Tag Archives: marketing

10.28.18
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Genuine vs. the Algorithm

Marketing should supplement and promote genuine value not disguise the lack of.

Right now it seems that way, but somewhere in my reading and listening, I again heard what I already have known for a while now; You do not need to adapt to AI, and similar data ideas, but the agents/brokers/companies that do will survive and thrive and those that don’t, won’t.

So combine that with the following things stuck in my head from various reading and listening;

  • Sending out a birthday card is awesome and there are services that do this
  • Who is killing it on YouTube?
  • You must contact your customers 24-36 times

On Birthdays; Mrs. B is the mother of a childhood friend of my wife.  Each year a birthday card shows up for our children and I’m not even sure that she has met our children.  Handwritten.  Maybe she uses an electronic calendar, maybe she doesn’t, but it is real, handwritten ink and genuine.

Has Facebook ruined the birthday greeting?  I mean they remind you about the birthday and they even tell you what to say to the person.  I suppose technically the person “said” happy birthday to you.  Maybe you were even overwhelmed by the “love and the messages…..” But how many of those people took the 5-30 second to personalize it?  You can say the same thing about changing jobs or posting an update on Linkedin.  And yes, if automation is becoming more and more a part of what we do, those that use it better will stand out.  So, sure, a physical birthday card from your insurance agent showing up at your home is nice, sort of.  If you did it merely to keep in touch as part of a formula, is it?

  • Is it really just a self-serving act following a desperate formula to combat an already “noisy” world?
  • Is this just one touch of a formula?

Sure, you are combining data with a pseudo genuine act.  But, you are using what is considered an important, almost sacred, milestone and demeaning it into a marketing activity.

Killing it on YouTube

Cool.  Excited for you.  Especially if it is a goal you set for yourself and now you are accomplishing it.  On the other hand, what aren’t you doing?  Certainly, all that time recording, editing, posting and sharing takes away from other activities.  But, hey you are feeding an algorithm, good for you.

So, I’m confused.  You are recording a video to bring value to others?  Cool, in theory, your video will get to more people.  So the next question, and you need to choose one;  The person that calls you because they watched a video or the person who called you because an existing customer told you about them.  Choose one.

I have no doubt, just like this post, there is value in being found online.  But are you doing the right mix of activities to be found and activities to be valuable?  Be honest, the information you are writing or recording, likely already exists.  Sure, there are new ideas, but not when it comes to talking about the basics of auto and home insurance.  So, you want them in your voice, fine.  But what if you did something new?  What if you were really honest, I mean honest enough it likely annoys some of your partner companies?

Where is the person “killing it” in flood insurance?

Where is the agent who has an amazing internship program?

Is there an agent “killing it” with AMS360(or whatever management system you use)?

Need more ideas, consider these places to be of value immediately that will have positive results but may not simply feed an algorithm;

  • What is your plan for flood insurance?   HUGE changes have begun and will continue.
  • IOT, aka The Internet of Things. Have you tested any devices in your home?  How can they help your people?
  • Telematics; an app vs. a plug in?  Thoughts?  Are your encouraging use of this?
  • What have you done to help your carriers today?  Hint, they don’t need, and many don’t even seem to want, another policyholder?
  • Using PayPal in your agency?  Have you seen them on a carrier yet?  I’ve only seen one.  Why?

 

10.23.18
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Awesome marketing opportunity

But it is in disguise.  See, everything can be classified as marketing or in it’s subcategory branding.  This post, even this post from November 2011 updated in 2015  

I could use words to rewrite the same things today and it would be valid, and also useless.  So, let us use words differently and simply make a different point based on the same thing.

  • Your rate increases allow us to build our brand stronger while weakening yours
  • Your rate increases prove that you have no faith in your actuaries and your distribution methods.  Could even say a lack of faith in your capital investment strategy
  • Your rate increases show a complete lack of understanding of how word of mouth works.  It’s been publicized many times and, although I think it is tough to prove, negative news travels faster.  This is a societal flaw.
  • Net Promoter Score is a useless measurement created by professors and marketers.  Here is a simpler measure; If you have 1000 customers, are you receiving at least 500 referrals a year?  Simple, shouldn’t half your customers think enough of you to share you with friends?
  • Still firmly believe that one of if not the biggest and boldest marketing moves is to freeze rates for 12, better to do 24 months, and advertise the heck out of that.  You’ll simultaneously prove that price optimization is awesome when used correctly and add huge amounts to your top and bottom line.

