It’s surprising how many agents don’t have a prospecting strategy that leverages the value of their client newsletters. Today’s insurance client newsletter tips are focused on marketing to prospects.
5. Use your newsletter to build your brand with prospects. The canned sales letters and postcards you use in your drip marketing campaigns may capture attention, but to hold your prospect’s interest and help them appreciate the added value you can bring to a professional relationship, nothing beats an informative newsletter. Newsletters showcase your expertise, build your credibility and demonstrate your interest in helping customers become more informed consumers.
6. Don’t expect newsletters to do all of your marketing for you. “Send them and they will come” should not be your motto. Even if prospects read your newsletter and begin to have confidence in your expertise and access to coverages they need and can afford, most likely they will still not call you. You need to supplement your newsletters with good old fashioned phone calls and shoe leather. As a marketing tool, your newsletter is like a beautiful Ferrari — without an engine. Your follow-up provides the engine.
Most agents who use insurance newsletters as a marketing tool take a three-step approach: 1) identify prospects in those markets you feel you can serve best, 2) send them newsletters, and 3) follow up with a phone call after several months. Your newsletter gives you an automatic opening: “Are you getting our newsletter regularly? Is it going to the right person — and, oh, by the way, is there anything we can do for you? We’d love to quote your business.”
7. For best results, use paper newsletters. Paper newsletters are approximately four to five times more likely to be seen and engaged with than email newsletters. A good open rate for an email newsletter is about 25% — and that’s with an opt-in list. If the email for your newsletter contains only article teasers with links to the complete articles, readers will follow those links only about 10% of the time. On the other hand, with a paper newsletter, even if the recipient doesn’t look at any of the articles, they do see your branding. You have made an impact.
If the only thing an email recipient sees of your newsletter is your subject line and they either delete it or ignore it, your impact has been practically nil —no branding to view, nothing to hold in their hands that might capture their attention … no impact.
If cost is an issue, you can use a combination of email and paper newsletters. Send your paper newsletters to your A list, the customers and prospects you care most about. For the rest and your email opt-ins, send the email version.