Sales start before your salesman calls. That’s the headline of a famous magazine ad. A grumpy businessman sits with his hands folded in his lap, squinting at the reader with a defiant expression.
The ad copy reads:
I don’t know who you are.
I don’t know your company.
I don’t know your company’s product.
I don’t know what your company stands for.
I don’t know your company’s customers.
I don’t know your company’s record.
I don’t know your company’s reputation.
Now — what was it you wanted to sell me?
There are many ways to build awareness: radio and television commercials, Internet pay-per-click ads, a well-optimized website, social media, etc. But arguably the most economical way to build awareness consistently and constructively so that people appreciate hearing from you is the insurance client newsletter.
In this post and my next two I will present a total of 12 tips for getting the most from your insurance client newsletter. Actually several of the tips include additional tips, but who’s counting. Let’s start with these four:
1. Build your brand by customizing your insurance client newsletter — not just with your logo, but in other ways, too. You would be surprised how much the use of a second color throughout your newsletter can really give you ownership. For instance, if your logo’s primary color is red, using red as the highlight color throughout the newsletter can help unify your nameplate branding with the rest of the text.
2. Use your insurance client newsletter to publicize your agency with custom articles. They communicate information about specific news and events and make your newsletter uniquely yours. Some article subjects for your newsletter include:
- Short biographies of producers and CSRs
- Information about special programs you offer
- News about the agency or community events that you’re involved in or support
- Articles or opinions about insurance topics by the president or others in the firm.
Providing custom articles consistently is the key to increasing staff and customer involvement with your newsletter.
Create a custom articles schedule with subject ideas for the entire year and put someone in charge of making sure the articles get written and published in your newsletter.
3. If you print your insurance client newsletters as self-mailers, take advantage of SmartPro’s variable printing feature to personalize your newsletter for every single customer. Next to the address area you could say something like: “Diane, Scott Valley Insurance is pleased to send you your August issue of Insurance Buyers’ News. Give us a call if you have any questions about the articles in this month’s issue. And thanks for letting us serve you.” If you want to be really friendly and creative, do something like include your recipients’ birthdays in your database and add a greeting for their birthday month, such as “Happy Birthday, Diane! Here’s your March issue of Employee Benefits Report.”
4. Add value and showcase your dedication to customer service by publishing your insurance client newsletter consistently. In the age of social media we are increasingly aware of the importance of relationships. You really don’t want your customers to think that the only time you ever reach out to them is to collect a premium or renew their coverages, do you? Everyone wants to be appreciated. You may not be able to afford to send all your customers a box of chocolates on special occasions, but sending them an insurance client newsletter regularly conveys your interest in them and is probably more professional anyway.