5 Mistakes
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
1
5 Major Mistakes That Will Silently Destroy Your Insurance Agency And The Steps You Can Take To Avoid Them
Brought to you by Chris Langille, Founder of Advisor Evolved Websites & Inbound Marketing for Insurance Agents and Financial Advisors www.advisorevolved.com
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
2
Mistake #1: Under-valuing your agency website How to avoid this mistake
Mistake #2: Not utilizing email marketing How to avoid this mistake
Mistake#3: Not branding your agency for millennials How to avoid this mistake
4 6
6 8
9 10
Mistake# 4: Not having a mobile experience for your customers 11 How to avoid this mistake
Mistake# 5: Lacking creativity, and culture How to avoid this mistake
Wrapping Up
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
12
13 15
16
3
Mistake #1: Under-valuing your agency website It’s 2016. You don’t need to have a good website. You need to have a great website. I’m honestly surprised at what li!le emphasis many agency owners put on their online presence. A great website and online presence is not a luxury in this era of smartphones, Facebook, and Google — it’s a necessity. In 2016 you need to exist in both the offline, and online worlds. Consumers expect a certain experience when doing business with you. Understand that as an agency owner, you’re not just being compared to other insurance companies/agencies. In the consumer’s mind, you’re being compared to global brands like Apple, Google, Amazon, Zappos, Starbucks, etc.. A website is a big part of that experience. It’s the foundation of your online presence.
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
4
It’s where people come to learn more about you, ask questions, and purchase products and/or services from you. If your site looks out-dated, abandoned, or ugly, how do you think that reflects on your business?
It’s time to buck up. I’m sure as an independent agency owner, you’re making decent money, otherwise you’d be doing something else. The point I’m trying to make is, you need to invest in your business and put more of an emphasis on your website. This means you may have to spend some money. Websites are just like anything else in that you get what you pay for. If you buy a $500 website, that’s what you’re going to end up with. There are some things in life you can afford to skimp on, but if you are in business for yourself, a website is not one of them. Keep skimping on your site and your customers will become a!racted to other agencies, and you will lose money. Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
5
How to avoid this mistake Go check out our website, at www.advisorevolved.com. If you’re looking for a modernized, SEO optimized agency website, there’s not much more you need to do but to sign up for one of our plans. We’ll take care of the rest. We’ve got it all covered, and for about the same amount of commission you make on a decent auto policy.
Mistake #2: Not utilizing email marketing Studies have shown that email has a about a 400% higher R.O.I. than social media marketing. Despite this, many agency owners are still not using it — at all. I’ve seen very few agencies actually being proactive with email marketing, and even then, they aren’t using it to it’s fullest capacity. Building your email list should become one of your highest priorities, and there are dozens of tools to choose from that make it easier than ever.
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
6
Email is a great way to not only market to prospects, but it’s invaluable in nurturing the relationships you have with your existing customers. At the very least, you should be using email to get more touches on your existing customers. What happens when you lose touch with your existing customers? They leave — that’s what happens. When you don’t get enough touches on your customers, your agency loses money. Period. Customers don’t leave your agency because of price, they leave because of a lack of communication. It might not happen overnight, but slowly and surely, your recurring commissions will begin to erode, and you’ll end up spending twice the amount of time and money to replace that lost business. “The easiest customer to get is the one you already have.” That saying is cliché for a reason. You can get twice the amount of touches on your customers with email, and do it in a way that paints you as a real authority on insurance in the customers’ eyes.
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
7
How to avoid this mistake There are a ton of different email marketing apps you can use to start building your email list and I’ve tested a lot of them. A#er literally months of testing, I’ve found that the best app, and the one I’d strongly recommend using Active Campaign. We personally use Active Campaign at Advisor Evolved. Active Campaign gives you the powerful automation capabilities of InfusionSo# (a.k.a. ConfusionSo#) but with the simplicity and ease-of-use of Mailchimp, aWeber or Constant Contact. One of the many benefits of an Advisor Evolved Premium membership, is that we’ll show you exactly how to set up your Active Campaign account step by step, so you can start collecting more emails, ge!ing more touches on prospects and clients, and pu!ing your marketing efforts on auto-pilot. Remember, 400% higher ROI. You can start with Active Campaign for free, and paid plans start at just $9/mo! That’s an awesome deal!
