have less than $25,000, according to a survey from the non-profit Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) and Greenwald and Associates. In its recent study on boomers, The Insured Retirement Institute notes that among the people who do plan for retirement, nearly nine in 10 said they are better prepared as a result of their advisor’s help.
Changing consumer base with different preferences: Twenty percent of an agent’s existing customer base will account for 80 percent of that agent’s future profits, according to Gartner Inc. This statistic reemphasizes the importance of building trust and loyalty among your existing customers if you want to drive business. The question is, what do your customers want today that’s different than before? It’s important to know this in order to determine the best marketing strategy. One thing to keep in mind is that an increasing number of insurance customers are millennials who prefer a more tech-savvy approach from agents when interacting with the insurance industry. Ryan Hanley calls this the “Connected Generation,” and notes that when it comes to insurance, many in this age group prefer a relationship that begins online, through social media.