Oh, and I have been operating this way, mostly successfully, for 8 years.  Sure, some of this is theory, but most are already in practice.

10.20.18
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Paragraph rants, what if

Attempted to use some voice to text stuff and it produced some really odd paragraphs.  Reinterpreting them a bit below;

  1. Is your marketing plan simply to produce enough content aka noise, so that one or more algorithms will help people “find” you?  I am not sure that, as a strategy, this is much more than hedging your fear of not knowing where the next deal is coming from.  Hope is not a strategy, nor is relying on things you do not have control of, like algorithms.
  2. The family was on a walk on a nice local path.  On occasion, you would find benches.  In this case, we were a half a mile or so into the walk and there it was, the same bench but covered in advertising.  Cool, you sponsored a bench.  I like it.  But do I need to see your phone number in the middle of the woods?  Do you like that you are interrupting people during leisure time?  How many people walk with a pen and paper?  Oh wait, maybe they’ll take a photo. Exactly, now I might have found a customer who was strolling on a walking path.  Might be time to figure our who your customer actually is.  Then, decide if you actually want the person who knows nothing more than that they saw(were interrupted by, your advertising.
  3. Measure yourself against whoever you want.  But, falling into the trap of thinking your NPS or JD power score, matched against your industry, matters, think again.  If you have a call center, who has THE BEST call center.  Period.  Maybe you need to be more like Zappos.  Saying you are the best call center in an industry not known for service is not a great idea.
  4. Get back to helping people buy insurance.  Sure, Jim Rohn, Harvey McKay, Tom Hopkins, etc. all had very lucrative sales training, motivational, type careers. You might as well.  But, on the other hand, while you are producing marketing videos and blogs the industry is suffering, Your brain power and time are diluted away from the problems that need solving.
  5. Empower the people!!  Had a couple of really nice exchanges with call center people lately. But, they inevitably fell flat.  Why?  Because these wonderfully empathetic people were not empowered to do anything.  They simply had to perform their task, their step in the assembly line.  Such a shame.
10.02.18
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Marketing pieces are valid….just not yours

This was the basis for two postcards I had done in 2012.  I liked them, still do. I like most things that hold up over time and the things on here do.

Then the next blurb I wrote was called “What does your agent have” this is a post I can probably write weekly if not every other week.  The same format of a solicitation keeps coming.

In my opinion, and there is a bit of data to support this, mailing campaigns still work.  Period.  We have done several this year and they have all produced several results.  Why?

  • There is a reason for mailing and it is not purely an immediate ROI that only equates to sales
  • The message in the piece is accurate and has some amount of useful information in it

The first point; If your mailing or postcard is purely to generate sales for your company, you have already lost.  You should probably go plant a tree to at least lessen the negative impact you have on the universe.  You have already wasted the time of the postal people and whoever did the mailing.  Purely trying to pull someone in with numbers is not nearly as effective as if you include some value.   Trying to get me to do a quote is “normal” but what if you have a couple of sentences of information that they can use without you?  Build some good will.

The second point; Public data is amazing but not perfect.  Using the purchase date of a home is sort of clever, but not nearly as clever as knowing when to interrupt a cycle.  Sure, I do not expect everyone to have identical coverage to me but there are a few coverages that really should be standard.  How would you answer the question “What coverage do you have?”   And the follow up to this is, “Well why didn’t you offer me this coverage?”

It’s their money, help them spend it DON’T tell them how to.

Oh, and if those numbers require “*” and really tiny print, please reconsider how you treat your fellow humans.

I suppose putting together an ” 18 things to do in 2018″ is still reasonable, but 12 in 12 feels and sounds better.  Not to mention, my views on time have evolved a bit since than.  Sure, society agrees that the years end and we all “reset” to some degree.  But to much of that mentality doesn’t work, not sure that it ever did.

 

09.15.18
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Buying should be easy

Period. Full Stop.  “buying is the new black” or whatever clever line you can insert.  The original post is here  https://theinsurancebill.com/?p=197

You can insert your own example of my microwave/hood combo.  This week it was a charitable thing that has yet to put an easy PayPal link on their website.  I’m not against paying you, but I need a way to do it and YOU NEED TO ASK.

It has been six years and I have yet to hear anyone say ” Please sell me insurance…” yet unfortunately many are still trying to do it, still.  Sad, but on the other hand, those of us that are helping people buy are likely as busy as us.

