Is Email Still an Effective Marketing Method for Agencies?

This question is a common one for insurance agents nationwide; both those selling personal lines as well as commercial lines insurance, such as Professional Liability or Errors and Omissions Insurance. In the age of social media, agents wonder if email marketing is losing its popularity and its effectiveness on generating leads. The good news is, according to a recent study by predictive analytics firm Custora, customer acquisition via email has actually quadrupled in the last four years. In fact, email now accounts for almost 7% of customer acquisitions overall for U.S. businesses.

Social media marketing has created incredible opportunities for businesses, especially those in the insurance industry. Prior to this decade, it was far more challenging for insurance agents to personally engage with their potential leads and existing clients. Telemarketing is also still a absolutely viable marketing effort. The fact is, these marketing efforts should be used in conjunction with each other, including email marketing.

It’s important to remember that email marketing is not as simple as just creating an ad and distributing it to potential leads. First you must obtain those leads from a list. Building such a quality, permission-based list is a challenge in itself, plus then you must either buy software or pay a service to distribute your emails, and to track and report back the results. This means there is value to email marketing.

Email marketing can only be effective to those who utilize it to its true potential. Marketing email campaigns should be designed to generate opens and click-throughs, both of which must be managed and monitored. It’s equally essential to target your mailings to the appropriate audiences and send quality information. This may mean that you send informative emails, full of tips and statistics. While your ultimate goal is to generate a lead and make a sale, not every single email should focus on the hard sell.

Utilizing email marketing correctly also means creating eye-catching, attention grabbing subject lines, ensuring the “from” field on any emails is a legitimate email address, including relevant, optimized images, including the appropriate number of links, and split testing emails to see how to get the best results. By implementing these factors, any insurance agency has the potential to find great success with their email marketing.

At PLRisk Advisors, we understand that insurance agents and brokers need support. We provide a portfolio of professional liability products to our insurance agency partners to secure the coverages your clients need in order to adequately protect themselves in a litigious and highly regulated environment.