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
8
Mistake#3: Not branding your agency for millennials The insurance industry is one of the oldest industries in the world but that doesn’t mean that your agency’s brand needs to look and feel old does it? As the industry changes, and moves more toward the digital space, marketing your brand to millennials will become more and more important, and if you haven’t already started to think about this, you need to. I had a conversation with an agency owner recently, who was trying to get his 24 year old son involved in the business. He told me his son doesn’t want to work in the business, because “it’s for old people”. His son also said, his father’s office looked and felt like it was stuck in the 70’s. If you truly want to last in this business, you need to brand yourself for not only the modern consumer, but the modern employee. If your brand is pale and stale, you won’t be appealing to prospects or producers. Just think about that for a second. Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
9
How to avoid this mistake Take a look at your brand from the outside looking in, but in the shoes of someone in their mid 20’s. This is the prospect demographic that will be prominent in this industry very soon. Your brand’s offline and online appearance is extremely important. Consumer purchasing behaviors are changing and trust is becoming harder and harder to earn. Your agency simply will not survive with a stale, stagnant and old appearance. Start with your logo, and go through everything including the physical appearance of your office. Take down the old drapes, paint the ceiling tiles white, replace old carpeting with hardwood, and give those walls a fresh coat of paint. Throw a flatscreen up on the wall. Don’t be afraid to re-brand. Companies in the insurance space do this all the time, and it’s always well received. AIG, Humana, and Aetna are just a few who have successfully gained a lot of steam a#er rebranding their business and products.
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
10
One of the services we offer at Advisor Evolved is called the “Branding Bundle”, which includes a logo refresh, business card design, as well as branded marketing materials that you can hand out to realtors, mortgage brokers, associations, and more. Yep, we’ve got you covered in this area as well.
Mistake# 4: Not having a mobile experience for your customers When I say “mobile”, I’m not just referring to having a mobile responsive website. You should already have one of those. If you don’t, head over to www.advisorevolved.com I’m talking about having a mobile presence in the lives of your customers. Over 1 Billion smartphones shipped in 2014, and that number is only ge!ing bigger. Consumers are relying on their smartphones, tablets, and smart watches for literally everything now a days. Your brand needs to be there. If you don’t have a mobile game plan, you’re missing out on a ton of opportunities.
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
11
Opportunities to nurture relationships with existing customers. Opportunities to get referrals. Opportunities to sell more insurance. Without a mobile game plan, you will lose money. Why? Because this is where the industry is going. This is where all industries are going. Mobile is a must for your agency. You need to be in your customers’ cell phones.
How to avoid this mistake Here are 4 things you can do to improve your agency’s mobile experience. 1. Make sure your website is mobile responsive 2. Make sure your agency has texting capabilities. EZLynx has this feature in their agency management system. It’s seriously awesome. You can also look into HeyTell which is cool as well. Texting is the present, and the future. 3. Teach your customers how to bookmark your agency website in their smartphones (Google it; it’s super easy) 4. Get involved in “visual” media (a.k.a. start a Instagram account and crush it; share everything to your Facebook and Twi!er accounts from Instagram) Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
12
Mistake# 5: Lacking creativity, and culture When you look around the insurance industry, you’ll see how hard it can be to differentiate yourself from your competitors, and avoid commoditization. When I look at it, I see insurance agencies preaching the same stale message over and over again. In one sentence, it’s usually something like this: “We’re independent, family owned, yada yada yada” To most casual insurance consumers, this doesn’t really hold any weight. It can even be confusing to people. “What does independent mean? Like, you mean you work for yourself? I don’t get it.” People have said those exact words to me before. Family owned? That saying is 200 years old and doesn’t have as much impact as it used to unfortunately. You have to get creative in this business if you want to separate yourself from your competitors, and guess what, Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
13
it’s easy to do because everyone is doing and saying the same exact thing! When you ask clients why they went with your agency, hopefully it’s not just about price right? Or even the fact that you are independent? Hopefully, they’ll talk about the feeling they had when they walked through your office or met with you or your staff. The energy, the people, your mission, the personalities, the passion. Sometimes the feeling is hard to put into words, but that’s okay. That’s culture. That’s creativity. Without creativity — without culture, you are no different than anyone else in the insurance industry. Your other full time job — fighting commoditization, becomes that much harder. When you are a commodity, you lose money. It’s that simple.
