Your clients are getting older. Some are astonished that they now have active teens at home. As you support your clients through their different life stages and transitions, you'll note that having teenage children adds an entirely new dimension to your clients' insurance needs. What are the needs of clients with teens, and how do you market to them?
Providing Certainty in a Time of Life Changes
To many parents, the teen years mean an addition of uncertainty to their lives. Their children are starting to move out of the nest and into significant life landmarks such as driving and owning a car. Ultimately, those teens will move out and move on to jobs or further education as well.
Parents of teens who are at driving age are looking for answers to their questions about adding a teen to their household auto insurance policy. Be ready for their questions, as for many of them this will be the first time that they've navigated this huge change with their children. Give information that makes parents of teens feel more secure in their auto insurance choices. For example, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles, many "auto insurance companies don’t require you to formally add your teen driver to your policy until he or she becomes a licensed driver." Let parents know when they need to add their teen to their auto insurance policy.
Insurance companies can be leaders in the field of auto safety, sponsoring events such as dry graduation activities to encourage teens to be safe drivers. Be visible at high school events and in your sponsorship of teams. Your company can be the safety-conscious and practical voice that teens and their parents need.
Leaving the Nest: Insurance Needs of Older Teens
As teens move into early adulthood at age 18 to 20, your insurance clients will have other insurance questions as well. For example, they'll wonder about school for their emerging young adult, and they'll need to consider questions about extending health insurance to their children if their children decide to go to college. Their older teens also need to think about where they are going to live when they're pursuing post-secondary education, and they need to consider more adult responsibilities such as tenants' insurance.
Marketing to Parents and Teens
As your clients' children grow up, your job is to help your clients help their teens. As a marketer, you need to strike a balance between appealing to parents and appealing to young adults:
Place as much information as you can online. Parents of teens and the teens themselves are busy people who like to look online for information. Today's teens, young adults, and even many parents have been immersed in the web for much of their lives, and they feel most comfortable researching and making purchases online rather than going into a storefront. If you don't sell insurance online, at the very least, make it easy to communicate with your company on the web through email, text, social media, and bots on your site.
Market on the channels that older teens are using to communicate. For example, Snapchat is an online venue primarily used by teens and those in young adulthood. A newspaper article on moving out and buying tenants' insurance may not hit the right audience, but a Snapchat video or a series of photos giving an amusing look at the logistics involved in getting out of your parents' house could help you market to teens and their parents.
Teens are your emerging clients but don't forget about the parents when you're marketing. Create media that teens and their parents can access comfortably. For example, while Snapchat might target the teen audience, a Facebook post with a Youtube video on finding the best car insurance will likely reach an audience of parents and feel accessible to their teens. Develop media that parents and teens can share.
At American Agents Alliance, we're here to support your insurance company through the different phases of your business life. Whether you're just starting out or you've been working in the field for decades, your company can benefit from the networking opportunities that we provide, such as our annual insurance convention in Palm Desert. Contact us today and take a look at our many membership benefits.
