Imagine if you could just sit back and have other people do your insurance marketing for you. While the Insurance Marketing Fairy is not real, it is possible to have others do some of the heavy lifting for your insurance marketing – and to do it for free. Insurance referrals are key to the growth and success of your insurance agency.
Finding High-Value Clients
Not only are referrals good for increasing your business, but they’re also better for your business bottom line in the long term. Referred clients come with trust in your business. According to Forbes, “referred customers are more loyal and have a 16% higher lifetime value – meaning they spend more long-term.” When a satisfied client refers others to you, it’s more likely that that person will also be a fit for your insurance agency.
Getting Insurance Referrals
How can you get these high-value clients? Ask your existing clients to do some of the work for you. Here’s how to inspire more referrals for your business:
- Show that you care deeply about your clients. Provide customer service that goes far above and beyond what people expect, and they will talk about you in a positive light, both online and offline.
- Ask people to give you referrals. Referrals happen naturally, but they also happen because you ask people to refer others to your business. Gathering referrals for your insurance business is not top of mind for your clients, so a prompt always helps. HubSpot suggests creating a template so that people can refer others to your business: “rather than ask and hope that they find the time to follow through, be more proactive in your approach by eliminating some of the heavy lifting for them.”
- Thank people for referring others to your business. You could give them an incentive or send them a thank you note, or you could even thank them online. Honoring those who do this work for you will make them feel valued, and others will see them as an example.
- Get involved in the community. When people see your business in other contexts, this places your agency into their minds for future use. They may not be thinking of changing insurance providers now, but they might in the future. Also, when you become involved in the business community, network and send customers to other businesses too. For instance, you could form a partnership with a local moving company and recommend them to clients who are moving.
- Make it ridiculously easy to share about your business on social media. For instance, you can add share buttons to your blog posts and add links in your email newsletters. The less work that people have to do to refer others to your business, the more likely they are to do that work.
- Develop quality content for your social media accounts and blogs so that people want to share that content with others. If you’re a business with a lot of local clients, make that content locally-relevant. Mention other local businesses or organizations in your content so that they will share it with their client base as well. For instance, if you are talking about family emergency preparedness, mention the local emergency preparedness organization in your blog post.
Getting referrals is work, but it’s work that can generate its own momentum, bringing in new clients for your insurance agency.
If you run an independent insurance agency, American Agents Alliance is an organization made for you. We offer many membership benefits designed for your small, independent agency. From continuing education to deals on E&O insurance, you’ll find the right fit for your insurance agency at American Agents Alliance.
