Senior Insurance Blog

“Nobody wants to read your copy.”

This is the cold, hard truth about advertising according to popular copywriter Steven Pressfield, and I believe him.

There is a phenomenon in the advertising industry called “Client’s Disease.” Essentially every client, whether that client is your own organization or an external customer, mistakenly believes that because it cares about the product it’s advertising everyone else will as well.

The harsh reality is that no one cares, and it’s not because they are mean or have a grudge against you or your organization, it’s just that they have better things to do, such as solving their own problems.

Knowing and accepting this fact is half the battle in advertising. The other half is capitalizing on it by communicating to your audience that you can solve those problems. This is the only way to get your audience to even give your ad or website a few seconds of consideration. Though there is no concrete evidence, most experts agree that most people spend about 10-15 seconds to glance over a communications piece before deciding to continue to look into it or reject it. So it’s critical that your copy and other elements are finely tuned for maximum effect.

Here are 10 tips to enhance your copywriting so that your audience gets the message and decides to stick around long enough to buy into what you are selling.

1. Know your audience. More specifically, know what problems they want to solve. Also, know their demographics, interests, political affiliations, and other relevant info that can help you craft your message and gain their attention.

2. Communicate how your product or service solves your audience’s problem. Whether it’s protecting assets through insurance, increasing retirement income through an annuity, or getting the highest commission percentage possible, your audience has a need and it’s your biggest priority to tell them how you can meet it.

3. Explain why you are better than their other options. As an insurance agent or broker, you obviously have to deal with a lot of competition. So right after you tell your audience how you will solve their problem, you need to tell them why you’re their best option. Be very specific with this.

4. Tailor your message to the medium. One piece of copy isn’t going to universally work for all mediums. In fact, you may need a whole new message depending if you are communicating your message through a Google Ad, direct mail, e-Direct, or website.

5. Call them to action. Once you’re done explaining, it’s time to get your audience to respond. Whether it's getting them to call you, landing them on a specific page, or getting them to sign up, you need to tell them what is the first step they can take in solving their problem.

6. Be honest. Though everyone expects some exaggeration or puffery during the sales process, you must be careful to not step over the line into illegal territory that may lead to an expensive suit that can wreck your business.

7. Keep it concise. Keep your message as brief as possible and only focus on the audience and the solution they seek. No one cares about your rags to riches story or how your business has been around since the horse and carriage days.

8. Stay on message. If you are promoting solution X, then don’t get side tracked by also trying to promote solution Y that isn’t relevant to the problem. If you can get them to buy solution X, you’ll have plenty of other opportunities to promote solution Y.

9. Avoid clichés. People can immediately see laziness, especially in writing. If you’re using over-used and tired phrases or wording, such as “Step up to the plate and sign up now!” then your audience will tune you out, and you'll see your credibility diminished.

10. Proofread… and then proofread again.

As we mentioned before, one of the sales methods you’ll want to take advantage of this year is the webinar. And if you are already doing a webinar, then perhaps you’ll find some useful nuggets of knowledge that will help you refine your presentation.

1. What you need. In order to conduct the most effective webinars you will need the right tools. Here is a list:

• Presentation software such as Microsoft PowerPoint

• Web conferencing software such as http://www.megameeting.com or http://www.gotomeeting.com

• Stock media from sites such as http://www.gettyimages.com or http://www.shutterstock.com

• Video editing software (free) such as Windows Movie Maker or iMovie

• Video camera and tripod

2. Planning. Your webinar is a project that will require a few hours of planning to ensure a smooth execution, low cost, and as little rework as possible. First, you will want to think about your audience. Do you sell direct to seniors? Do you solely recruit agents? Are your clients more affluent? Are they mostly minorities?

Once you’ve identified your audience, you’ll want to identify the key issues that are important to them when considering the product or services you are trying to sell. Your webinar subject matter will vary greatly depending on if you are selling Medicare supplements, annuities, or even both. Regardless, you’ll want to remember to focus your subject matter on only 3-5 major points.

