By automating email newsletters and creating new leads with marketing analytics, agents can communicate with clients and prospects in a target and efficient way, freeing up more time to focus on connecting with high-value clients and recommending tailored insurance premiums. (Credit: Blue Planet Studio/Stock.adobe.com)

Agents, do your clients really understand what is covered under their home insurance policy? Of course, there are some who do, but too many don’t know about what’s included — or excluded — from their coverage. In fact, survey data from Plymouth Rock Assurance showed that only 30% of homeowners are confident they know what is covered by their home insurance policy, demonstrating a real need for agents to put more effort into educating clients on the value of their policies.

Many independent agents are themselves small business owners, and therefore pressed for time and resource constrained when it comes to managing customer relationships (while attracting new customers).

Recent survey data from Act! revealed that small business owners are furiously multitasking, and therefore not operating efficiently — evidenced by 70% of small business owners reporting they perform all sales responsibilities, 69% perform all marketing activity, 45% still rely on a paper system and 11% have no management system in place at all. By leveraging a customer relationship management (CRM) platform, independent agents can automate sales and marketing tasks, personalize targeted communications, and spend more time educating clients about the value of their products and services. But how?

Your secret sauce to communicating more efficiently with clients is comprised of three main ingredients: 

Ingredient #1: Personalization

Leveraging CRM software to personalized (and automated!) communications means agents can foster stronger relationships with their clients. Stronger relationships mean agents learn more about their client’s needs, provide meaningful education on services to meet those needs and improve not only the customers’ policy knowledge but their appreciation for the value of this consultation.

Comprehensive client history, secured in a centralized database, means that agents have the tools to analyze trends, anticipate needs and build deeper connections and personal interactions. Agents can use important milestones, like birthdays and holidays, to automatically re-engage with clients and make them feel valued. This personalized experience helps agents foster trust, retain customers, and boost referral business. 

Ingredient #2: Consistency

Many times, homeowners only engage with their agent when they buy a home or have an issue with their policy. Organized data enables agents to proactively reach out to dormant clients, seeking to uncover potential policy events, like the installation of security systems or smart home technology, and use that discount as an opportunity to revisit other elements of their coverage. By tracking client data and maintaining regular touchpoints, agents can build stronger relationships with their clients, and in turn, achieve steady predictable revenue through committed clients. They can also map upgrade activity to better predict which clients might be ready for increased coverage. 

Ingredient #3: Automation

Joe Greenspan of Act!(Credit: Act!)

Marketing automation is a technology that goes perfectly with any CRM platform. With so many prospects and clients (and only 24 hours in a day), it’s too easy for marketing activities to get put on the back burner. Marketing automation, as the name suggests, automates marketing tasks like identifying strong leads, which is especially useful for agents who are wearing multiple hats and focusing on many aspects of their business. By automating email newsletters and creating new leads with marketing analytics, agents can communicate with clients and prospects in a target and efficient way, freeing up more time to focus on connecting with high-value clients and recommending tailored insurance premiums.

By combining these three ingredients, independent agents can whip up the secret sauce to communicating efficiently with clients, and reap real results! When CRM is combined with marketing automation, agents can drive brand loyalty, build a better pipeline and strengthen predictable revenue. Homeowners gain peace of mind working with an engaged agent they can trust, become better educated around matters that affect their home and sometimes even discover new ways to save money on home insurance. Everybody wins.

As vice president of commercial operations at Act!, Joe Greenspan leads a team focused on customer revenue growth, strategic commercial programs, and operational excellence. Before Act! Joe spent 13 years at Sage in various product and commercial leadership roles.

Opinions expressed here are the author’s own.

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