Marketing Automation is sometimes viewed as a platform that can take the same email campaigns you are doing today, but remove the need for an actual person to hit the ‘send’ button. Brokers who are using these incredibly versatile platforms solely for this purpose are missing the boat and overlooking opportunities to improve lead management and conversion, and deliver value to existing customers, all the while increasing efficiencies internally.

In the first two parts of our blog series, we discussed how marketing automation helps brokers build awareness leveraging websites, landing pages and targeted content strategies, and driving qualified leads.

This week, in our third blog we focus on the consideration phase: what happens once you’ve gotten the attention of a qualified lead but they haven’t yet made a decision? What strategies can you put in place to continue nurturing that relationship until they are ready to make a decision on the policy you have quoted? How do you keep all those leads you’ve invested in on your radar? And how do you do this at scale so you are not adding to your team’s workload but actually making more efficient use of their time?

The Power of Email

The most efficient and effective way to stay top of mind with your leads is to send them the right message at the right time, via the right channel. You want to ‘be there’ when they are ready to decide on their policy and coverage. For the majority of your leads, that channel will be email as it’s  most likely the contact detail that they have provided you and because email continues to be the best tool out there for engagement. A recent DMA study (DMA Insights, 2017 B2C Email Marketing Statistics) confirmed that almost all of us check our email daily and 50% of us do so more than 10 times every day! (Campaign Monitor 2017).

Most brokerages have some form of email solution in place, but getting the right message out at the right time can be more challenging, and time consuming, to get right. Brokers who use marketing automation platforms (MAPs) are able to shift away from ‘one size fits all’ emails to ones that are targeted to key segments and personalized. Each audience member in these key segments are delivered emails at the best time for their needs. Marketers who use segmented campaigns see a huge impact – including up to 760% increase in revenue in some cases, (Campaign Monitor, 2019) making investing in these platform incredibly worthwhile.

Leveraging Automation in the Lead Process

You’ve identified your optimal customer and built out a targeted lead generation strategy. Your sales team connects with the prospect but they aren’t ready to buy right now or aren’t responding the the quote you’ve issued. Or perhaps you weren’t able to respond quickly enough and the prospect has been in contact with another broker.

You have two options: close the lead out as lost or continue to nurture the lead and provide them with additional opportunities to convert. Tasking sales to follow up with each one of these non bound leads is no longer feasible and as the volume of your leads grow, not scalable. Automated email programs – segmented by ‘not ready to buy’ or  ‘quoted but not bound’ with customized messaging and personalized with name, type of policy, and policy offer expiry date allows you continue to engage with your leads and win new business in a scalable way. Best of breed MAPs can power these drip campaigns, (and be CASL and GDPR compliant) and free up your sales team to engage with those leads who are ready to buy.

Email marketing continues to be a great tool for brokers to engage with leads. But the real opportunities to nurture close deals can be more fully realized when messaging is powered by the automation and personalization of an automation platform.

Stay tuned for the fourth blog in our series, where we will dive deeper into how personalization and automated programs impact the consideration phase and the value of having a 360° digital view.

Interested in learning more? Contact us to learn about how marketing automation can help your brokerage build audience awareness and consideration.