After identifying the 3-5 major points you want to convey to your audience, the next step is to create an outline of the information you will convey about those 3-5 major points. The key here is to get the right arrangement for your information so you can then start thinking about the detailed content you will present. The more visuals the better, so consider how you can visualize as much information as possible.

The last part of planning your webinar requires that you finalize all the content you want to put in your webinar and think about the logistics of creating that content. You’ll need to write the script for your oral presentation, and if you plan on showing a video clip of a customer explaining her financial devastation from not having a Medicare supplement, you will of course want to identify the customer, pick the time and place to interview, and so forth.

3. Creating the content. With your plan in place, now comes the execution. You will want to contain your entire Webinar within the presentation file. This is easy to do as you can easily drag and drop other types of files into the presentation file. If you are unfamiliar with how to use presentation software, I recommend buying a presentation software tutorial or book to enable you with maximum creative ability.

The first thing you will want to do is choose your theme. The color and structure of your theme are both important in addressing your audience and presentation style. If you are going for a more upbeat style, then brighter colors will compliment and enhance your presentation. If your subject matter requires respect and a more serious tone, then you’ll want to use darker shades of colors. Stay away from blacks as a primary color as it comes across as too serious and it can be hard to read text from. If you aren’t happy with the included templates, you can find many impressive templates for purchase with a simple search for “PowerPoint (or other software) templates.”

Next, comes adding your content. A good rule of thumb to follow is to use as little text as possible. This means keeping your bullet points to 3-5 on each slide and never writing paragraphs of text. Use charts, tables, photographs, videos, and so forth to convey your message when possible.

When it comes to charts and tables, make sure the data and source is correct and that you have permission to use them. Also, always use professional stock photos. Nothing loses respect more than low-quality, amateur material. Stock photo sites allow you to buy at different sizes so you shouldn’t have to worry about resizing photos. If you have to resize photos to conform to your design, know that you can safely scale down, but never up. When scaling down hold down the shift key when resizing the photo. This will prevent distortion and pixilation.

With the popularity of YouTube and reality TV, less than professional quality video is accepted if done right. If you are doing a client interview video or if it’s a video of yourself, make sure you record it with at least a tripod. You don’t want any shaking in your video. Also try to record in as well lit a room as possible. Dark video isn’t appealing. Once you recorded your video, you can then edit it with one of the free programs mentioned above. Music always helps, so buy some stock audio to make your video that much more attractive and effective. Again, cheap and short tutorials are readily available to show you how to use the video editing programs.

4. Edit and Test. Once you’ve created your presentation make sure to edit it for mistakes. You’ll also want to test your webinar to a sample audience to make sure it’s perfectly executed. The software should give you the ability to record your webinar, so make sure to watch yourself and see if there are any improvements to be made.

5. Marketing. With your webinar all ready to go, you’ll want to consider how to get the most eyeballs to watch it. Before you do though, consider the costs. Typically, each “seat” in a seminar costs money. The more “seats” you need the more it is going to cost you. So as you can see, it will pay off to ensure your audience is as targeted as possible for maximum effectiveness.

If you have a large budget and want as many eyeballs as possible, then you’ll want to communicate your webinar information through an E-blast, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. You can also use more traditional methods like radio and print, but they cost a lot more.

Once you’ve executed your perfect webinar and have it recorded, you can then use it as a very effective promotional/educational piece. Set up a webpage to show the recorded webinar and drive traffic to it. You can also put it on a disc or thumb drive and send it out to those less Internet savvy. You spent the time, money, and effort to make the perfect webinar, so make sure you leverage it as much as possible.

The most successful producers know that one of the keys to success is to make generating leads a strategic objective of the organization. Lead goals should be S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely). It is a principle that we stress during our recruitment process. The reason we bring up this subject is because this month’s issue of Senior Market Advisor has a decent article titled 50 Best Ways to Generate Leads. The tips were selected from numerous submissions sent in by readers and industry leaders.

