The Rules of Direct Response Marketing

This marketing strategy is all about direct response marketing. If you don’t know what direct response marketing is, I’ll explain.

Direct response marketing can be a classified ad, an editorial, an article, a letter (piece of mail), a radio or TV commercail, an e-mail campaign or an insert that simply gets the readers/viewers/listeners to react or respond to your copy and/or dialogue.

One of the more popular direct response initiatives in place today is where the call-to-action (at the end of the letter, video, e-mail, commercial, etc.) asks the prospect to respond (in some way) in order to receive a free report. That is direct response marketing. And, it doesn’t have to be a free report; it could be a free-recorded message a free gift, free consultation, etc.

Direct response marketing can be VERY effective. But, it can be costly as well. There are two sides to direct response marketing. The front end is getting the prospect to respond by either calling your phone number, going to your website, filling out a form, etc. The back-end is the follow-up that takes place when a person responds to your ad. If they buy from you, you have achieved your goal. But what if the process stops halfway there, and the person who responded to your ad does not become a paying client/customer? You need to have systems in place (like a series of autoresponders) that gently take that “lead” to the center of your web where they can “buy” from you. That situation requires consistent follow-up, whether it be e-mails, phone calls and/or a series of direct mail letters.

Here’s the rule: You don’t stop sending them direct e-mail or snail-mail pieces until they die, move, hire you or tell you to stop sending those particular mailings. Can it be annoying? Yes. Can it be incredibly effective? Yes. Make sure the copy on your direct e-mail or mail pieces doesn’t make you look desperate, cheap or questionable. Offer valuable information that helps them in some way so they get to know, like and trust you.

That is how you get another 20-25% of those prospects who did not initially convert to a sale, to take action and become a paying client or customer!

To Your Success,

Two Ways To Sell Life Insurance To Existing Clients

Last month month we scheduled a discussion about annual goals and building Sales from your current book. If we didn't meet, you still have time before August 1st.

Today I want to talk about life insurance in particular. This is an area that causes a lot of stress for many insurance agents. Typically because it’s part of your annual requirements but not part of your regular activity. There is always a rush toward the end of the year to make sure you’ve hit the required target.

Well here are two ways you can begin to market life insurance right NOW to existing clients without breaking the bank.

First, take a look at your current commercial clients. Businesses typically have life insurance needs that they don’t even recognize! You can step in and educate your clients on where they may have gaps.

If a business is highly dependent on a few people, then they need to carry life insurance on those employees or owners.

I like up to warm up potential customers with a letter first and then make a phone call to follow up. Send a letter to each commercial client asking to set up an appointment to review their needs while explaining the basics of key man life insurance.

These people are already your clients so they are expecting you to review their needs regularly and provide advice.

You can also quote an option to provide basic term coverage to all of their existing employees. Contact a local CPA and find out the specifics on how they might be able to turn that employee benefit into a tax deduction to really get their attention.

Depending on your commercial book, this could take you a week or six months to actually follow up on. Run a list now and break down a plan to get started.

Next you want to create a firm process to get ALL of your clients some life insurance, not just the businesses.

One of the best ways to do this is with a simple birthday campaign.

We all know that term rates go up with each birthday. This means that clients can lock in a lower rate if they purchase before their next birthday arrives. Who doesn’t love a cheaper price, right?

So your goal is to send a postcard to every client about 30 days before their next birthday letting them know about the savings. You can make this even better if you run an actual quote and let them know what they would pay to start the policy.

Then, as always, follow up! Make a phone call a few days after the card arrived to see if they have questions or would like to setup an appointment. Remember, most people don’t know that much about life insurance. They need a clear understanding of what it is and WHY they need it. Make that part of your postcard and your follow up.

All good marketing benefits from deadlines. When you buy a car, you HAVE to get insurance immediately. When you are closing on a house, you need the coverage done by the closing date. Life insurance doesn’t have these deadlines, so people put it off. By telling people that they will get a cheaper price before their birthday, you put urgency in the decision and can close the prospect quickly.

