There’s always plenty of clamor about how technology is disconnecting moderns from one another socially. From another vantage point, it’s allowing us to know one another better and to maintain relationships longer.
My grandmother lost track of most of her childhood friends over the course of her long life, but despite three moves to different schools and different states, my teenage son is still in close cahoots with his pals from Kindergarten. Heck, I’m still in touch with people I knew in highschool (for better or worse) thanks to Facebook.
Perhaps it’s all this connectedness that leads 21st century consumers to expect the same sort of camaraderie with their insurance agents. At one time, it was good enough for an insurance agent to offer up an affordable coverage plan. Today, insurance buyers want more.
They’re annoyed when their insurance agency ignores them, but they’re equally annoyed when the agency bombards them with irrelevant content. It indicates a lack of insight into their needs, which implies that the agency isn’t really paying attention.
Marketing personalization is the answer to modern clients’ more demanding expectations. Targeted marketing focuses on providing content customized to a unique audience. Marketing personalization fine tunes that further, enabling insurance agencies to focus on creating custom content for each individual client.
Obviously, it would be prohibitively time-consuming (not to mention expensive) to personally target each client and prospect you’re seeking to satisfy. Most marketing personalization is entirely automated, relying on technology like data management platforms, customer relationship management platforms, website tools and email marketing platforms to do the heavy-lifting.
Through these tools, it’s possible for even smaller independent agencies to provide relevant, compelling, custom content to individual clients and prospects when and where they need it most. They enable insurance marketers to spread efforts over multiple channels easily, increasing helpful communication with clients without badgering them.
Some personalization efforts are as easy as tweaking your agency’s website.
A responsive design ensures that your website is accessible to anyone on any device.
Plugins can be used to personalize visitors’ browsing experience with product offers related to pageviews.
Plugins can be used to cross-promote personalized offers based on past purchasing behavior.
Blog posts and other content can be tagged to make it easy for visitors to find the most relevant information for their needs.
Interactive tools on your website can be used to empower visitors to see what customized insurance portfolios might look like.
Other personalization efforts may require a little more technical sophistication.
Email marketing platforms like MailChimp and ConstantContact allow merge tags that insert personalized messages based on mailing list data.
Email platforms can also be programmed to send transactional emails that send messages relevant to actions that visitors to your website take, such as making a purchase or requesting a quote.
Email platforms, social media channels, and CRMs all offer the possibility of building lookalike audiences that make it easier for you to correctly target likely prospects based on the purchasing behaviors of your existing clients.
According to Forrester’s 2016 report on digital experience technology, businesses that personalize web experiences see an average 19% increase in sales. The report also showed that personalized marketing emails received 29% higher open rates and 41% higher click-through rates. In other words, you’ll gain greater engagement, improved client relationships, and increased profitability.
What challenges has your insurance agency faced in personalizing marketing efforts?