The tips are redundant and don’t really tell you anything revolutionary, but they serve as an excellent reminder and reinforcement of best practices we should continue to follow in order to generate quality leads. To save you time, we’ve condensed the 50 tips into five and added our own spin on them. Feel free to contribute your own tips in our comments section below.

Focus on Referrals – If you’ve done a great job with your clients, then never be afraid to directly ask for referrals. Your loyal customers are extremely valuable because of this so customer retention is important. Additionally, look to establish referral partners. If your clients have a good experience with the professionals you recommend to them, they will further trust your advice and see you as a solution provider for a range of services.

Leverage Technology Smartly – Not all technology is right for your business. If you know 90% of your market doesn’t use computers, then don’t waste your time creating a Facebook page, a Twitter page, or an E-blast campaign. For example if your goal is to keep your clients continuously updated on the latest news, it may be better to send out text messages to their cell phones rather than through twitter or through an e-blast. Also be aware of how much time you spend tinkering with technology – it may be better spent generating leads the old-fashion way.

Quantify Your Networking – You already know the importance of networking, but are you measuring the effectiveness of your networking? It’s good to set predetermined goals and continually try to improve your numbers. If you are going to a one or two hour event, keep reminding yourself that you need to make an X number of new contacts within that time. How many of these contacts turned into leads? How many of those led to real business? Look back each year and see if the events you attended were the right ones and are worthwhile to attend again.

Target and Customize – In all your marketing efforts take the time to plan and really make your efforts as lean as possible. By lean, I mean as targeted and customized as possible. Some of the ideas proposed in the article were to send out handwritten notes, personal pictures, using names in communications whenever possible, and meeting clients at special times such as their birthday months. Additionally, standing out from your competition is important too. Is anyone else using video testimonials? According to one industry leader, video boosts retention by 50% over live presentations.

The Don’ts – For every thing we should do, there are many actions that we need to avoid. Here is a list of don’ts that you should keep in mind:

* Don’t use mailing labels that lack personalization
* Don’t always copy your competitors – they may be on the wrong path
* Don’t “freestyle” your presentations
* Don’t promote products – promote solutions to problems
* Don’t just rely on one method to acquire leads
* Don’t sell yourself as an expert in more than one or two knowledge areas

Many of you are already familiar with referrals: getting existing customers to recommend you to others. The value of referral business is significant as these customers were obtained without expending time and money marketing directly to these customers. Now imagine getting an exponential amount of referrals from sources you never served from places you’ve never heard of. This is the power of Inbound Web Marketing.

Before I get into the strategies, let me give a brief review to those of you who may be unfamiliar with this concept. In the 21st century, marketing can be split into two categories: Outbound and Inbound. Outbound marketing consists of traditional marketing efforts such as telemarketing, tradeshows, direct mail, TV/Radio, print ads, and newer techniques such as E-blasts. These methods require that you interrupt whatever the customer is currently doing with or without their permission. With customers being bombarded by so many ads on TV, radio, Internet, roads, and practically everywhere else they go, they are getting better and better at ignoring such ads. This of course reduces the ROI on your marketing investment.

Inbound marketing consists of search engine optimization, link exchanges, blogging, video and audio podcasting, and social media. The significant difference here is that since customers are actively seeking out your products and services you automatically have their permission to inform them of how great your business, service, and products are. You also have their undivided attention. When a customer is searching for something that is their focus. They will continue to search and be focused until they find the solution they seek. This is something that is so elusive with traditional outbound marketing efforts. As an added bonus, your “broadcast” cost is minimal to nothing.

