BANG! Lets Agents Start Advertising Right Away

Time after time, whether it’s one-on-one or in groups, agents want to talk to us at the Independent Insurance Agents of Texas about advertising … “How do you get started? What do you say? Where is the best place to advertise? How much should you spend?” They want to advertise their agency, but need some help.

IIAT has addressed the issue from time to time at various meetings and in workshops. Now the association is providing agents a place to turn to with the release of BANG! Getting the Most From Your Advertising Buck, a new agency advertising toolkit.

Advertising, of course, is only a part of the bigger issue of marketing. To zoom out for a moment, marketing includes the full range of activities that engage customers and potential customers. It includes advertising to be sure, but also news items, sponsorships, partnerships, signs, business cards, letterheads, Web sites, the management of your brand, and more.

About a year ago we put our heads together to see what sort of solution we could find that might help agencies get better mileage out of advertising.

The result: IIAT’s a new book, BANG! Getting the Most From Your Advertising Buck. We are calling this new book a toolkit largely because it contains more than 50 pages of practical information, worksheets, case studies, ready-to-use ads and a CD-ROM to go along with it.

The toolkit will be distributed free at the 107th IIAT Convention in Dallas, June 10-12 during the Friday morning business session and at both the IIAT booth and the Trusted Choice booth at the trade show. Also, Peter van Aartrijk will discuss it as part of his workshop, “ZOOM and BANG!: Getting the Most From Your Advertising Dollars.”

Recognizing that advertising drives business and that the best advertising often drives the most successful businesses, IIAT has worked with advertising professionals to develop this Texas-specific toolkit to help active independent insurance agencies get started right away on their own ad programs. The toolkit is designed to work in conjunction with the Trusted Choice publication, Zoom: Brand Dominance for Independent Agents & Brokers, which focuses on agency branding.

BANG! Getting the Most From Your Advertising Buck delivers the nuts and bolts of what you need to start a successful ad program to help you leverage your agency status into greater name recognition, increased revenue and new clients. It is the first advertising workbook of its kind published especially for Texas independent agents.

Packed full of practical information (if you want theory, you’ll have to read something else), it includes extensive guidelines for effective advertising covering the full range of planning and preparation from setting goals and defining target markets to measuring results.

We think one of the most helpful features of the toolkit is a series of seven carefully researched case studies profiling a range of Texas agencies that have successful ad programs in place. Each of these case studies has been reviewed and critiqued by a professional advertising consultant, and they answer questions about why an agency advertises, who it advertises to, where it advertises, how much it spends and how it measures results. (Bonus: Former IIAT executive director, Ernie Stromberger, interviewed the agencies profiled in the case studies.)

Still not sure about advertising? Common sense, if not good business sense, dictates that you advertise, but often it’s hard to find the time to finally get started. So you put it off and when that ad salesperson does come around, you say, “Our business is rolling along pretty well right now, maybe next time. Besides I run an ad in the Yellow Pages and the football program.” And you still wonder whether it’s a good business expenditure. The real question, of course, is can you afford not to advertise.

Listen to what a cross-section of Texas insurance agencies are saying about their advertising programs (taken from some the seven case studies detailed in the toolkit):
• From a large agency in a mid-sized urban area: “We receive more favorable comments from our radio spots package than anything we have ever done. … Repetition is essential; buy enough to make a lasting impression.”
• From a mid-sized agency in a mid-sized town: “Our newspaper ads are probably our most successful advertising because our newspaper only has two pages of business news and you can’t miss our ads.”
• From a small agency in a small town: “Our Yellow Pages ads are our most effective ads. We also do well with community events advertising.”
• From a mid-sized agency operating in small and mid-sized towns: “Niche product advertising—we used radio and newspaper advertising during the mold crisis to promote our homeowners markets. We also use interesting visual images.”

Topics Texas Agencies