Here’s the thing, the world and most lives are busy. “Easy” is able to be bought “hard” needs to be sold.  I’ll take easy.  Yes, I know we and others can certainly be better.  But, regardless of what we come up with someone still needs to ask for the money and taking it needs to be easy.  Some things that maybe you can help with;

  • We have very few companies that will take ALL brands of credit cards
  • When margins are tight and shrinking, who should absorb the fee
  • PayPal is making HUGE strides, but I am not quite connecting the dots yet.  Has anyone in insurance?

 

10.15.15
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What if they made a baby

So I was in a moment of frustration and tweeted this out;

if & should produce an offspring So I can have company of my dreams

And I meant it.  Let me elaborate.  I read Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness and really, really, enjoyed it.  I also realized that many of the things they were doing, I already was successfully using as well.  People really liked being treated good.  They liked the lack of pressure.  They liked the random but thoughtful gifts.  Honestly, I have never even ordered from them and my wife has only used them a couple of times.  But the fact is we really like them and if they had the products we needed we would buy from them.

I’ve been enjoying  Amazon for a bit.  On a whim I signed up for Prime last year as well.   Honestly, I am using the shipping more than anything else.  Shame on me.  The video service is pretty good and I have dabbled in the music as well.  What has it taught me?  Pre-ordering a book is a great example.  If the price adjusts they refund the money.  Same thing when it comes to your wish list.  Making me aware of price changes is neat.  Each vendor(think broker or actual insurance company) has the chance to ask for feedback and is ranked accordingly.  I am giving the option to choose who I buy the same priced book from.  RARELY do any of them stand out.

What about Watson?  Really more cliche than anything else.  Fact is Watson manages data really well.  Insurance companies are not even close.  Laughable whenever the Internet of Things(IOT) comes up.  Why would you give insurance companies more data when they have not even figured out how to use what they have?  Honestly, although it could have an impact there is no need.  Most companies, especially the big nationals, can make some modest tweaks to their overall philosophy and similar adjustments to ten or less data points and DOUBLE NET REVENUES.

So, you take the philosophy and attitude of a Zappos process.  Blend it in with a bunch of the behind the scenes know how of Amazon as well as the marketplace formula.  Back that up with Watson and IBM’s ability to manage data and you will have an amazing, highly profitable insurance company.  Do they need to be a company?  Depends,  lets say provider.  Yes, this could  be a formula for an actual provider of insurance but it can just as easily be set up by a broker who is really looking to grow.

Some thoughts.  Thanks for considering.  Lots more to it 🙂  but still very doable in a short amount of time.

10.07.15
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Timing is important

Sat in on a webinar a week or so ago.  The title of it intrigued me since I could not figure out why it was setting such a low expectation for a certain metric.  Then I gave them an hour of my life and they basically explained why.

Some people don’t think big enough  

Kind of reinforced me to not pay much attention to consultants who are paid for time not necessarily results.  Anyhow, Lots of goofy ideas where talked about but two stood out;

  1. The times you should be cross selling a current customer/client
  2. The times to ask for referrals

Both are very valid things to talk about.  There are likely dozens of ideas and concepts that have been written about and that those writers will say work.  Cool.  A couple of questions to consider;

  1. When I make the time to call you, I am likely calling to handle something specific.  I may be stressed, busy, on my lunch break, etc  Why would you think I am giving you permission to take more of my time?
  2. What correlation is there between changing a car on an auto insurance policy or refinancing my home with asking me for more money?

Now, I absolutely agree with just about every study surrounding account rounding and the more lines of business in a household.  On the other hand, I am confident to know that whatever I have already done for you should have been done in such a way that you see the value in me.  That value and hopefully personal connection we have made is a very powerful thing and can undo most stats.  Consider this as an alternative; what if you politely kept in touch over the course of a year without trying to sell me anything?  Think about it, you politely keep in touch with this nice person who is already a customer.  By doing this you can hopefully bring additional value and maybe a smile therefore keeping the door open for me to buy something else.  Any way you look at it, me buying something from you is way better than you selling something to me.  Besides, you should have enough people to work with that you do not need to depend on forcing/selling anything to anybody.

On that note, I think asking me to introduce you to friends and family is almost as bad.  Why?

Quit being lazy!!!  Bring value and participate in Social Media!!!

