3 ways smaller brokerages can win benefits clients without extra work

Marketing can sometimes feel intimidating and looking at large brokerages that have huge marketing departments may make small brokerages feel like it’s impossible to compete. But that’s just not true.

We’ve all heard the saying, “Work smarter, not harder.” Anyone who’s ever worked at a small brokerage is all too familiar with this concept. So, why should it be any different when it comes to your marketing? Thanks to modern technology, you can get the same number of leads without hiring a fleet of marketers. In fact, I’ve heard of agencies that have moved staff from marketing to sales or servicing positions after digitally transforming their workflows. More people closing sales or providing better customer experiences? Yes, please.

It may sound too good to be true, but I assure it’s not. Here are three ways that your brokerage can attract and win clients without the extra work.

1. Automate your email campaigns

Marketing automation goes beyond automatically sending birthday emails and monthly newsletters. While it does include those tasks, marketing automation goes even deeper, allowing you to tap into data within your management system to put your customers and prospects into dynamic campaign lists. For example, you could create a list for benefits prospects that includes your commercial lines clients, or you could create a new client list that automatically pulls each new account into the list.

Once you’ve created your lists, you can build automated email campaigns. Prebuilt campaigns are often small brokers’ go-to as they allow the use of complex, recurring campaigns without having to set them up yourself. You can set them up based on timing –weekly drip messages, for instance. Or you can send specific messages to customers or prospects based on their actions. For example, if a prospect clicks on an attachment or a specific link in the email, you could send them down another path than a prospect who didn’t click through. This allows you to go deeper with prospects or customers who show interest in your marketing communication, maybe initiating time to talk about your services.

2. Educate with benefits-specific content

We all agree that insurance can be complicated. That’s why your customers need your advice! One of the best ways to show your value before you even talk to your prospect is to send them educational content. However, most small brokers don’t have the resources to consistently create content that is fresh and up to date.

Marketing automation provides brokers access to an extensive amount content ranging from articles and infographics to toolkits and checklists. In many cases, once you choose the content you’re looking for, it is automatically branded to your specific brokerage.

Not only can you send content via email campaigns, but you can also use your client’s existing self-service portal to add pieces of content that are relevant to them. When you send a brokerage-branded article that is personalized to your prospect’s needs, you’re telling them, “I care about you even though I don’t have your business yet. I want you to have all the information you need and know your options.”

3. Push traffic to your website

Your website is the hub of all your marketing and product information, so it’s an important asset in winning a new client. Using content to drive prospects and customers to your site easily pushes them to click through various resources and product offers on your site.

When you choose a piece of content to include in an email or post in their self-service portal, that content is hosted in a location on your website. It’s as easy as adding a “Read More” link in the email that will take the prospect or customer to where the content lives. While the “Read More” button drives traffic to your website, it also allows you to track traffic on your site, including which pages they visit and which links they click on.

Most businesses are not large, enterprise companies with robust marketing firms that generate thousands of leads. But when you use the right technology, you can create marketing strategies that rival the big guys – even with a small team. You might even find yourself automating processes so that they are so efficient and effective that you need to move your marketing admin to your sales team! At the risk of sounding cliché, that’s what I call working smarter, not harder.

Michael Howe is the chief product officer at Applied Systems.