Do you remember the days of phone conversations? While it seems like phones are everywhere today, phones are no longer a vehicle for conversation. Millennials and many others use their phones to stay connected to friends and learn about community resources in real-time. Whether they’re looking for a place to eat dinner or searching for a place to renew their auto insurance, Millennials are on their mobile devices. Today’s insurance marketing must harness the power of the text message to connect with insurance customers.
What Makes Text Different for Marketing Insurance?
Email newsletters are common: Just about every website gives its visitors the ability to sign up for a newsletter that will keep them updated on the business and its current offers. Like email messages, text messages are an opt-in form of marketing. Your customers need to sign up to receive these messages, which means that you’re speaking to highly-motivated leads. However, text messages are opened quickly and consistently. Text or SMS inboxes have an urgency to them that email doesn’t have. While most people read their email once or twice a day, they will check a text message within minutes of its arrival. Since text messages are short, they’re easier for you to write and they’re easy for leads to read.
Be Interactive With Your Text-Based Insurance Marketing
Unlike an email newsletter, texts are meant to be interactive. Your customers use texts to interact with friends and family. Take your cue from the personal texts your customers receive and be interactive. Use text messages to solicit feedback about an idea or direct users to a survey. Like social media, texts are a venue for conversation.
Create a Visual
The world of social media runs on images as much as it runs on writing. Text messages should do the same. Add an image to your text, and you’ll find that you’ll get even more engagement with your post. Remember that your texts are going out to highly-interested individuals, so make your visuals more than just an invitation to visit your business. They’re not a flyer, they’re value-added information that’s essential to your customers.
Link Your Texts For High Impact
Since text messages are short, they need to be sweet: They exist to drive your customers to a website where they can learn more about your offer. As you create a text message, capture the essence of your offer or information, and develop a landing page so that your leads can learn more about that offer.
Tell Your Customers What to Expect
Even though text messages are short, your customers still need to know what to expect. When they sign up, let them know how many texts they can expect to receive every month. Two to four texts per month are enough. Too many texts will annoy your readers. Make sure that you provide an easy way for your customers to unsubscribe from your messages as well, so that you’re able to target only those who are truly interested in your message.
As a small insurance agency, you need to connect as well. Find your peers with the American Agents Alliance. Through our annual insurance convention and innumerable membership benefits, you’ll find new ideas for marketing insurance and growing your insurance agency.
