As President of Agency Consulting Group, Inc. we have the opportunity to see hundreds of agency websites each year. About 20% of agencies in the U.S. “GET IT” and realize that they now have two distinct types of prospects and clients to attract and retain, the Baby Boomers who run most of the commercial ventures in the U.S. and the Millennials and younger who are quickly taking over as the Baby Boomers retire and perpetuate their businesses and their personal assets.
Traditional marketing is a two-edged sword with one very sharp blade and one dull one. Many agents (especially our Asset Protection Model agents) understand that the personal service of Relationship Selling is a perfect example of “Everything Old is New Again”. Relationship Selling is regaining a special presence in both the medical field with Concierge Doctors and in the insurance industry with Relationship Managers instead of price-sellers.
Meanwhile, the mass media marketing of the 60’s through current times simply doesn’t work anymore as the public has become numb and inured to this constant bombardment of visual and mailed advertising products and services in which they aren’t particularly interested at the time of the marketing.
The APM (Asset Protection Model) of Relationship Selling is the key to differentiating yourselves and your agencies from the Price Whores who still only sell the hope of a lower price for standard insurance products.
But the key to active marketing for insurance agencies is in their websites and how they communicate with and through them to both their clients and their prospects.
If your agency has a stagnant, billboard type of website 2018 is the year to update it. But don’t bother unless you intend to actually use the website as the core of your agency marketing to your younger clients and prospects.
Many readers have become aware that I am also President of USA Insurance Network, an internet marketing company dedicated to BRINGING MORE CLIENTS TO INDEPENDENT AGENCIES through the active marketing of specialty programs to protected territories throughout the U.S. USA Insurance Network already has over 700 programs with dozens of Featured Programs that can be interactive on agency websites. This has given me an opportunity to view hundreds of agency websites of agents who are truly active in marketing new business to new clients and communicating actively with their existing clients through their web presence. I invite you to link to USA Insurance Network to see what we offer.
But, in reality, they key to the success of USA Insurance Network is not its hundreds of programs that make your website a magnet for clients and prospects in your territory – that’s just a bonus. The key to the success of this marketing company is the fact that WE WILL ACTIVELY MARKET TO THE SPECIALTY PROGRAM PROSPECTS IN YOUR TERRITORY ON YOUR BEHALF with all responses and referrals coming to you to contact (hopefully using the APM to form close relationships with many more prospects) and to provide appropriate insurance products.
And the preceding paragraph is the key to your success, as well. Whether you choose to use USA Insurance Network or not, the country’s most successful agents, young and old, large and small, are now actively marketing to their prospects through focused marketing instead of “shot-gunning” their advertising and creating long-term marketing campaigns instead of single shot mailers and emailers. They realize that the attention they attract is by familiarizing targeted prospects with specialty insurance tailored to their particular needs and doing so multiple times each year until their agencies become synonymous with “insurance” for those prospects.
Frankly, the image building of this targeted, focused specialty marketing isn’t sufficient for the old-time ‘baby boomer’ business owners. They need the follow up activity of Relationship Management by friendly and trusted advisors who are selling SOLUTIONS, NOT PRICE. But the baby boomers are dying out and the Millennial’s are taking over. Millennial’s thrive on ‘On Demand’ marketing and selling. They want to know you when they NEED YOU, not when you decide to market to them. You must be accessible to them (through your website with as cursory or as in-depth help as they desire) 24/7. USA Insurance Network was established to do exactly that. It provides text, video and referral emails whenever a prospect wants it AND it will touch the prospects for specialty programs as many times each year as necessary to convince them that, whenever they are ready, YOU are the source for the best insurance advice in the area.
Please visit USA Insurance Network to see why a small investment can bring you substantial rewards in growth and profit. Call us at 800 779 2430 (or email al@agencyconsulting.com
to see how the Asset Protection Model of Relationship Selling can convert you from a “Price-quoter” to a “Steady Grower” and change your agency from a Buggy Whip Manufacturer to a Transportation Company).
Buggy Whip manufacturers died out by the thousands at the turn of the 20th Century while a few who became makers, suppliers and repairers of automobiles succeeded for another hundred years. The insurance agents of the 20th Century specialized in pricing insurance products. The insurance agents of the 21st Century will specialize in providing the best insurance advice to protect their clients’ assets.