As an industry, and as a country, we’ve been through a lot in 2020 so far. As we start to take our finger off “pause” and begin to ramp up business again, there’s a lot to think about moving forward.

For many, a large part of re-opening is a re-assessment of insurance agency marketing. When times are tough, elements like marketing are the first to go on hold. But now it’s time to bring your marketing back up to speed. Whether you’re restarting an established system, rethinking your strategy, or looking to invest in marketing for the first time, here are some steps to get you moving.

See more on agency marketing in our post on “Digital Marketing for the Local Agency”

1. Set your budget

Before you jump into the great marketing beyond, you need to know what you’re working with for your marketing plan. Set a reasonable budget that allows you to make progress, but won’t drain your resources. As a guide, Small Business Trends reported that the average small business spends a little over 1% of its revenue on advertising. While this varies by industry (retail is around 4% and restaurants closer to 2%), it gives you a good baseline.

2. Identify your sales funnel

To make a plan for marketing, you need to know your audience. A large part of understanding who you’re marketing to is knowing how they interact with your agency. Defining your sales funnel gives a picture of how your audience finds you and what you need to promote movement towards sales conversion. Once you know the steps people take when deciding to buy, you can determine how to incentivize them to move through the funnel.

See what stats you need to determine the best marketing move for your agency

3. Determine your goals

What is it you want your marketing to do? Bring in a certain percentage of new leads per month? Convert leads at a determined rate? Gain a defined number of impressions per ad? The clearer you can be on your goals, the better. Your sales funnel is a good place to start: see where prospects are getting stuck or dropping off. These problem areas should be your first to attack. Set clear, trackable, actionable goals to chip away at these issues.

4. Pick (and vary) your tactics

There are dozens of ways to reach audiences, but only a handful will work for you. Pick tactics that speak to your prospect demographic. Think about things like age, stage in life, digital fluency, and locality. Many agencies find community sponsorship effective in a community-minded locality. Email marketing works well with the Gen Z demographic, while Baby Boomers prefer a phone call. Think about modes and messaging and come up with a comprehensive plan to speak to your various audiences.

Get the facts on how to market to different generations of consumers here

5. Track results and make changes

Your first plan will not be your best plan. The only way to determine what works best for your agency is testing, tracking, and analyzing results. Leverage your agency management system and CRM to see how your outreach is making an impact. You’ll find some tactics are working and others that are missing the mark. Check-in regularly to evaluate progress and make changes as needed.

6. Make Your Agency Easy to Love

Great products and services market themselves. Make it easy for prospects to choose your agency: make a good impression with an attractive, easy-to-navigate website, great service tools, and quick responses to inquiries. Agency mobile apps and client portals are great service tools that attract modern-day consumers. Adding elements like these to your offerings may not seem directly related to marketing and sales, but their pull plays a big part in prospect decision-making.

Read more about what modern-day consumers want from their service providers

Get the Marketing and Service Tools You Need in One Place

Whether you need a marketing boost, service upgrade, or both, we’ve got you covered with Partner Platform. Our innovative agency management suite combines a robust management system with marketing and service tools like an integrated CRM and custom agency-branded mobile apps and client portal.

Discover more about our personalized digital services and integrated sales and marketing: get in touch at [email protected] or 800.747.7005, Option 6.