Marketing
Independent insurance agencies can benefit from a strong online presence
At SIS we are vested in providing information and technology that helps independent insurance agents streamline their workflow, increase market share and grow their business. Because of that, we have been digging deeper recently to find and pass along pertinent information on all aspects of marketing.
We’ve offered tips from independent agents, perspective on social media, discussed various online tools and resources like local search that can be used to help you get found on the net and linked to a great Mashable article about marketing on Facebook.
Today’s focus is on websites.
Back in 2010, Progressive’s Steve Marko wrote an article for ACT, Build a Web presence worthy of 2010 in which he mentioned that auto insurance is one of the most shopped for products on the internet and cited statistics that indicated that 73% of people use the internet to search for insurance information, but 67% still prefer to buy from a local agent.
The good news for independent agencies, he said, is that people are still trying to find you. The bad news is that if you do not have a strong online presence, the chances they’ll go elsewhere increase significantly – and that was two years ago. We can only assume that, if anything, the number of individuals searching for insurance options online has increased over the last several years.
Given those statistics, it is surprising then that all independent agents don’t have more of a web presence. In a recent survey we conducted through a third party we found that only 143 out of 247 (57%) of agencies surveyed had a marketing web presence. Of those who had a web presence only nine (4%) felt that their website was “very effective” in driving new business to their agency. Out of those who did not currently have a web presence, only 27 (26%) indicated that getting a website would be the next on their list of marketing priorities.
Based most of the agents and agencies we’ve talked to, it seems clear that Marko’s key points back in 2010 still apply. Agencies need to
- Build a quality site that promotes a strong brand presence
- Broaden reach with free local online listings
- Attract “searchers” through SEO
- Keep them coming back with fresh content
- Measure results using online analytics and tracking the number of new customers attracted by the website.
For those who want to read more on the subject of business websites, there is a great post on Mashable Business, 4 Elements of a Successful Business Web Presence, that touches on the basics – Defining the Goals of your site, the site itself, the benefits of a blog and using a periodic newsletter and/or social media to drive traffic to your site and seek YOU out.
You can also visit the “Websites & Social Media” quick link at www.iiaba.net/act for more tips on websites, search engine optimization, blogs and other social media issues.
Partner XE by SIS is the leading web based agency management system designed to give you all the capabilities required to run your agency today and well into the future at a price point you’ll appreciate. That’s why over 500 agencies have chosen Partner XE and SIS to help them grow their business. If you are interested in learning more about SIS or our Partner XE agency management system please give us a call at 800-747-9273 or fill out a short contact form and one of our representatives will be in touch soon.
Agency Operations, Marketing
Digital Marketing for Independent Insurance Agents
Enhancing traditional insurance marketing methods with online tools and resources:
Digital Marketing is an important tool for Independent Insurance Agents, however, in an age of constant change and innovation in the tools and resources available to market your insurance agency, it can be tough to keep up – particularly when marketing is not your core business.
Fortunately there are some great resources out there like ACT to help make keeping up a little easier. In another excellent article published by the organization, Expand Your Marketing Strategy Online, Three Digital Parallels to Traditional Tactics, author Matt Marko, discusses three digital techniques that can be used to “extend the strong local presence they have developed to local prospects.”
Our top 8 take-aways:
- The online equivalent of the Yellow Pages is Local Search.
- Agencies should take advantage of free options that audit how effectively they have claimed their local search listings and make it possible to create listings with each of the primary search engines from one website.
- Business listings should remain consistent across search engines and include as much relevant content as possible (address, phone number, email address, website, etc.)
- It is a good idea to generate as many online references to your business as you can among search engines.
- For agencies that have nurtured word-of-mouth referrals from their customers, encouraging your customers to share their feedback online is an easy way to amplify their voice.
- Agencies should create a strategy for getting customers to review their business online.
- On-line advertising, whether through local media outlets or through Facebook can replace or supplement newspaper advertising.
- Facebook give you pinpoint targeting options that print and online publications cannot.
