By Tyler Munn
The success of an e-mail marketing campaign hinges on a lot of variables. Since there are probably as many of these variables as there are stars in the sky (well, maybe not quite), I figured we would just examine a few of these factors that can have a big impact on the success of your e-mail marketing campaign.
Relevance. I’ve harped and rambled about this before, but it cannot be stressed enough. Your content has to be relevant to your audience. If you give your audience information that is applicable to them, you’re building a kind of trust for subsequent campaigns that will make them more likely to eventually follow up with you and hopefully join your client roster. Remember, it almost always takes multiple contacts with one prospect before they decide to buy.
Personalization. This is a small detail in comparison to other factors, but one worth considering and understanding. 90% of regular commercial e-mails contain personalization of some sort, but it’s important to know how and where to personalize e-mails. For example, putting the recipient’s name in the subject line will typically turn readers off to your e-mail. Generally, you should use the recipient’s name in the salutation and that is it.
Frequency. Frequency can be somewhat tricky. You need to find that golden mean between too little and too much e-mail communication, otherwise you’ll lose prospects and annoy current clients. This is where we get into the stat-tastic* portion of this week’s blog:
- 59% of Internet users surveyed don’t open or read certain e-mail marketing messages because they receive them too frequently.
- 22% of US Internet users stopped purchasing from a company because of too many or irrelevant e-mails.
- 41% in the same survey threatened to discontinue service.
Perhaps most notably, sending monthly e-mails and offering your recipient frequency and content options have a positive impact on the company’s reputation.
*Stats from emailstatcenter.com
August 13, 2010
By Tyler Munn
It can be pretty easy to take the convenience of web conferencing for granted, given the tool’s prevalence in the business community (it’s expected to generate $2.8 billion in revenue in 2010). But it’s not enough to simply fire up your Web Conference Tool and start pitching. There are several considerations you need to make before you can create a truly effective online presentation.
The Software
First and foremost, the actual software you use should obviously be up to snuff. What does that mean for an insurance agent in particular? Well, if you’re going to be working with a diverse range of income levels, you need to make sure your web conference software is compatible with every type of internet connection, from dial-up to DSL and beyond. By compatible, I simply mean it works without severely lagging no matter what type of connection you or your client are on.
The other essential (and I do mean essential) is security. If you’re writing applications online, your conference needs to be private and secure. This will give you and your client peace of mind and prevent unwanted visitors from “stumbling” into your meeting.
The PowerPoint
PowerPoint has become the Kleenex/Frisbee/whatever analogy you want to use of business presentations. It’s the ever-critical visual element of your pitch and its value should not be underestimated, especially if it’s the only visual element of your presentation.
So the problem then becomes how to create an effective PowerPoint presentation. There are a few basic rules of thumb to follow when building a PowerPoint slideshow:
- You’ll want to be sure to include aesthetically and professionally appealing images that are relevant to the slide’s topic and will help reinforce your overall theme.
- People’s attention spans today are not what they were 20 or even 10 years ago. Keep the number of major bullets on each slide between 3 and 5. This will create a more dynamic and engaging presentation.
A final thought on PowerPoint: Your slideshow is part of your presentation, not the whole presentation. You don’t need to go into text-heavy detail about products, options, what you do, etc… Your text should convey main points and give visual support to complex ideas (like a mathematical breakdown of premiums for certain policies).
The Presentation
I came across this web conference presentation preparation model on WebConferenceGuru.com, conveniently known as the PREP model. Aside from raising the question of which came first: the letters or the words behind an acronym, the PREP model should aid you in the creation, presentation and evaluation of a web conference. PREP stands for Planning, Rehearsal, Execution, and Post-Mortem. While more for group trainings, the PREP model can also be adjusted to work for insurance agents and one-on-one sales presentations. I highly recommend checking out the full article here for more details.
August 6, 2010
By Tyler Munn
This is the dramatic conclusion to our 2 part series on e-newsletter marketing. Enjoy.
Writing and Sending
Once you’ve laid out what kind of content you want to include, you have a couple of options with how you actually lay out your newsletter. One strategy I use if I’m not allotted a lot of time to put together the newsletter is to scour the World Wide Web for articles that fall under the subjects of what I want to include. Give the articles a thorough read and type up a short, two paragraph summary of the article (in your own words), pulling out the key points that your client will want to read about. Then simply include a link at the end of the summary article to the full article. Depending on how in-depth you want to get with your summaries and how many articles you include, set aside 8-12 hours to generate a well-done newsletter using this method.