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
14
How to avoid this mistake Not only does a creating a thriving, creative culture improve your marketing capabilities, but it turns your existing customers into raving fans of your brand. It makes you “stick” in the minds of your prospects and customers. In order to make this happen, you must keep things interesting, maybe even be a li!le random. Creating sales contests keeps things competitive. Establishing a rewards system for great customer service keeps policies on the books longer, and, keeps things interesting for the producers of your agency or firm. When your staff is genuinely excited to come to work each day, customers benefit. When customers benefit, you benefit. What about charities you could be involved in? How about team building activities to build camaraderie? Random acts of kindness directed to your customers and employees? Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
15
Wrapping Up As an independent insurance agent, your job presents many challenges. Keeping up with the pace of technology. Hiring the right people. Writing new business and retaining it. Fighting the commoditization ba!le. Educating customers so they trust you and no one else. You literally can't afford to make the mistakes I’ve outlined in this ebook. The insurance industry is far too competitive to get complacent. Don’t ever forget this: maintaining is just another form of regression. Always be evolving. Kindly, — Chris www.advisorevolved.com
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
16
1
5 Major Mistakes That Will Silently Destroy Your Insurance Agency And The Steps You Can Take To Avoid Them
Brought to you by Chris Langille, Founder of Advisor Evolved Websites & Inbound Marketing for Insurance Agents and Financial Advisors www.advisorevolved.com
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
2
Mistake #1: Under-valuing your agency website How to avoid this mistake
Mistake #2: Not utilizing email marketing How to avoid this mistake
Mistake#3: Not branding your agency for millennials How to avoid this mistake
4 6
6 8
9 10
Mistake# 4: Not having a mobile experience for your customers 11 How to avoid this mistake
Mistake# 5: Lacking creativity, and culture How to avoid this mistake
Wrapping Up
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
12
13 15
16
3
Mistake #1: Under-valuing your agency website It’s 2016. You don’t need to have a good website. You need to have a great website. I’m honestly surprised at what li!le emphasis many agency owners put on their online presence. A great website and online presence is not a luxury in this era of smartphones, Facebook, and Google — it’s a necessity. In 2016 you need to exist in both the offline, and online worlds. Consumers expect a certain experience when doing business with you. Understand that as an agency owner, you’re not just being compared to other insurance companies/agencies. In the consumer’s mind, you’re being compared to global brands like Apple, Google, Amazon, Zappos, Starbucks, etc.. A website is a big part of that experience. It’s the foundation of your online presence.
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
4
It’s where people come to learn more about you, ask questions, and purchase products and/or services from you. If your site looks out-dated, abandoned, or ugly, how do you think that reflects on your business?
It’s time to buck up. I’m sure as an independent agency owner, you’re making decent money, otherwise you’d be doing something else. The point I’m trying to make is, you need to invest in your business and put more of an emphasis on your website. This means you may have to spend some money. Websites are just like anything else in that you get what you pay for. If you buy a $500 website, that’s what you’re going to end up with. There are some things in life you can afford to skimp on, but if you are in business for yourself, a website is not one of them. Keep skimping on your site and your customers will become a!racted to other agencies, and you will lose money. Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
5
How to avoid this mistake Go check out our website, at www.advisorevolved.com. If you’re looking for a modernized, SEO optimized agency website, there’s not much more you need to do but to sign up for one of our plans. We’ll take care of the rest. We’ve got it all covered, and for about the same amount of commission you make on a decent auto policy.