That’s right, I think you asking for referrals, many times, is simply lazy.  I also lump it right in with interruption/spam marketing if you are asking me for referrals when I am calling for some other reason.  Some thoughts;

  • Just like me buying from you, isn’t it better when I proactively share you with friends?  How can you make this easy for me?
  • Is paying for referrals really a good idea
  • If I am only referring you someone so I can enter a contest, is it really a referral?
  • Are you even referable?  Think about it.
  • Really, if we were missing in person do you still think putting a notepad and pen in front of me is a good idea?  **Please say no***

It’s only fair to present some alternatives;

  • Where are we connected on-line?  Hopefully where I am comfortable.  P.S.  do you really think I am sharing canned insurance articles
  • I am not at all opposed to saying thanks with a gift or money.  I hope you are not either.  But should I be offering you money in exchange for your friends contact info?  Do you like it when your email is sold to random vendors?  Do you like it when you are added to a newsletter list without opting in?
  • Seriously, ” you can enter our contest for a t.v. if you refer us to a friend….”  Come on.  Keep selling on price as well and let me know how that works out.   leads us to the next one
  • Be referable.  Seriously, I’ve been thanked several times for referring one person to another and a part of my response is always, ” no problem, thanks for being easy to refer…”
  • Still  one of my favorite “techniques” and still one I have nor will never use.  Try the digital version of this and become a connection on Linkedin.  All of their connections will see it.  How about you like/share something of theirs on Facebook and see what happens.  Even better, how about you proactively refer them in some way or bring other value

Anyway, just some thoughts.  Thanks for letting me share.  Do whatever you think works for you but remember, the world has adjusted and much of what used to “work” doesn’t.

08.02.15
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Rethinking claims and the causes

***Working thought, from an idea via a longtime friend***

So the scenario is quite common, friend calls and says they want to have some tree work done on their property.  Pretty common.  You can also insert, new roof, new furnace, upgrade to electric panel, drainage dug, fire alarm installed, etc.  Think of it as any proactive, likely preventive measure that can reduce the likelihood and at worse the severity of a claim.

“Bill, is there an extra discount for cutting down the trees?  Will they(the insurance company) pay for it?  ”    No and No.

Why not?  Well, in theory, this is your responsibility.  Maintain your home.  Home insurance is not a maintenance policy.  Nor should it become one.  On the other hand, if we are engaged in this great mutual enterprise of protection, of a partnership with a set of people, why aren’t we working together.

What to we do first?  I think we come up with a pretty comprehensive list of items that can be done that can reduce or sometimes eliminate the likelihood of common claims;

  • Annual home inspection by a certified home inspector
  • Gutter maintenance
  • Improving or adding better drainage
  • Keeping trees/tree limbs off a certain perimeter of the home
  • Insect/animal inspections and preventive measures
  • Alarm systems; fire, smoke, co2, central alarms, mobile monitoring
  • Nest type thermostat with temperature sensors
  • Documented annual cleaning/inspection of wood stoves and fire places
  • etc.

Then set up a pretty basic incentive structure.  Say a $20 annual credit to be applied to your premium for completing 1-3 of these.  $30 for 4-6, etc.  Or maybe a deductible credit.  Right now it is popular to diminish/waive a deductible after a period of years.  This is nice but does it really make sense?  Is it something the customer can see/feel/touch/SHARE right now?  NO it is not.   Maybe doing something big like tree removal/pruning or a new furnace or a new roof gets you a $20 a year credit for say 5 years?  *Yes, some are already doing a roof discount**   Lets expand this.

Let’s get better relationships in place with say Angie’s List, Home Advisor or other similar site.  In theory, they are already filtering the good contractors from the bad, why replicate their effort?  No need.

If used properly this can be a massive retention tool as well as loss ratio reducer at the broker/agent level.   This will also help the carrier.  Not to mention, this is something actually worth talking about.  It is a positive incentive that can put more money back into the local economy while creating a marketing activity worth talking about.  Seriously, enough of this overplayed and diluted discount non-sense.

Thanks for considering.  Open to your thoughts.

06.22.15
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An Insurance system fail

When a system fails, consumers and the people they need to run them, we all lose.