Here are some inbound web marketing strategies you will want to implement if you haven’t done so already:

1.) Location. Location. Location. The phrase made famous by realtors around the world is equally applicable to the land of the Internet. When I speak about location, I am referring to your ranking on the search engines. Non-paid search result positions 1-5 on any search engine such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing are considered top “real-estate.” Now how to get there is a whole other blog post, but I will say that if your Web site is just starting out, you will want to focus on long-tail keywords that are very specific to your market and are easier to rank for. “Vermont Medicare Quotes” will be a whole lot easier and faster to rank for than “Medicare Supplement.” You may not generate as much traffic, but the leads you do get will be highly qualified.

2.) Get Social. Meet your new friends Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Now, your elderly clients may have no idea what these are, but their children do. Remember, many of the people searching for Medicare and other insurance information tend to be relatives of seniors who are more Web savvy. So make sure you setup accounts on these sites and include them in your traditional marketing materials. And once you’ve set them up make sure you maintain them by linking to different content on your site or getting out important information fast. For example with Twitter you can inform them “GA United of Omaha now Available. Call 1-800-555-5555 for more info” as soon as you find out. Best of all? These tools are free.

3.) Get Partner Links. Nothing is free, but many things don’t have to cost money. Is there an organization in your industry that doesn’t compete directly with you? Partner with them and exchange links. For example, if you only sell Medicare products, you may want to link to an organization you trust that focuses on long-term-care products. The partner of course will link to your site in exchange and you’ll generate referrals from that site.

4.) Speak Up. Who doesn’t like free advice? This is where blogging comes in. The most important thing about a blog is to keep it updated. The vast majority of blogs are abandoned after just a few weeks. So if you want your blog to be a referral tool, you have to maintain it and maintain it well. Anyone can just link to content already created or reword existing articles. Take the time to offer your unique expertise and professional opinion and your customers will keep coming back to learn more and refer your blog to others. Don’t have time to write extensive blogs? Then consider commenting on other blogs and through Internet forums frequented by seniors. Seniors love to talk and read about current events – leverage it.

5.) Broadcast Yourself. Don’t like writing? Make a Web video. Don’t like how you look on video? Make an audio podcast. Just like blogging, you can spread your wealth of knowledge and other information through these other effective mediums. Once you’ve created the content, you may be wondering how exactly to get it out there for everyone to see. Well there is the famous YouTube, but you’ll also want to post your content on these other great sites that can generate organic leads to your site:

Delicious
Digg
Facebook
Flickr
LinkedIn
StumbleUpon
Twitter
YouTube
PRweb

These are just a sample of the thousands of sites where you can post your content. The more places you post – the more potential customers will find you.

Whether your business has existed for five months or fifty years, organizational brand management is vital to the ongoing growth and success of your organization. Despite its importance, you’d be surprised at the amount of neglect this aspect of business management receives. Great brand management has many benefits including:

• Appear “bigger” than you really are and/or better than the competition
• Increased customer loyalty and referrals
• Increased mind share among potential and existing customers
• Enhanced ability to attract customers of competing organizations
• Easier sales process

On the flip side, poor brand management can be very detrimental to your business:

• You appear incompetent and/or inferior to the competition
• Lose both existing and potential customers
• You are forgotten immediately
• Very difficult or nearly impossible sales process
• No future growth opportunities

Though at first it may not appear that you have much control over what other people think of your organization, there are many factors (conditions or acts) that you can control or at the very least influence to continuously improve your personal or organization brand. Here are five effective methods that we recommend for enhancing your brand.

1. Write a brand management plan: Before you can manage your brand, you need to know what you are managing. Take time to gather your leaders and determine what branding goals you want to accomplish. Some things to think about include “What is our identity?” “What do we want to specialize in?” “Do we want to be seen as an innovator?” Your plan doesn’t have to be an encyclopedia, just enough to get the point across throughout your organization. I like the old saying that says “If it’s not worth writing down, it’s not worth doing.”