These are just two ideas for generating more life insurance sales on a consistent basis. Try them out!

Today’s Insurance Agent question:

What can I do to get someone to take action on my recommendations? It is frustrating to hear a person complain about a problem, tell you they are ready to fix it and then not take action to correct it.

I can appreciate your frustration. In fact, I believe that the answer to question is one of the most important insights to success as an insurance agent. While the solution isn’t always easy, it is critical. The answer lies in our “attachment” to the situation.

When we are attached to an outcome that is beyond our control, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment and even failure. It is frustrating when a person says they want one thing but their behavior says something else. In addition, it is hard not to care when a person doesn’t do what we know they need to do to get the results they say they want. But unfortunately our concern does little good to change the situation. In fact, Einstein shared that doing the same thing but wanting a different result is insanity!

Your frustration is shared by almost every business. The difference with successful agents is the attachment or detachment they have to the situation. While successful agents may wish a person would take the right action, they do not have an attachment to their actions or inactions.

As a Sales Team Leader, several Field Representatives and agents share their dream business and life with me. The future success or failure that these agents experience isn’t where they currently are (struggling or at the top of their game), but is dictated by the action they take or don’t take. Specifically, what they do to get out of their own way and the activities they complete on a daily basis. I use to get frustrated when struggling agents would spend the majority of their time on daily actions that were actually moving them away from their desired end goal. I refer to these activities as LVFDAs (low value fixed daily activities). Not surprising, top producers spend their time on the HVFDAs (high value fixed daily activities) that will take them to where they say they want to go. Over time, I have come up with an analogy that may help you accept this reality and remove the frustration you are experiencing. Ideal prospects who are in Iowa and want to get to California will take a direct flight. Less than ideal prospects, who also say they want to get to California, often head in the other direction toward New York. They take the long, difficult route. Will they ever arrive in California? Some will after years of struggle and strife, others never will.

Great questions ask yourself, to ensure you are on the right track, include, “Which route am I taking?” and “Which route is this prospect taking?” If you are taking the long, hard route or the route to “no destination”, regroup and get back on track. If your prospect is taking the long, hard route, you are better letting them go so you can spend your time finding ideal prospects who are serious about getting to their desired destination in the quickest possible time. Here are a few other helpful tips to reduce your attachment to frustrating prospects.

Let it Go

While this may be easier said than done, the secret lies in our ability to “let it go!” Many people would be better off taking action on what they should do versus what they are actually doing! We discussed the different levels of people in an earlier post, which would be helpful for you to review. While level ones and threes both have challenges, level ones focus on the problem while level threes focus on the solution to the challenge.

The painful reality is that some people’s (Level Ones) current situation is working for them. They may get attention because they are broke or sick or they may be scared to do something different. It doesn’t matter – nothing we do or say can change what they will or won’t do! The best thing you can do is tell them to call you when they are serious about fixing their insurance coverages and life!

Fill your Funnel

The next solution lies in your lead generation strategy. When you have more ideal prospects in your funnel than you need, you are less attached to what a person does or says because there is another ideal prospect right behind them. It is normal to want to help those who need our help. But successful advisors are able to realize that the choice a prospect makes to do something or not, affects the prospects future, not ours. When we have more ideal prospects in our funnel than we need, our focus shifts to helping those who are ready to do the work they need to do to get the results they want!

Master your Process

The first step to mastering the process is to focus on what we can control. Continually check in to confirm your focus is on issues you can control. Then identify each step of your process from opening to closing. We dramatically increase our success when we do our best in each step of the process. These steps may include: the qualification phase, setting the appointment, fact finding, objection handling, storytelling, and ultimately closing. It also includes, knowing what to say, when to say it, how to say it and when to be quiet. The result is a dramatically higher closing rate and more ideal clients in our agency.

By focusing on what we can control, increasing the number of ideal prospects in our funnel, and mastering our process, we can let the less than ideal prospects and our frustration go and focus our energy on helping the prospects who are ready to take the action they need to take, so they can get the results they desire. In addition when we detach from what a person does or doesn’t do, the results is a business and life we love!

