Using the Web as Part of an Effective Marketing Plan

What can the Internet really do for you? The easy answer is that it allows you to contact and be contacted by thousands of insureds and prospects. But the web can do more than just spread your reach. It can help you to attract and retain the services of young producers, open new insurance opportunities, and make interaction with your carriers more rewarding.

Yet just having a site isn’t enough. It must also be informative, interactive and include strong client service and sales elements. Plus you must budget for its continuous development and promotion. Even though your site is always available, you still have to actively promote it to attract hits. According to Smart Business magazine, “Web businesses spend as much as 50 percent of revenue on marketing, [and] as more dot-com enterprises compete for visitors, these costs continue to climb.”

So the web is no free ride. But alongside paid campaigns (online ads, ads in traditional media, and direct mail) there are plenty of no-cost promotions you can use.

Attracting producers

If your agency is to have a future, your marketing plan must include hiring young producers. They add younger clients to the books, energize veteran agents, add fresh skill sets to the office and are a built-in perpetuation plan. But new producers are hard to find, much less attract to an old economy business like insurance. That’s where the web comes in. The Internet is a youth magnet. And it makes sales and marketing cool-as long it involves online activities.

I’m not proposing a 100 percent e-commerce agency. (That’s because according to some talking head on one of those cable financial shows, there are about 500 publicly traded dot-com companies. And of them, less than 10 are making a profit!) Instead, I’m suggesting that you give young agents the freedom to use your website, e-mail, and the Internet as a whole to develop sales.

Here’s how 25-year-old Ben Patterson of Dallas-based Ron Patterson Insurance Agency Inc. takes advantage of today’s web-centric tools. His office is right in the heart of Texas’ telecommunications corridor. That means plenty of newcomers needing insurance. And to be successful with these transplants, Ben quickly recognized that he had to be as comfortable with technology as his prospects. So his eight-person office hired a pro to develop a basic agency website (www.rpinsure.com). It generates five or six quote requests a day, mainly from out-of-towners.

At this time, the site collects quote information on auto, home, health/life, and information technology prospects. It doesn’t yet deliver an instant auto insurance premium. So, Ben must prepare a quote on his AMS rating system and e-mail it to his prospect. At first blush, this doesn’t sound all that high-tech. But this creative young agent has found a great way to double the impact of his website. Most web prospects only want an auto quote. But Patterson delivers an auto quote plus a homeowners estimate-even though it wasn’t requested.

This preemptive cross-selling allows Ben to automatically apply a multi-policy credit to each premium, making both quotes look especially inviting. To gather enough HO information to prepare a tentative quote, Patterson uses public data that’s available on the web. One site he goes to is www.dallascad.org (the Dallas Central Appraisal District’s Appraisal Roll Data). It presents adequate online facts to do a fairly accurate home estimator since it displays the property’s square footage, a floor plan, room counts, and more. Ben then prepares his dual quote and e-mails it to his high-tech prospect.

He claims a healthy 75 percent closing ratio from qualified personal lines and life leads who have discovered him online. His site is found by prospects through search engines, realtor referrals, and a banner ad exchange with a web-based defensive driving school, among other methods. Yet with Ben’s creative successes, the web is still only a fraction of the agency’s overall marketing plan, but it’s definitely a growing part.

Become a web insurance specialist

Another compelling way to integrate the web into your marketing plan is to become an expert in online insurance exposures.

Here’s one way to get started: talk to your carriers, specialty brokers and an intellectual property attorney for insight. And while you’re gathering this background data, ask the lawyer if he wants to partner with you in developing an innovative online public service/lead generator.

Propose to post a Cyberhazard Checklist on your agency’s site. Visitors can use it to view potential areas of cyberliability for a typical business website. Examples might include accepting credit cards online without a secure area or selling visitor e-mail addresses in violation of your published privacy policy. Point out that some potential liability exposures can be managed by insurance (leads for you). Others may require changing certain practices with lawyers’ advice (leads for them).

Include a form for visitors to leave their name, e-mail address, and website URL for an individualized cyberhazard inspection at a reasonable fee. You can conduct reviews together with your attorney-partner.

As a lead generator for growing businesses, this checklist can be very effective. That’s because mainly site owners who are serious about honest growth will bother to protect their site from avoidable liability exposures.

Furthermore, many of these firms may also operate traditional businesses, making your checklist doubly effective.

Company interaction

A solid agency marketing plan includes both internal and external elements. So take advantage of your carriers’ online functionality to help you to develop both.

For example, The Travelers has a big appetite for small business accounts. And this summer it’s conducting agent meetings nationwide to promote the sale of these accounts using its newly enhanced web tools. The company’s Issue Express Net allows agents to rate, propose, and issue BOP-type policies in 15-20 minutes through an Internet browser connection. Additionally for these and larger risks, producers can avoid the effort of a wasted quote by checking to see if The Travelers already writes the subject account or is presently quoting it for some other agent.

Furthermore, the company provides its agents with online bulletins, manuals, policy forms and more. It even has the capability of displaying an insured’s current policy online. Plus it’s a full SEMCI partner with Applied Systems and AMS. Other vendors will be added later. This company is definitely ahead of the web curve, but in time other carriers will do much of the same.

It’s in your best interest to actively benefit from your carriers’ use of the Internet as quickly as possible. Make it an important part of your marketing plan to get the jump on your rivals whenever companies offer you access to useful online tools. In most cases your participation will be free except for the cost of a high-speed agency connection.

You’ll need to replace your slow dial-up modems with much faster ISDN, cable modems, satellite (those little dishes), or a DSL line. Costs range from $100 to $250 a month depending on your location and the number of PCs hooked up. Visit www.getspeed.com to find out what’s available in your area.

2001: A web odyssey

It’s time to start planning and budgeting for next year. Make sure that plenty of resources are dedicated to developing your presence on the web. But for the best chances of success, you must build your site around your agency’s marketing plan and not the other way around.

The web is a great tool for prospecting, selling, servicing, interacting with carriers, and for market research. But in and of itself, it’s not a complete solution. Other forms of direct response marketing, especially personalized direct mail, are proven winners too. And don’t forget about old-fashioned face-to-face selling. It’s still as important as ever. Combined, all of these elements should be part of your plan.

Alan L. Shulman, CPCU, is the publisher of Agency Ideas®, a subscription-only sales & marketing newsletter. Shulman has more than 25 years of industry experience as an insurance agent and consultant. He may be contacted at (800) 724-1435 or by e-mail at shulman@agencyideas.com. The website address is www.agencyideas.com.

Topics Agencies