Take this example; Mrs. C is an existing customer of an agency.  Came referred and has kept paying her auto, home and umbrella for three years now.  The insurance has gone up in price(failure for a different article) despite the risk not changing.  Now you have one household who has referred other business to the agency and is worth about $800 in gross commission.  Factor in the people who have been referred and this one household easily generates $1000+ in commission.
Now Mrs. C is in need of another policy.  This  is for a small venture she is involved in.  Now keep in mind this small commercial type policy is not one that most agents have an interest in.  The total premium is going to be $455.  Maybe the gross commission is $50.  Keep in mind, she is already a customer, there was no selling.  This was a person who simply wanted to give the agency more money.
So what happened.  The options available to me are via www.theeventhelper.com who although they are very easy to use is written on a claims made form.  Now we can debate claims made versus occurrence but in reality it is the same mistake auto quoting websites are making.
  • They are giving the customer too much to think about.
  • They are allowing poor choices to take place instead of eliminating the possibility of them happening.
  • They are leaving themselves vulnerable for the when/if the customer shops a bit or worse a claim happens.

What is worse about this is they don’t have to do it this way.

So instead of having an easy online option that has a quality product behind it, instead we provide the customer with an application to fill out and return.  She does it.  Then we submit it to the wholesaler and wait, and wait, and wait then we get an offer.  But despite filling out an application, the underwriter has more questions.  So now we go back to the insured and get the answers.  She provides the answers so we give them to the underwriter.  Then they send us an offer but wait, this offer has three more questions that need answers prior to binding.  So back to the insured we go.  She then provides the answer and after a few more hours we get authority to bind.
It gets better, the event is on a Saturday and this is Friday at, you guessed it 4:00 ish.  I have a 5:00 tee time, not looking good.  Now fortunately the insured can make a payment on-line and after another human stepping in, the insured has her certificate. AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL  Remember, this was for $50.  But it gets worse, did the existing client lose some faith in your agency?  How much time in total was spent on this by the insured, you, your assistant, the other company as well.  Enough already.  Are we working for free?
Think of it this way, what if instead the customer could simply log into the agents website and have the option of an on-line quote ready and waiting for them.  You already have the customer, you already have their personal information this can upload into a new site  and you can easily build in a feature like this one.  BUT the product needs to be up to standards.  You need to be able to cover 95ish% of the customers you already have.  **Yes, I think you need to impose different standards for people you have not already vetted***   Want an example?  Go look at Amazon, have they ever upsold you anything?  Any chance you’ve ever been on a website that already had your data and made your next purchase easier.  You probably do this once  a week.
Maybe it will all change when more agencies act like businesses and less like insurance agencies.
Maybe it will get better when more agents stop using social media as a crutch?
Maybe it will get better when there are less agents?
The bottom line is still the same; The core piece of any business is having a set of customers who want to pay you.  The next piece of it is keeping this group of customers so they continue to pay you.  I suppose one more piece is continuing to evolve your business in such a way that those customers bring you new customers and instead of spending money on what they call traditional advertising you instead spend a smaller fraction of money on making the user experience better then you ever would need to on advertising.
Just some thoughts, on going work in progress.
05.14.15
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Dear State Farm,

One thing that seems to continually bother me is when the wealthiest people and companies choose not to really do the world some good.  When they choose profits over people.  When they are genuinely in a position to change an industry for the better which will increase their profits and genuinely help the American public and they choose not to.  Baffled by it.

Why write today?

  • Because every time I receive another letter from you I wonder why another tree branch had to die.
  • Because I wonder why a huge company allows their product to be so diluted by advertising.
  • Because I wonder about the last time you or I calculated any savings in percentages.
  • Because I am wondering if there is anyone who can accurately calculate a discount on an insurance policy.
  • Because I am wondering why, in the age of specialization, personalization and niches you still send to “or Current Resident”
  • Because I am wondering why, if you are really a good neighbor, you don’t use local printers and mailing operations.
  • Because I am wondering why you are still using white envelopes when there is science behind using colored envelopes.
  • Because I am wondering why you use a standard #10 envelope when you can mail one twice the size for the same cost.

Oh, and your copy stinks.  Seriously, do any of your agents have enough time to “take a long, hard look at all the possible ways you can save….” Really, if you are still combing through policies you have bigger issues.

But then again you are the largest insurer in the U.S.A.  You also have fifteen agents within about ten miles of my home.  **That is scary**  What do I know.  Either way, thanks for reading.

Sincerely,

 

Billy Van Jura

 

Disclaimer; There is good and bad in everything and advertising/marketing is no exception.  We are reminded of this every time we open our inbox, our mailbox, drive around, listen to the radio, watch T.V. etc.  I suppose the other side of this is that the lazy, spam like advertising perpetrated by many companies actually makes average advertising look good and good look great.