Everybody knows something about email marketing. When starting to practice it, what most people do is follow a playbook of common strategies and glean a degree of success from it. This can work sometimes, but without finesse and nuance, your successes will only take you so far. The ultimate goal is not to be average, but to make the perfect score with your email marketing campaign, and we are here to push you into the right direction.
Understanding the world of email marketing doesn’t have to be complicated — our team at Pathway subscribes to Da Vinci’s notion that simplicity is the ultimate virtue. But first, why are email campaigns, the notion of response rates, and the methods of e-delivery worth your time, money, and attention?
Globally, 3.8 billion people actively use email, which is over half of the world’s population. It’s safe to say that it is the most prevalent form of electronic communication (after text-messaging). Using email as a marketing tool delivers the highest return of investment (ROI) of all marketing channels — $42 back for every dollar you spend.
So the question is – how does this apply to the insurance market, or to insurance agencies? More or less, if you want to provide a first-class customer experience for your clients, and remain competitive in this digital world, email marketing is a low lift – high reward investment to make. There are many possibilities for developing email systems for brokers and giving them the tools to be successful. Naturally, at Pathway, we have lots of experience in helping others hit the ground running.
Before you get started on your insurance email marketing journey, here are three of the top insights to help you succeed in 2021:
Going Digital is the Future
As we all know, the Covid-19 pandemic has radically changed the business/customer relationship. So today, we focus less of on traditional face-to-face experiences. On top of this seismic shift is the sheer ubiquity of mobile technology, public wifi, and growing 5G networks. That being said, clients expect 24/7 access to their most important downloadable documents when and where they need them. If you are looking from the client’s perspective, this is an amazing era. If you are observing from a company’s perspective – this can be a good spot for beating competitors if you act fast and smart.
So what’s the solution? It’s not super complicated actually. First, adapt all your critical documentation to e-delivery formats. This means that if a client needs proof of their policy for liability reasons, they can have it at their fingertips with a simple request. Ideally, your brokerage would have auto-renewal systems in place to ensure that customers remain up to date on key aspects of their policy: namely automated billing reminders, changes in digital/electronic proof of insurance, or updating personal information.
61% of all emails are opened and read on a mobile device, so obviously – optimizing for mobile is critical. Extra fact: this number is only growing. Some key things to consider include:
- Keep it simple (copy, images, buttons, etc)
- Personalize insurance emails – no client likes to see their name misspelled
- Make sure your call-to-action stands out
- Minimize communications – only reach out when a customer needs it.
* It’s okay to anticipate their needs ahead of time, but be conservative about it to avoid “screen fatigue” and lower open-rates - “Everyone is Digital” might soon become the new global mantra.
Let Automation do the Heavy Lifting for You
Good email marketing is not the easiest thing in the world. But, there is a way to make it easier for you, your employees, and help cut down on time and effort spent— automation. You might say that this contradicts my previous point about personalizing emails for clients. It’s quite the opposite.
The benefit of adopting a strategy of triggered emails (automatic messages based on performing a certain action or fulfilling certain criteria) is that clients receive email reminders relevant to them at that moment in time. Something as simple as a “welcome” email” for a new client gives you that extra personal touch your competition might not have. It is the definition of a personalized customer experience.
Adopting an automated e-delivery strategy is as straightforward as collecting the emails of your current clients, drafting your desired communication, and ensuring the proper feedback system is in place as a trigger. The advantage is that it establishes a regular cadence of touchpoints with your clients (e.g. by automating billing reminders), saves your business the time spent crafting and sending communications, and anticipates future client needs.
PathwayPort’s solutions allow you to do just that. Based on insurance email marketing insights data we’ve gathered from millions of emails sent by our customers, you can expect an almost 50% open rate for your emails. The industry average according to MailChimp is 21.36%. Let that sink in.
Feedback is King & Tell the Customer Story
Your product will never progress, and adapt to the needs of your clients if you don’t seek proper feedback. As part of your email strategy, include customer surveys as an automatic follow-up to previous communications. For example, if someone files a claim, a triggered email with a survey should go out in response. If you’ve just launched a new product offering, get client insights on what works, and what doesn’t. A quick tip: when following up with a survey, to avoid “partial completion” issues that are common, ensure that they can be saved and finished later.
Word-of-mouth is the best form of free marketing you can get for your business. So why not enlist the help of clients by asking them to provide you with publicly accessible reviews and testimonials? Turning your clients into storytellers is an elegant way to tell your story through the voice of those who use your product. It builds trust in your brand and gives you another source of feedback to use. This goes hand-in-hand with customer surveys — you can even include both as follow-up requests in your email marketing strategy.
Email marketing insights come in all shapes and sizes, but we hope that the above distillation will help you on your journey towards perfecting your strategy.