Partner XE by SIS is the leading web based agency management system designed to give you all the capabilities required to run your agency today and well into the future at a price point you’ll appreciate. That’s why over 500 agencies have chosen Partner XE and SIS to help them grow their business. If you are interested in learning more about SIS or our Partner XE agency management system please give us a call at 800-747-9273 or fill out a short contact form and one of our representatives will be in touch soon.
Agency Operations, Marketing, Technology Trends
3 Ways to use Your Partner XE Agency Management System to MakeYour Business More Profitable
There are many ways to use the Partner XE Agency Management System to increase profitability for your agency. For starters…
1.) Information, Information, Information
Partner XE has a number of prebuilt reports an agency can run to gain insight to what is happening in their businesses. Don’t see what you want? You can easily create a custom report to get the exact information you are looking for.
Examples of how to use reporting to increase profitability:
- Learn which lines of business are most profitable and adjust your marketing to sell more of those lines.
- Identify common characteristic of your clients and target more people like them.
- Run a Premium by Carrier By Line of Business report to get a good understanding of how you are doing with a certain carrier, where you are selling well, where you are not and if there are other lines of business available that you might be able to focus on.
- Identify cross-sell and upsell opportunities and market accordingly.
- Determine which of your producers are producing and which are not. Then dig deeper to find out what the high producers are doing that the others are not to teach that throughout your agency
- And much more.
All of these reports can easily be exported to Excel with two clicks of the mouse or you can print letters and envelopes for everyone on the list for direct mail marketing campaigns.
2.) Increase Efficiency with Commercial Downloads and Real Time
We are committed to making the lives of our clients easier and more productive. One way Partner XE does that is through the ability to download commercial lines policies – eliminating the need for manual entry and increasing the amount of time you have to focus on sales and customer service.
In addition, thanks to Real Time, agencies using Partner XE can pass client information already entered in their agency management system directly to the carrier website to pre-fill required information, improving accuracy, saving time and freeing up more time for selling.
3.) Track and Monitor Sales and Marketing Efforts with To-Do Lists
The Marketing To-Do List within your Partner XE agency management system can serve several purposes. Most importantly though, the To-Do List will help you keep track of the different stages of your various sales and marketing campaigns. To keep Producers/CSRs on track for each step or follow up, these To-Do Lists have reminders that can be set to show up on your “desktop reminders list” when a follow up is required or scheduled. Since there are often multiple people involved with a single marketing campaign, the To-Do Lists can also be assigned to multiple users so when one person has accomplished their steps they can assign the To-Do List to the next person so they can take over the marketing workflow. In short, no many how many people you are marketing to, no matter how many people on your team, using the To-Do lists correctly will ensure nothing slips through the cracks and everyone is accountable to their own action items – which ultimately should lead to closing more business!
Partner XE from SIS is an easy to use, online hosted insurance agency management system with logical workflows, exceptional download and comparative rater integration capabilities and best in the business Outlook integration. If you are not already using Partner XE and would like to learn why so many agencies are switching to our system, give us a call at 800-747-9273 or fill out a short contact form and we’ll be in touch. You’ll be glad you did.
Marketing, Technology Trends
Insurance Marketing Trends
Survey results show agencies need to better coordinate and measure marketing efforts
Last fall, Jason Hoeppner, an independent agency consultant with B.H. Burke & Co., conducted a survey of agencies, carriers and vendors on insurance marketing trends to get a picture of their social media usage, their overall marketing efforts and how they measure ROI. The results of this survey were given to us by Jeff Yates of ACT.
The following are the three points Hoeppner says he found the most eye opening.
- More than 60% of those who responded are not measuring the return on investment of current marketing efforts.
- Close to half of respondents who are not using social media will start to do so within a year.
- Of those who responded, a bit more than 60% do not have a coordinated marketing plan of any kind.
The social media finding corresponded with exactly what we’ve been hearing here at SIS. It is a tool a lot of agencies would like to be using.
Those of you interested in ideas of how to expand your reach with Social Media might be interested in reading one of the following two posts: Creating Brand Awareness Through Facebook and Insurers Put Social Media to Work.
