Growing an insurance business requires more than face-to-face conversations. If email isn’t part of your marketing strategy, especially when 3.8 billion people worldwide use email daily, you’re likely missing out on an incredible number of valuable leads.
If you’re in the insurance industry, keep reading to learn why the importance of email marketing for insurance agents can’t be overlooked and how to develop a winning insurance email marketing campaign. But first, let’s define email marketing for the insurance industry.
What is email marketing?
Email marketing is the use of email technology by businesses to establish and nurture relationships with existing and prospective customers. Some businesses use it for direct selling, whereas others use it as a medium to keep their target customers informed about their brand and cultivate customer loyalty.
When it comes to email marketing for insurance agents, the strategy should never be about direct selling. Instead, the chosen approach should revolve around making a connection and developing deeper relationships with potential leads and existing clients.
If you’re an insurance agent just starting to develop an email marketing strategy, you may be overwhelmed by common email terms and verbiage. Here are some of the terms you should know if you want to grow your insurance business through email marketing.
Click-through rate (CTR): Click-through rate is the percentage of recipients that click on a given URL in your email. You can get this rate by dividing the numbers of emails that were opened by the number of unique clicks.
Open-rate: Open rate refers to the percentage of emails that were opened in your campaign.
Bounce rate: The bounce rate is the percentage of emails in your campaign that were not delivered.
Bulk mail: An email marketing campaign in which the same content is sent to a large target group.
Conversion rate: The percentage of email recipients who respond to your campaign.
Understanding the importance of email marketing for insurance agents
While many businesses use email marketing to their advantage, insurance agents often underuse the strategy. This is a shame because, as an insurance agent, you know some of your best deals come from referrals from existing policyholders.
The insurance business is meant to serve people during tough times. For this reason, it is essential for insurance agents to establish rapport with their clients during better times. Using email marketing, you can create a direct line of communication with your prospective and existing policyholders.
If you think people don’t like email campaigns, think again; 61 percent of consumers said they like to be contacted by brands via email.
If you’re still not convinced, consider some of the concrete reasons why insurance agents should start using email marketing.
Better and faster communication
By using email marketing, you can send out information to policyholders on any changes instantly. You can also send out welcome campaigns to newcomers on your list and keep them engaged by providing timely answers to their questions.
Build credibility
We all want to do business with people we know and trust. You can use email marketing to build credibility and rapport with your prospective leads by sending them informational, educational, and helpful content.
Build your brand
Email marketing lets you build your brand, as long as you’re being consistent with visuals and voice.
Build relationships
Email marketing is not a direct selling method for the insurance industry. Not everyone is prepared to buy from you right after your email lands in their inbox. But you can use it to cultivate relationships with your recipients so that when they’re ready to buy, you’re the first one they reach out to.
Additional benefits
- Most people prefer communicating through email
- Using email, you can reach people on any device
- You can get more from doing less by using pre-designed email templates
- Email marketing provides a high ROI ($38 for each $1 spent)
- You can measure the effectiveness of your campaign
How to develop a winning email marketing campaign for insurance agents
Here are some tested and proven tips for developing a results-driven email marketing campaign for insurance agents.
Plan your content out well in advance
Besides saving you time and being less stressful, the glorious advantage of planning ahead is that you get enough time to create better content and sort out existing or past content to use in your campaign. You also get enough time to work on content relevance, such as adapting the content to a specific season, holiday, etc.
Outsource if necessary
While you may be great at selling insurance policies, you might not be as skilled when it comes to writing and content creation. You can outsource your email marketing campaign to the experts and save yourself time and frustration. Your campaign is likely to be more successful in less time when headed up by email marketing pros.
Automate the process
Manual email marketing requires a lot of time and effort. The good news is that there are many automation tools out there that you can use to schedule, send, and monitor your campaigns. Our favorite is SharpSpring, a comprehensive marketing tool that allows SMBs, including insurance agents, to send personalized email campaigns and track leads using real-time notifications.
Measure campaign effectiveness
A successful email marketing campaign will deliver concrete results. There are some important metrics that you must keep eyes on. These include the open rate, click-through rate, unsubscribe rate, conversion rate, bounce rate, and campaign ROI. You can measure your own campaign effectiveness, read metrics provided by your automation tool, or get the details directly from your email marketing team should you outsource the work. If the metrics aren’t adding up, it’s time to brainstorm and adjust your content and delivery.
Be consistent
Consistency is the key to a successful email marketing campaign. You cannot build rapport with your target audience without being consistent. There’s no magic number of emails to send per month but studies show most marketers send out two or three. Find what works for you and your target audience. Just don’t disappear on them.
Final thoughts before you hit send
Email marketing for insurance agents is about sending helpful campaigns to engage your existing and prospective policyholders. Authenticity and consistency will always be the pillars of a successful campaign.
Now that you understand the importance of email marketing for insurance agents, you can start creating campaigns that will build relationships with your audience and grow your clientele list.