Mistake #2: Not utilizing email marketing Studies have shown that email has a about a 400% higher R.O.I. than social media marketing. Despite this, many agency owners are still not using it — at all. I’ve seen very few agencies actually being proactive with email marketing, and even then, they aren’t using it to it’s fullest capacity. Building your email list should become one of your highest priorities, and there are dozens of tools to choose from that make it easier than ever.
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
6
Email is a great way to not only market to prospects, but it’s invaluable in nurturing the relationships you have with your existing customers. At the very least, you should be using email to get more touches on your existing customers. What happens when you lose touch with your existing customers? They leave — that’s what happens. When you don’t get enough touches on your customers, your agency loses money. Period. Customers don’t leave your agency because of price, they leave because of a lack of communication. It might not happen overnight, but slowly and surely, your recurring commissions will begin to erode, and you’ll end up spending twice the amount of time and money to replace that lost business. “The easiest customer to get is the one you already have.” That saying is cliché for a reason. You can get twice the amount of touches on your customers with email, and do it in a way that paints you as a real authority on insurance in the customers’ eyes.
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
7
How to avoid this mistake There are a ton of different email marketing apps you can use to start building your email list and I’ve tested a lot of them. A#er literally months of testing, I’ve found that the best app, and the one I’d strongly recommend using Active Campaign. We personally use Active Campaign at Advisor Evolved. Active Campaign gives you the powerful automation capabilities of InfusionSo# (a.k.a. ConfusionSo#) but with the simplicity and ease-of-use of Mailchimp, aWeber or Constant Contact. One of the many benefits of an Advisor Evolved Premium membership, is that we’ll show you exactly how to set up your Active Campaign account step by step, so you can start collecting more emails, ge!ing more touches on prospects and clients, and pu!ing your marketing efforts on auto-pilot. Remember, 400% higher ROI. You can start with Active Campaign for free, and paid plans start at just $9/mo! That’s an awesome deal!
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
8
Mistake#3: Not branding your agency for millennials The insurance industry is one of the oldest industries in the world but that doesn’t mean that your agency’s brand needs to look and feel old does it? As the industry changes, and moves more toward the digital space, marketing your brand to millennials will become more and more important, and if you haven’t already started to think about this, you need to. I had a conversation with an agency owner recently, who was trying to get his 24 year old son involved in the business. He told me his son doesn’t want to work in the business, because “it’s for old people”. His son also said, his father’s office looked and felt like it was stuck in the 70’s. If you truly want to last in this business, you need to brand yourself for not only the modern consumer, but the modern employee. If your brand is pale and stale, you won’t be appealing to prospects or producers. Just think about that for a second. Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
9
How to avoid this mistake Take a look at your brand from the outside looking in, but in the shoes of someone in their mid 20’s. This is the prospect demographic that will be prominent in this industry very soon. Your brand’s offline and online appearance is extremely important. Consumer purchasing behaviors are changing and trust is becoming harder and harder to earn. Your agency simply will not survive with a stale, stagnant and old appearance. Start with your logo, and go through everything including the physical appearance of your office. Take down the old drapes, paint the ceiling tiles white, replace old carpeting with hardwood, and give those walls a fresh coat of paint. Throw a flatscreen up on the wall. Don’t be afraid to re-brand. Companies in the insurance space do this all the time, and it’s always well received. AIG, Humana, and Aetna are just a few who have successfully gained a lot of steam a#er rebranding their business and products.
