Lately, I’ve been talking a lot about tech and insurance and how insurance companies can utilize technology to increase their business. While, I have discussed many options such as, social media and consumer inbound calling, another great way to gain new customers is through email. Not only can email marketing increase your website visits, but it has become the top marketing tool for small business.
One of the many great things about email marketing is the ability to track the opening of emails. Not everyone will see your social media posts, advertisements, or listen to your voicemails, but with email you know when the customer has opened their email, and which emails did better than others. According to Insurancejournal.com, 90% of consumers would rather receive company information and updates via email, over a phone call. Plus, sending out emails instead of using snail mail or making phone calls is a huge time saver.
Although handy, your email marketing should not be taken lightly. Your emails should be thought of as a long-term investment and be concisely constructed and informative. The Neilsen Norman Group recommends, emails should emphasize value-added publishing instead of simply spamming frequent newsletters to any email address you can lay your hands on. You should not only craft your emails effectively, but even go as far as to segmenting your lists to target different client bases based on their interests, age ranges, geographic area, and other key demographics. For example, if you wrote about first time auto insurance, you would not send that to your more established clients as they have most likely had auto insurance for a while. Instead you would want to target, millennials and younger clients who would find the information more useful.
An incredibly important part of email marketing is making sure your headline is one that people want to open. Remember my post, How to Write Effective Insurance Marketing Headlines? In there I touch on ways to make sure your email is opened and not just pushed to the trash bin. Tips like; Numbers, Questions, Benefits and Specifics, are all easy ways to pique the interest of your readers to open the email.
Overall, if you are not using email to communicate your agencies happenings it’s time to start. With email being nearly 40 times better at gaining new customers than other forms of social media it seems like a no-brainer as part of a business plan. So, go get that email strategy started and let us know what you come up with. If you have been using email for a while, let us know some of your best practices in the comments below.