2. Go beyond selling: In the process of marketing and selling to as many people as possible, many organizations forget the true value of the selling – improving the situation of the customer. Yes we all have numbers to hit, but that should not come at the expense of the long-term growth of your organization. Improving the situation of the customer not only means bringing them better products, but also providing excellent support of those products, educating your customers on how to further improve their situations, and getting to know their motivations (family, money, security).

3. Don’t brand based on price: O.K., so many of you may think this is ignoring marketplace realities, however hear me out for a second. Basing your brand on price alone is self-defeating primarily because in the race to the bottom, someone will always beat you there. Of course there are cases where you have to revert to the lowest price, just don’t make it a habit. Focus your marketing on your organization’s or product’s advantages, that way when everyone is offering the same “lowest” price, you’ll be the one making the sale and have the opportunity to cross sell on a higher margin product.

4. Under-promise and over-deliver: The fastest way of driving your brand into the dirt is to not follow through on your obligations. Although it is natural to want to actively make your organization appear to be the best by screaming it to the ends of the Earth, this strategy can backfire very quickly if you can’t meet the expectations you have created. Foster excitement among your clients and the market in general by being modest and truthful with what your organization can do and then exceed their expectations by giving them more value or world-class service (within constraints of course).

5.Turn brand problems into brand opportunities: Bad things happen – it’s just a fact of life and business. Rather than hide, minimize, or outright lie about mistakes or problems, the best method is to analyze the situation, determine a solution, and then market how your organization can be better because of it. One famous case is Tylenol. In 1982, seven people died after taking Tylenol pain-relief capsules that had been poisoned by a criminal who has yet to be identified to this day. This incident could have literally put Tylenol out of business; however they proactively addressed the problem leading to the creation of federal anti-tampering laws and reforms of over-the-counter packaging. Tylenol and parent company Johnson & Johnson were praised by the media for its handling of the incident. In seven years Tylenol became the most popular over-the-counter analgesic in the U.S.

In the June 2009 issue of Senior Market Advisor, the magazine has a special feature entitled "100 Best Sales and Marketing Ideas." The ideas are all generated by producers such as yourself, so most of the ideas are probably applicable to your situation. If you go through all 100 ideas, you will see that they all can be summed up into 5 methods that can successfully grow your business.

1. Networking: The vast majority of the ideas are related to networking, most likely because this is the most effective method of growing your business. Hosting workshops, seminars, church meetings, and other events were said to be a great method of reaching large groups of new customers. Getting to know and partnering with other professionals in related fields, such as CPAs, lawyers, doctors, and so forth is another effective method for getting in touch with potential customers.

2. New Technology: With more and more seniors and baby-boomers utilizing the latest technology, many of the respondents suggested that having a Web site is a must, but that to really succeed, you need to implement SEO to be found on the search engines, as well as market your business through major networking sites LinkedIn and Facebook. Also be on the lookout for Internet applications that can streamline your business process such as salesforce.com.

3. Old Technology: As great as all the new technology is, it alone does not make a successful business. Some of the agents state that nothing is more effective at generating business than picking up the phone and calling (we entirely support this argument). Direct mail programs are also still said to be very effective at generating leads, as the majority of the senior market still isn't online. Additionally, faxing is still a quick, simple way for transmitting certain types of documents, especially those requiring written signatures.

4. Relationship Management: Many of the ideas mentioned were related to managing the relationships you have with existing customers. This is vital, as retaining customers costs five times less than acquiring new customers (quality management principle). Basically, you should call your customers at regular intervals to see how they are doing and to educate them on new products. Being a good listener was an idea that came up in the feature several times. There was also a common theme of treating potential clients like existing ones. Even if they don't want your business, they most likely know someone who does.

5. Education: Many of the respondents stressed the importance of continuing education, both formal and informal. We agree as one of the fastest ways to lose business is to pretend to know something you don't. Knowing the latest trends in products, technology, market trends, and so forth is an essential ingredient to success. Establishing yourself as an expert source in your network or community can generate many leads by itself. Another common theme was that sharing knowledge freely without asking for anything in return adds to the credibility of your business.

