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Do your current clients like you? When you're considering how to improve your insurance marketing, start with the basics. If your current insurance clients think that you're the best, they are likelier to refer you to more people who may also think that your insurance company is top-notch. How can you increase insurance referrals? Here are four ways.

1. Inspire Your Employees 

Are your employees providing the best possible customer service? According to a Gallup poll in the United States, only about 30 percent of employees feel actively engaged in their work. If your insurance clients encounter someone who's not striving to be the best, enjoying working with clients and helping them in their lives, then they may not feel inspired by your company. In order to achieve employee engagement and thereby improve the customer experience: 

• Have a clearly-defined mission and values, and check with your employees to see how their values and actions align with them.

• Use a management style that honors individual input from employees. Care about what your employees think, and recognize their competencies. Try to work with those competencies and allow your employees to grow within their positions.

 2. Listen to Your Clients 

To make sure that your clients are happy,  ask them if they are. This could be through a survey or by simply talking to them when you renew their insurance, or it could be through an occasional "check-in" phone conversation. Talk with them about their product and their customer service needs, and let them know how you have responded to those needs. When clients see you as a responsive company, they are more likely to refer their friends and relatives to you.

Once you've delighted your clients, make sure that you showcase those clients on your website in the form of testimonials. Customer testimonials function as a soft referral to your business, building peoples' trust in your insurance company.

3. Use Software to Gather Data 

When it comes to customer retention, the more information you can gather about your clients' interests and needs, the better. While you can collect some of this information through informal conversations or surveys, it's also important to track it over time using tools such as a CRM. 

A CRM system allows you to track more information about your clients – not just their specific demographics, but other elements in their lives that might connect to their insurance needs, such as the fact that they have an upcoming teen driver or the fact that they move a lot. 

Clients tend to draw in people who have some similarities with their own interests or demographics. By understanding your existing audience, you can make sure that your insurance company is more friendly to new leads as well. 

4. Encourage Your Clients to Share 

Referrals don't always happen without an incentive or an ask from you. Encourage your clients to actively refer new clients by: 

• Creating content they can share on social media – or information that they can pass on to friends and relatives

• Giving them a discount or other incentive for referrals 

• Referring business to other companies. When you do this for others, they are more likely to refer people to yours.

Finding quality clients who stick with your business can be challenging. According to Forbes, "referred customers are more loyal and have a 16% higher lifetime value." Make sure you get the best return for your insurance marketing investment. At American Agents Alliance, you'll find a suite of membership benefits that enable you to create stronger connections with your insurance leads.