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
10
One of the services we offer at Advisor Evolved is called the “Branding Bundle”, which includes a logo refresh, business card design, as well as branded marketing materials that you can hand out to realtors, mortgage brokers, associations, and more. Yep, we’ve got you covered in this area as well.
Mistake# 4: Not having a mobile experience for your customers When I say “mobile”, I’m not just referring to having a mobile responsive website. You should already have one of those. If you don’t, head over to www.advisorevolved.com I’m talking about having a mobile presence in the lives of your customers. Over 1 Billion smartphones shipped in 2014, and that number is only ge!ing bigger. Consumers are relying on their smartphones, tablets, and smart watches for literally everything now a days. Your brand needs to be there. If you don’t have a mobile game plan, you’re missing out on a ton of opportunities.
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
11
Opportunities to nurture relationships with existing customers. Opportunities to get referrals. Opportunities to sell more insurance. Without a mobile game plan, you will lose money. Why? Because this is where the industry is going. This is where all industries are going. Mobile is a must for your agency. You need to be in your customers’ cell phones.
How to avoid this mistake Here are 4 things you can do to improve your agency’s mobile experience. 1. Make sure your website is mobile responsive 2. Make sure your agency has texting capabilities. EZLynx has this feature in their agency management system. It’s seriously awesome. You can also look into HeyTell which is cool as well. Texting is the present, and the future. 3. Teach your customers how to bookmark your agency website in their smartphones (Google it; it’s super easy) 4. Get involved in “visual” media (a.k.a. start a Instagram account and crush it; share everything to your Facebook and Twi!er accounts from Instagram) Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
12
Mistake# 5: Lacking creativity, and culture When you look around the insurance industry, you’ll see how hard it can be to differentiate yourself from your competitors, and avoid commoditization. When I look at it, I see insurance agencies preaching the same stale message over and over again. In one sentence, it’s usually something like this: “We’re independent, family owned, yada yada yada” To most casual insurance consumers, this doesn’t really hold any weight. It can even be confusing to people. “What does independent mean? Like, you mean you work for yourself? I don’t get it.” People have said those exact words to me before. Family owned? That saying is 200 years old and doesn’t have as much impact as it used to unfortunately. You have to get creative in this business if you want to separate yourself from your competitors, and guess what, Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
13
it’s easy to do because everyone is doing and saying the same exact thing! When you ask clients why they went with your agency, hopefully it’s not just about price right? Or even the fact that you are independent? Hopefully, they’ll talk about the feeling they had when they walked through your office or met with you or your staff. The energy, the people, your mission, the personalities, the passion. Sometimes the feeling is hard to put into words, but that’s okay. That’s culture. That’s creativity. Without creativity — without culture, you are no different than anyone else in the insurance industry. Your other full time job — fighting commoditization, becomes that much harder. When you are a commodity, you lose money. It’s that simple.
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
14
How to avoid this mistake Not only does a creating a thriving, creative culture improve your marketing capabilities, but it turns your existing customers into raving fans of your brand. It makes you “stick” in the minds of your prospects and customers. In order to make this happen, you must keep things interesting, maybe even be a li!le random. Creating sales contests keeps things competitive. Establishing a rewards system for great customer service keeps policies on the books longer, and, keeps things interesting for the producers of your agency or firm. When your staff is genuinely excited to come to work each day, customers benefit. When customers benefit, you benefit. What about charities you could be involved in? How about team building activities to build camaraderie? Random acts of kindness directed to your customers and employees? Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
15
Wrapping Up As an independent insurance agent, your job presents many challenges. Keeping up with the pace of technology. Hiring the right people. Writing new business and retaining it. Fighting the commoditization ba!le. Educating customers so they trust you and no one else. You literally can't afford to make the mistakes I’ve outlined in this ebook. The insurance industry is far too competitive to get complacent. Don’t ever forget this: maintaining is just another form of regression. Always be evolving. Kindly, — Chris www.advisorevolved.com
Copyright 2015 Advisor Evolved. All rights reserved.
16
