Part 5: How Your Agency Can Thrive During the Pandemic by Going on the Offense

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This is the fifth in a seven-part weekly series, "Thriving During the Coronavirus," on how insurance agencies and companies should handle the pandemic and ways to work around new economic challenges.

The coronavirus pandemic will hit your insurance business in the short- and medium-term. But it’s also an opportunity for you to grow your business.

As I noted in previous articles in this series, your customers are going to be taking a fresh look at their expenses, including the policies you provide.

But that means that your competitors’ customers will be doing the same — and that’s an opportunity.

Here’s a short guide to how to do that.

Go for the Low Hanging Fruit
If you’ve taken my earlier advice, you’ve already looked at your policies and practices and made some changes to provide better service and communication with your existing customers.

Now, you can take those same actions to go after new customers.

For example, did you create an effective automated renewal review process? What would you have to change to make that a new business review process? Probably no changes, just figuring out how to get it in front of prospects.

Look at Existing Prospect Lists
Do you currently have a list of prospects? 

What about past customers? An advantage of past customers is you at least know the name and contact information for the decisionmakers.

Past customers should be reviewed for reasons you lost the business. Can you address these reasons? Have you already tried and failed to get them back?

You should create a written list of past customers with written reasons you lost them. Analyze and prioritize which ones to approach.

What about prospects you have presented to in the past but not acquired. Make a list just like the past customer list above and prioritize actions on this list.

Do you have a list of prospects you have never done business with? How have you approached them in the past? What were the results? Review this list, analyze and prioritize.

Making Your New Prospect Lists
You could just make a list of everyone in your target market. Maybe that would be all the businesses in your town or county. Maybe that is a specific market like antique car collectors.

Decide if you represent carriers who offer a strong program for these prospects. There is no need to go after apartment complex owners if you do not have a carrier who will write coverage for them.

Match your strengths with new lists.

Use Social Media Marketing
After you understand where you have carrier partners which position you to be aggressive, design social media campaigns to target those prospects.

Social media campaigns must be maintained over time to be most effective. These are cumulative efforts.

The social media campaigns should direct those interested to your website where they can take specific actions to solve their problems. In some cases this may be buying your policy online. In others this maybe completing a checklist to identify their needs. 

Try a variety of things, measure results and adjust. This is an ongoing process.

Address Your Prospect’s Pain
In the coming 12 to 18 months your prospects’ pain is likely to be the cost of coverage as much as anything else. Address cost savings, but remember, price is generally fourth or fifth on the list of reasons people decide to buy coverage. 

The biggest decider in buying decisions is perceived value. Never forget to emphasize value in as equal to or more important than price.

Look at How Your Customers Find Your Competitors
If you understand how your customers are finding who to reach out to when they decide shop their insurance renewal, you will have your first step in understanding how to position yourself to be found by your competitor’s customers. 

Ask people who come to you how they found you.

If you have a strong enough relationship with some of your existing customers ask them how they found you or how they would look if they were shopping.

Next Up
In my next article in this series I’ll be talking about how your company can thrive during the pandemic by becoming more digitally savvy.

If you missed
"Part 1: How Your Insurance Agency Can Weather the Global Pandemic and Economic Downturn," click here.
"Part 2: How Your Insurance Agency Can Survive a Drop in Revenue Due to the Pandemic,” click here.
"Part 3: How Your Agency Can Thrive During the Pandemic and Avoid Layoffs, click here."
"Part 4: How Your Agency Can Thrive During the Pandemic by Playing Defense, click here. "