Your other option is to create original full length articles. Needless to say, this is much more time-consuming. Since you probably don’t get bombarded with press releases and the AP Wire probably doesn’t pass through your office, you’re going to have to summon your most dormant of research abilities and synthesize stories into one coherent, relative and unique piece. With articles like this, it never hurts to include links to the original or source articles in case the reader wants more info. I would allot about 25 hours for a well-written newsletter done in this manner.
Finally, you need to pick the best day to e-mail your newsletter. The general consensus seems to be Monday or Tuesday, according to a 2009 survey (both days earned 39% of online retailers’ favor). Also be sure to offer your clients the ability to opt out of receiving your newsletter, per anti-spam and other e-mail regulations.
Easily overlooked necessities
Aside from content, make sure you include your contact information and a link to your website. If you have the means and know-how, create graphics and images for each article. Obviously you don’t want to go too over the top with pictures, but a good balance of text and images will make your document more readable. If you choose your images wisely, they will serve as a kind of visual headline, drawing the reader’s attention to the articles most relevant to them.
Those are pretty much the ins and outs of newsletter writing. If you need help with a newsletter, whether it’s individual or agency-wide, iBoomerang does offer a newsletter writing service. If you would like to learn more, feel free to e-mail me at tmunn@iBoomerang.com.
July 27, 2010
By Tyler Munn
I decided this was most definitely a two-parter; think the blogging equivalent of Godfather Part I and Godfather Part II. However, you have my word that no matter how good these first two posts are, I will not make a horribly written and poorly executed third post thrown together for the sake of closure.
I’ve talked a lot about client retention and e-mail marketing on this blog, but this week I thought we’d get a little more specific and go over the nuts and bolts of e-newsletters. So let’s cut the cost of overhead and wave goodbye to Gutenberg- This is how to make news for the 21st Century!
ROI and Marketing Trends
The first thing you might be wondering is why invest in something that can take so long to create. Consider these numbers: 49% of e-mail marketers said newsletters were routinely justified in terms of ROI, while only 10% said newsletters were not justified by revenue. On top of that, 62% of marketing executives planned to use e-newsletters in 2009, so there is some evident value in investing the time to create a newsletter.*
Client Retention
Since a newsletter’s primary purpose is typically client retention as opposed to lead conversion, there are a couple of points I want to make. I’m not going to go into huge detail about client retention considering I wrote this fairly thorough (and relatively popular, if I may so humbly say) article in the not-too-distant past on the matter, but I will reiterate these two stats that I think directly pertain to e-newsletters: 52% of insurance buyers consider themselves “relationship buyers” and 44% of people in another survey said they feel a stronger sense of loyalty to financial service providers who e-mail them.
Brainstorm
Now, if you want your newsletter to strengthen client relations with that 52% while building a stronger sense of loyalty among that 44%, your newsletter needs to be well crafted and RELEVANT. So before you do anything with your newsletter, do a little role-playing in your mind. Pretend you’re one of your clients and you’re opening up an e-newsletter. What do you want to see? Happenings around the agency? Doubtful (unless the agency is folding, in which case you have bigger fish to fry than writing a newsletter). An article about foods that help control cholesterol? You’d probably give it a quick read through.
Content for the Client
The point is to give your client information they can use. I would actually say very little of your newsletter should pertain to insurance. Maybe throw in a brief section for new products or a featured product, maybe a couple of lines if you’re dropping a carrier or a carrier is going under, and any articles that offer financial advice are definitely worth including, but no one wants to read about how much AV you produced this year or any internal news regarding your agency. Making a client newsletter about you or your agency is the equivalent of pulling a Homer Simpson and giving your wife a bowling ball for her birthday.
Stay tuned for the equally riveting Part Two in the coming days!
*Stats cited from http://www.lyris.com/media2/pdf/datasheets/statistics-and-metrics.pdf
July 21, 2010
By Tyler Munn
Today, I wanted to follow up a little bit on a post I made several weeks ago regarding credibility. I ran across this article from TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog, written by Lee Odden and, quite frankly, his list of factors of credibility puts mine to shame. Odden runs through 23 signs of credibility for online marketing agencies in fairly efficient detail.
“But Tyler,” you may say, “I’m not a part of any online marketing agency!” Literally, you are not employed by an online marketing agency. I will, however, argue that you yourself are an online marketing agency, with your only client being yourself. So I think Mr. Odden’s article is quite relevant to our industry and business.
I’m not going to copy the list in any form here (both for ethical reasons and because I think you should read the list in the context Odden intended), but I will share with you/reiterate some common themes within the list that you should keep in mind when implementing your own online marketing strategy.