Another finding that matched our research exactly is that a website is the most commonly used marketing tool across both traditional and non-traditional platforms.
While we would agree that the lack of coordinated marketing plans among the independent insurance agencies who responded to the survey is distressing, it is somewhat understandable given the pace of the business. For an agency to grow, however, implementing defined and measured processes (around all areas of the business) should be a priority. For more information, read our recent post Improving Business Processes.
The one thing we did find surprising, however, is how few agencies surveyed are using their agency management system to track and measure results of their marketing efforts. Our Partner XE agency management system has many features that will help you measure and track your marketing efforts. Give us a call at 800-747-9273 to find out how.
Partner XE is an easy to use agency management system designed to streamline workflow and increase productivity for independent insurance agencies of all sizes. Call 800-747-9273 or contact us to schedule a free agency management system assessment and consultation
Agency Operations
Going Paperless Increases Office Efficiency & Productivity
Accomplish more work with fewer people in less time using an electronic document management system.
As ACT Executive Director, Jeff Yates wrote in AUGIE Survey: Agency Technology Having Big Payback for Many Agencies, “There is a multiplier effect starting to take effect for agencies that implement new technologies consistently and successfully. The biggest benefit seems to be that these efficiencies enable the agency to grow without increasing staff.”
One such opportunity for independent agents, discussed in a previous post, is Real Time. Another is the ability to move to a paperless work environment. When best practices are followed, going paperless using an electronic document management system can help independent insurance agencies tackle their operational processes, achieve increased productivity and improve customer service.
Why going paperless makes sense for an independent insurance agency
Consider the following two scenarios: First, imagine having to print each email you receive from your insured, get up and walk over to the filing cabinet, search for the insured’s folder, find the correct spot in the folder to place the printed email. Second, imagine a system that did it all for you – automatically. That is what you get with Partner XE and its Outlook Plug-in feature. In Partner XE, the Outlook Plug-in will automatically attach that email to the document section of the customer folder – no additional work required. Even if you only got one email per day this would be a nice feature. When you figure multiple emails per day for multiple employees, the time saving factor is huge. (Not to mention the green aspect of going paperless!)
In addition, especially with the advent of SaaS, workplaces are increasingly more mobile. To maximize efficiency, agents and customer service reps should ideally have access files and source documents anywhere, anytime. Going paperless, in conjunction with using an online hosted agency management system, makes it a slam dunk.
Best practices for going paperless
- Implement an agency management system such as Partner XE from SIS that uses an internal transactional filing system (designed to be compliant with existing E&O standards) to manage storage and store all system files and activities.
- Work with staff to determine the best method to scan and import documents into the system. This may depend on what type of scanning equipment you have in your office. Some agencies have big expensive multiplex scanners. Other agencies have less expensive workstation scanners. If you have a choice, our suggestion is to go with the latter. Overall, we have found that, when going paperless, the workstation scanners tend to be the most effective, primarily because they alleviate the constraints posed by a one-scanner system when more than one person needs to scan at once.
- Determine how you will handle old files. The two main choices here are whether to scan all old files into the system so that ALL documents can be accessed digitally, or to pick a starting date and go digital from that point on. It is important to speak with your service staff to collectively determine what makes the most sense for your agency. Making a big decision like this could lead to frustrations if team members aren’t on board and it’s not all planned out ahead of time.
- Establish a consistent document naming system. This is critical to be able to find files (no matter who created them) where you need them, when you need them – even several years down the road. Example: Emails should be tagged with “EML” and then the description, ACORD forms with “ACORD,” etc. By doing so, you can easily run a “sort” and group all of your emails / forms, etc. together
- Create and integrate new workflow procedures and ensure all personnel are properly trained. Make sure all involved understand what documents are attached to what within your agency management system, etc.
- When best practices are followed, an electronic document management system can go a long way towards helping organizations tackle their operational processes and achieve increased productivity and better customer service.
For more articles on the subject see the following links:
About the Partner XE Agency Management System
Partner XE from SIS is an easy to use, online hosted insurance agency management system with logical workflows, exceptional download and comparative rater integration capabilities and best in the business Outlook integration.
