Insurance Agency 101 taught all of us that good communication with clients and prospects includes sending holiday and birthday emails. Easy peasy. Done deal. But, these days, by using email newsletters, you can take your customer communication to the next level.
Newsletters are powerful because they deliver content directly to your client's inboxes every month without having to fight for space in their newsfeeds on social media. Simple things like a change to your office hours or information about an upcoming event can get lost in a newsfeed on Facebook, so packaging several pieces of important info and content is a great way to get eyes on it.
Here are a few more reasons why newsletters do a lot of heavy lifting for agencies:
NEWSLETTERS DRIVE CLIENTS & PROSPECTS TO YOUR WEBSITE
Click through baby! Your newsletter should contain links that bring customers directly back to your website. Be sure to keep content short and sweet when writing it and give your readers just enough of a tease to grab their interest, while at the same time encouraging them to click on links to read more. Obviously, the more interesting and relevant your content is, the more likely it is you'll see clicks going back to your site. You want people to be able to get quotes and get in touch with you directly through your insurance website, so the more traffic you get to your site, the better your chances of converting prospects.
NEWSLETTERS KEEP YOU ON YOUR CLIENT'S MINDS
Agents know that a client buys a policy from you with the hope of never having to use it. This means that once your transaction is done, you'll normally only be in contact for updates and occasional niceties unless the client does have an accident that requires a claim. Other than contacting you to pay for their policy, your clients may not think of your agency often. Newsletters help keep your agency in the forefront of their minds (well, once a month at least) and this can lead to very important client referrals.
NEWSLETTERS ARE ONE STOP-SHOPPING FOR YOUR AGENCY'S SOCIAL MEDIA
Let's be honest, the internet is a hornet's nest mixed with a dumpster fire. This means clients and prospects are probably jumping from one site to the next all day long for one reason or another. Ideally, you want online audiences to be able to find you in all of the places where your agency lives on the internet as quickly as possible. As you promote your social media accounts and insurance website from your newsletter, clients will be more likely to swing by to check out your content, follow you and maybe even engage on your social platforms.
Don't be afraid to designate a special section of your newsletter to each of your social media accounts. Your newsletter might contain a section linked to the most recent articles on the blog, a section highlighting your Facebook contests or videos uploaded from your YouTube account. Newsletters are a great way for your agency to deliver and showcase what it's doing on every corner of the internet.
While you may have at one time thought that newsletters were an outdated way to maintain client awareness and interest, today, they're a crucial component of agency marketing. The benefits are all low-cost ways to expand your online reach, to drive traffic to your agency website, and to maintain your brand awareness.