- Social media presence.
- Establishing expertise through local media, events, or 3rd party content publishing.
- Brand image.
- Public visibility.
So there you go. Read the article and evaluate your own marketing strategy. Examine what your strengths are and identify areas you can improve on.
July 16, 2010
The broken links on the Products & Information page have been updated to connect to the new iBoomerang site! Check it out or click here to go straight to the new iBoomerang products page!
July 14, 2010
By Tyler Munn
It’s no secret that women are becoming increasingly financially independent, making them a growing market in any business sector. But according to modern literature (I assume all things I read to be true until proven otherwise), women hail from a vastly different planet than men, so it would make sense that the factors driving women’s decisions differ slightly from those driving men’s decisions. Consequently, you need to understand these differences and adjust your marketing approach accordingly.
Now, I am admittedly dumb when it comes to women, but I did come across an article that was written by someone who is not dumb when it comes to women, or marketing for that matter. Bess Gallanis (by way of Financial Marketing Wire: Presented by Kristen Luke, which I’ve mentioned before on this blog) thoroughly explains all of the dos and don’ts of offering your financial consultation services to today’s modern woman.
While Ms. Gallanis’ article is primarily directed towards financial advisors, I feel a lot of the information is quite relevant to insurance agents/brokers as well. But, if you want some more info that directly relates to health insurance as it pertains to women, check out this fact sheet from October 2009 posted by the Kaiser Foundation.
So check out “The Power of Her Purse: Five Steps Toward Effectively Marketing to Women.” Read it and enlighten yourself as I did.
July 7, 2010
By Tyler Munn
The call-to-action is the most important facet of any piece of marketing you do. Whether it’s e-mail, direct mail, your website, or a phone call, the call-to-action (or CTA) is what drives your production. A poorly composed CTA is literally a waste of money. A good CTA will ensure a strong ROI. Consider this post my call-to-action about your call-to-action!
Before I get ahead of myself, let’s take a step back and answer the very fundamental question that some of you might have- What is a “call-to-action” in a marketing sense? Put simply, “Click Here!” “Try Now!” “Find Out More!” are all calls to action, and they’re all pretty trite. CTAs are basically what you want your prospect/client to do in response to your message. You may not necessarily be asking them to buy something (you could be asking them simply to visit your site or think about their monthly finances), but the ultimate goal is to eventually push them toward the sale.
So with all of that cleared up, here’s some advice for writing a good CTA:
- Link it. If your message is online, always link your call to action to a landing page that will enable your audience to do what you’re asking.
- Be specific. Tell your audience what exactly they’re doing and what will happen when they actually do what you’re asking them to do. For example, instead of “Click Here!” tell them what will happen when they click there (“See a full product listing,” “Get started with a free quote now!”).
- Be original. As I mentioned above, “Click Here!” is pretty worn out. People become immune to things they are exposed to a lot, making them less likely to do what you’re asking them. Avoiding clichés will ensure a fresh message that will intrigue your audience.
- Incentivize. Include a quick reason why they should do what you’re asking in the CTA. For example: “Call me today for a free quote.” That particular example kind of violates my cliché rule, but you get the point.
- Rule of 3. Include three versions of your CTA in your marketing piece. Repetition of your message is a good rule for any marketing strategy.
- Be creative. Play with the style of your text (bold, italicize, etc.) and test different colors and image sizes for effectiveness.
- Use action verbs! Am, is, are, was, were, be, been, being, have, has, had, do, does, did, will, would, shall, should, can, could, may, might, and must all offer encouragement to your audience to take action.
- Use you-voice. This goes for any marketing content, not just CTAs. Keep the focus of your content on your reader, not you. People love to read about themselves, not about you, so instead of saying “I offer this and that,” say “You can get this and that if you call today!”
The bottom line is keep it simple and make it easy for your audience to take the action you’re requesting.
July 2, 2010
By Tyler Munn
Internet marketing is all about interactivity. Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube, clients, fans and consumers not only have more access to the people and companies they follow, but they expect more access to the people and companies they follow. While I have covered the first three above-mentioned social media outlets in a fair amount of detail, the oft-overlooked (in regards to marketing, at least) online video (specifically YouTube) can be utilized to add a certain touch of personalization and interactivity that is markedly different than its social media counterparts.
First, some stats (according to comScore), just in case you don’t trust me when I say YouTube can be a valuable marketing/client relations resource if used properly: Over 174 million Internet users in the U.S. watched 28.1 billion online videos during the month of February. YouTube accounted for 99% of all videos viewed.