Make More Money - Grow Your Book of Business This July

The 4th of July weekend has now officially passed.  Hopefully you took a nice relaxing break and are feeling energized and ready to get back to work again.

July means that we’re now on the downward slope towards the end of the year! Pull out your goals for 2013 and see where you stand.  Are you halfway there? If not, it’s time to kick it in gear NOW, not in December! We all know that it’s a lot harder to get sales in December when people are consumed with holidays, have tight budgets, and typically aren’t buying homes.  It’s not the time to be trying to reach your goals at the last minute.

So what can you do right now to increase your sales in July?

Two things.  

• Close the outstanding quotes.  
• Run a campaign on your current book.

Let’s look at this in detail.

First, there are probably a lot of quotes sitting around that aren’t closed yet. They are stacked in folders and to-do lists at desks all around the agency.  A percentage of these CAN be closed with a little persistence.  Pull your open files, review, and go after that business!  Call them daily, leave messages, send emails, don’t quit until they tell you to leave them alone!  Show that you want their business and that you’re available and ready to work for the client.

These un-closed quotes are just money sitting on the table.  (And yes, I know they can’t all be closed. You will be too high on some. Others won’t qualify. But ignore those and move on to the ones you do have a shot at!)

Second…look for ways to make money in your current book of business. This is one of the amazing things about the insurance business.  You don’t always need more clients to make more money.  Sometimes you just need to sell more to the ones you already have!

I’ve done this with the multi-policy discount.  I would run a list of everyone in my book with only a homeowner’s policy.  Then I’d meticulously go through every policy and write down how much they’d save if we had their auto.  The numbers always looked fantastic to the client because it was hundreds of dollars off their home!

Then we’d call the client and let them know about this huge discount they were missing.  They already knew us and trusted us.  Plus if we could get close to their current auto price, we typically got the sale! I know this takes time and cold calls, but it’s a whole lot better then sitting around and waiting for the phone to ring!

You might even have a better idea than this.  You could call for boat insurance to clients that live on the lake. Quote renter’s insurance to auto only clients that rent.  Upsell PUP’s to high income clients. Term life for clients with young children.  The list goes on and on.  Choose a theme for each month and try a different one all year long.

The most important thing in all of this is to take action.  Be ruthless and go after what you want. Hit your goals months ahead of schedule so that you aren’t stressed out and worried about production results at the end of the year!  The more action you take, the more rewards you’ll see.  

Go after it!

My Weekend Reading List - 7/6/2013‏

Happy weekend, everyone! I really enjoyed my Fourth of July holiday, and spent a lot of time reflecting on the work we’ve accomplished at the agency. There’s something about America’s annual celebration of freedom that reminds me of the entrepreneurial spirit, and the people and events that inspire me.

When I read Why Startups Live by Andrew Montalenti on TheNextWeb.com, I couldn’t help but think back to the formative days of my career and starting a scratch insurance agency. Putting meaning behind those amazing first stages is an incredible feeling.

I also caught up on some episodes of the podcast, Entrepreneur on Fire with John Lee Dumas, and became really motivated by discussions with people such as Tim Ferriss and Seth Godin. Just looking at the show’s recent lineup of guests had me thinking I need to update my iTunes more often.

Browsing some New York Times headlines also led me to the article, Immigration and Entrepreneurship, which zoomed in on data suggesting immigrants are unusually entrepreneurial. This was the first time I had heard about the “startup visa,” which served as a great reminder of how America remains a place of diversity and opportunity for those who strive to achieve.

Finally, after attending a handful of graduation parties this past month, I thought about the next generation of insurance agents. Reading Advice for Recent Grads from a Young Entrepreneur made me envision my own daughter, hopefully starting a successful business of her own, and sharing the motivation and spirit that has driven me throughout my professional career.

I hope you enjoy a great holiday weekend, and all the success you deserve in the days that follow.
 
Talk soon,
 
Doug