Insurance Agency Marketing and PR
Identifying Agency Goals, Objectives & Strategic Marketing Messages
From setting goals and objectives to creating strategic marketing messages, learn some easy steps that keep your insurance agency PR and marketing campaign on track.
Identify your insurance agency’s marketing & public relations campaign objectives to stay on target.
Ask yourself some questions:
- What do you hope to get out of your insurance agency’s marketing campaign?
- Do you want to focus on finding new customers or customer retention?
- What messages do you want to impart to prospects, customers, business partners and insurance agency employees?
Completing an executive summary, a more complex SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats exercise) or compiling competitive intelligence helps you identify your insurance agency’s marketing and public relations objectives and get agreement on them too.
Set concrete marketing and public relations campaign goals for your insurance agency.
You may need to change your goals later, but this sets checkpoints so you can review your progress throughout the campaign. Here’s a sample marketing campaign goals and objectives statement:
Lisa Nichols' Insurance Agency has a great opportunity to find all-new customers in 2008. It is estimated that there are 10,000 potential, eligible agency customers in our community. The agency anticipates that 1,000 new customers will join the agency by the end of 2008, and that an additional 2,000 customers will be on board by June 2009.
Lisa Nichols' Insurance Agency needs to provide new customer data at checkpoints throughout the promotional campaign to show results. Setting down numbers for your insurance agency may seem intimidating, but it’s the best way to track and report on marketing and advertising results.
Identify the target markets your insurance agency wants to highlight during your promotional and advertising campaign. Now that you’ve set your goals and objectives, think about who you want to target with your marketing campaign. Your primary market consists of customers, prospects, business partners and your agency employees. Your agency’s strategic marketing messages and tactics will change depending upon your audience.
Identify key promotional messages to deliver to your customers, prospective customers, insurance agency employees and business partners.
Create marketing benefit statements that summarize how you want to drive customers’ perceptions of your insurance agency:
- Marketing Message #1 New Customer Prospects: “ABC Insurance Agency works with A+ or better rated carriers, finding the best policy for your home or business at the best rate, Web access and service with a personal touch.”
- Promotional Message #2 Existing Customers: “You already know that ABC Insurance Agency offers superior homeowners insurance coverage with the best service, but did you know that ABC Insurance Agency has the best rates on car insurance too?”
- Marketing Message #3 Business Partners: “Partnering with ABC Insurance Agency is a real benefit to your employees, at no cost- and no hassle- to you.”
- Promotional Message #4 Insurance Agency Employees: “ABC Agency has a full benefits package and unlimited opportunities to grow and to learn all aspects of the insurance industry.”
Once you drill down to your key marketing messages, use them in every aspect of your insurance agency’s advertising and promotional campaign. No matter what services and benefits you highlight, make sure you let customers know about your products, service standards and methods of communication again and again, to drive your strategic marketing messages home.
Use your agency's marketing messages to drive targeted communications and public relations strategies and tactics for your insurance agency.
Once you’ve identified your marketing messages, start creating your plan of attack for each customer group. Your advertising and communications strategies will vary widely based upon your budget and campaign goals, but you’ll probably use some combination of the following: e-mail campaigns, print ads, public relations, collateral materials, newsletters or the Web to market your products and services to insurance agency customers.
Get more tips for your insurance agency's marketing plan including creating customer loyalty strategies, getting free help, creating a PR calendar and tracking marketing campaign results.
Talk back with a writer: email your best ideas for creating a marketing campaign for your insurance agency to Lisa Nichols.