Now that I got my usual stat-fix in, let’s get down to business. How do you go about turning this behemoth of a website into an asset for you? For starters, you need to establish/define your goals and objectives. For example, if you want to simply add a more dynamic and attractive news element to your website, you can just post links from YouTube right on your homepage or in a special section of your site. If you want to actually market yourself via YouTube, there are several other factors you’ll need to consider.
First, it’s important to know exactly what you want your video to accomplish. Is it merely meant to inform your viewers or is it supposed to promote yourself or a product? Next, you’ll need to call upon your inner director to figure out the details of your video. This is critical, as your video should not be just you sitting in a chair talking. No one wants to watch that. You must also balance the dynamicity of your video with the time it takes to shoot and edit it. To be honest, your video probably won’t get a thousand hits in a month, or even sixth months, for that matter, so while it’s important that you do it right, don’t spend hours on end making it the insurance edition of Avatar.
A video or video blog can be a great new way to engage prospects and clients. From creating a short 30 second introduction of yourself to post on your site to offering in-depth analysis and expertise about various products, they lend credibility to you and give your clients an opportunity to see a more personal side of you (which can be critical if you’re selling online). By strategically experimenting with YouTube (that is to say don’t spend three days perfecting your personal YouTube channel), you can create another effective avenue of interaction that, if done properly, will only help your business grow.
June 25, 2010
By Tyler Munn
Developing a marketing plan or strategy is an important part of any organization’s success. We’ve mentioned the importance of drawing up some sort of marketing strategy on this blog before, but, as can be a frustration with so many blogs offering up advice on the Internet, it’s one thing to tell people what to do and another to tell them how to do it.
So today, we’re going to look at how to make a marketing plan…sort of.
Since most of the readers of this blog are independent agents and any marketing plan you create will most likely only be seen by you, you probably don’t need to know (or care to know, for that matter) mundane details about formatting and layout (which can be quite subjective anyway). As long as you address these main components of any marketing plan, you should be good to go.
Situation Analysis
This is just a brief summary of your business and your role in the current market place. Even though you probably already know this in your head, actually writing it out will help you think about it in more concrete terms.
Identify Target Markets
Pick your primary and secondary (if necessary) target audiences. Research and write down any demographics and data about each audience. This will help you in the planning and development of advertising content.
Identify Market Trends
To use an analogy, imagine you are you and the market is someone you’ve been dating for a while. You want to make a serious, long-term commitment to the market, but you can’t until you know what its plans for the future are.
SWOT Analysis
SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. You need to identify strengths and weaknesses as they pertain to your business (in the corporate world, these would be internal strengths and weaknesses). Opportunities and threats are external factors pertaining to your business. Since that can be somewhat confusing, let’s clarify with some examples:
Strength: You have a wealth of marketing tools and the knowledge to use them effectively.
Weakness: You are a “rookie” agent.
Opportunity: The factory in your town laid-off a bunch of workers who will now need insurance.
Threat: Your town is already inundated with health insurance agents.
Set Goals
These should be general/more abstract. Where do you want your business to be at the end of the year? Do you want to be in the top 5 in sales for your agency? Do you want to be the “face” of health insurance agents in your town?
Identify Strategies
These should be more specific than goals, but not too detailed. For example, if your goal is to finish the year in the top 5 in sales in your agency, then your strategy might be to post 70K in AV/month.
Identify Your Yearly Budget
How much are you going to set aside for your business?
Marketing Mix
This is normally where you would set pricing for your product(s) and establish where you’re going to sell your product. Since a lot of that is pretty much already taken care of, all you have to worry about is how you will promote your product. Just give a brief overview of where and how you intend to promote yourself. For example: “I will use the Internet and local radio spots to promote my business.”
Identify Competitors
Know thy enemy! Try to be as specific as possible. If you’re selling locally, who are the other top agents in your town? Who are the big agencies you’ll be taking on if you sell nationally?
Layout Monthly Tactics
Alright, the real reason you did all of the previous jazz. Now that you have identified, evaluated, assessed, etc… all of the elements of your business and market, you can plan the real details of your operation. This is where you will plan your drip marketing campaigns, plan direct mail campaigns, decide if you’ll sponsor that youth sports team (I’ve never seen an independent agent do that) and so on. Tactics play into your strategy, which achieves your goals.
So there you have it- a crash course in strategic marketing planning. When it comes down to it, the purpose of doing this is really to organize your thoughts and help you develop a clearer picture of where you are, where you want to be, and how you’ll get there.
June 17, 2010
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