2020 has arrived with new opportunities to generate more leads, sign more BORs, and grow your book of business. Whether its acquiring new businesses, onboarding, or open enrollment season, as a health insurance broker you are probably thinking of a few areas you can improve in your agency to have an even more profitable year. It’s too late to change last year’s results, but it’s a great time to set your goals for 2020. What are your professional resolutions this year? In this week’s Broker Tool Belt, we share four new insurance marketing ideas for brokers to succeed in 2020 and years to come!
Employers have many health insurance options available to them, from ACA and self-funded plans to level-funded plans. When deciding what to offer their employees, your clients will want a clear picture of what those options are. It’s your job to pull the quotes from multiple carriers for each employer and present different choices. However, manually entering the group information for each carrier can take a long time and it can become an arduous process. Have you ever refrained from quoting additional carriers and plan options for the sake of time? Below we share two strategies to take quoting to the next level and start implementing your new insurance marketing ideas:
Leverage Technology: The less time you have, the fewer quotes you can pull. As a consequence, fewer options for your prospective clients and fewer BORs for you. Instead of entering your groups’ information into each carrier platform, use a technology solution that does it for you. You will only need to enter your groups’ basic information once to get a list of quotes from all applicable carriers. Viewing multiple carriers at once is a great advantage. It will allow your clients to see for themselves what is the best option for them and it will allow you to save time and quote more groups.
Listen to Your Groups: Nowadays, people want personalized products and services tailored to them. Benefits are no longer one-size-fits-all. Every group and every employee is different. If you want to start implementing new insurance marketing ideas, take the time to ask your clients about their budget and which benefits interest them most. By getting to know your current and prospective groups, you’ll be able to provide relevant quotes that meet their individual needs.
The way you present your agency plays a big role in your success. The insurance industry is a highly competitive environment and first impressions matter. If you dig into different agencies’ offerings, you’ll notice similar language, value propositions, and selling points. If you want to break away from this repetitiveness present in the entire industry and make your agency stand out, it’s key to be creative and update your look.
In order to keep up with new trends and innovations in the industry, improving your agency’s appearance should be one of the new insurance marketing ideas. Start with the presentations you give to clients and prospects. Create more tailored presentations for each client and, if you are using slides, apply a template with your logo and the same colors and font in every slide.
Another effective way to improve your image is by updating your website. Your agency’s website is going to be the first interaction many prospective clients have with your business this coming year and you want it to be a great first impression. Technology and design evolve every year, you don’t want your clients and prospects to think you are stuck in 2005. Re-think your website to make it clean and easy to use while keeping it professional. If you want to keep modern prospects and clients engaged, it’s key to update your design and combine it with flawless functionality. It won’t matter how important and informative your content is if it’s hosted on a website that is confusing and hard to read.
Today, employers want help navigating the ever-changing workplace and shifting employee needs. Providing health coverage and forgetting about your groups until open enrollment season or mid-year changes is not enough anymore. Communication is key to great relationships, not only personal but also professional.
While you might think not hearing from your clients is a good sign, there is often a correlation between quiet clients and cancellation notices. If you want to implement new insurance marketing ideas to succeed in 2020 and the years to come, keep in touch with all your groups, listen to their needs and concerns, and help them overcome any roadblocks that come their way.
Start by creating a plan to reach out to your clients throughout the entire year. You can tie your communications to policy renewals, birthdays, and holidays. Be more active on social media. By publishing on social media, you can deepen client relationships and also attract prospects. Give employers a reason to engage with you on different platforms and provide useful information for their day-to-day work. A newsletter is another alternative to keep in touch with your clients. When you build a creative and conversational newsletter, you’ll be able to get your clients’ attention and interest.
It’s can be common for new insurance marketing ideas to fail within the first months. Taking quoting to the next level, updating your look, or improving your communications can be difficult. However, having the right tool can help you stick to your resolutions and reach your 2020 goals faster. A technology solution will help you quote more groups, youll be able to modernize and update your agencys look, and communications will be streamlined.
By adopting a technology solution, you won’t only accomplish your resolutions, but you’ll be able to make fewer mistakes, be more organized, and have more time to grow your agency. It’s very easy for an employer or employee to leave blank fields or make mistakes on a form. Proof-reading each form to ensure all the information is accurate is not only time-consuming but also tedious. In addition, dropping off, collecting, and sending out paper forms to employers and carriers is hard to keep organized.
With a technology solution, you can say goodbye to paper, incomplete forms, and mistakes. You’ll be able to select digitally-mapped enrollment forms, rates, contributions, eligibility, and more for each client. At the same time, you can store all your agency and client information in one location.
These are essential new insurance marketing ideas for 2020. However, if you believe you are succeeding in these four areas, think about other ways to improve your agency. The start of a new year is the best time to reflect on the past and look at the future with brighter eyes. Learn from your mistakes and set the goals to make sure you dont repeat them. 2020 is here and youve got 12 months in front of you to improve your business, sell insurance, and succeed!