If you have the time, we recommend reading the feature. Though most of the ideas are techniques you already know, you may just find one or two new nuggets of knowledge that can spark the next great idea for your business.

With no major developments occurring in our industry this week, we thought this would be an opportune time to update you on developments occurring here as we strive to bring our agents the best products, tools, information, and community. At PSM we not only focus on agent recruiting, but also on agent retention. As such, we want to hear from you on what we can do to help you further your business productivity, from Web site features to administrative services.

Online Contracting
Our most popular tool, online contracting from PSM dramatically improves the convenience of contracting with the competitive carriers that we represent. Now you can contract with multiple companies through an easy 3-step process that takes about 10 minutes and only requires a 1-page fax. Find out more

Med Supp by Phone
Ever wonder how the top producers do it? Its simple - they leverage the latest technology to service a national market. Through a combination of old and new (phone and internet), top producers are selling Medicare supplement products from the Mutual of Omaha companies throughout the United States without ever leaving their offices. Let us show you how

UnitedHealthcare Med Supp & Med Adv Now Available
PSM is proud to now offer what is arguably the most popular medicare supplement product from the nation's leading, senior-oriented non-profit organization. This product is underwritten by UnitedHealthcare, one of the biggest and most stable insurance companies on the market. Tell me more

Poll of the Week
We're really excited about his one. Ever wonder just how many agents think the same way you do on a particular controversial issue? Well now you can find out with our new Poll of the Week feature. Each week we will pose a question or topic that you can vote on. Every Friday we will calculate and post the results from the previous week's poll, as well as post a new poll question. You also have the option to comment on your vote if you feel the need to elaborate on how you feel on a given topic. I will post select comments along with the results. Take me there

Hot or Not Industry News
Yet another cool feature, we now have a page that links to the latest, most relevant news articles on the Web. Additionally, you can vote on each article, as well as make comments. Your votes will either push a given article up or down on the list. Articles will be ordered in terms of popularity. Since our blog is focused only on the biggest industry developments each week, we have added this feature to bring you other recent developments that you may find informative to read about and comment on. Let me vote

Social Media
PSM is now on the three major social networking sites LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. In addition to our company page, we have also created the Senior Insurance Agents Group on both LinkedIn and Facebook. This is a great way to directly communicate with other agents throughout the states and to show your affiliation with the insurance for the exploding senior market.

LinkedIn Senior Insurance Agents Page

Facebook Senior Insurance Agents Page

Twitter Page

New Partnerships
When a particular service to our agents falls outside our scope of business, PSM partners with the best companies.

Continuing education credits are a necessity for our agents, so we've joined with 360Training.com to give our agents a discount on online CE courses. Now you can get your CE credits from wherever you have an internet connection. I want to learn more

Lead generation is yet another high-demand service. As such, we have partnered with multiple companies to offer discounts and competitive pricing on an array of lead generation products and services. We are proud to announce our newest partnership with The Directory, Inc., a company that has a wealth of experience, many satisfied customers, and an informative Web site. Let me check them out

Incentives are key in motivating our agents to maximize the potential of the senior market. Despite the current recession, where others are cutting costs, PSM continues to invest in its agents by rewarding superior performance. This time we've partnered with Mutual of Omaha to offer an amazing, 4-day port of choice cruise for agents that place $63,000 in premiums with any of the Mutual companies between May 15 and August 15. For more information call 1-800-998-7715.

Blog Views
Considering our blog has only been live for about 3 months now, we are proud to say that each week we average about 800 page views and are continuing to see growth as word spreads. So for those of you wondering whether anyone reads your comments, well, now you know your potential audience.

Last Thing (We Promise)
In observance of Memorial Day, PSM will be closed on Monday, May 25. Have a great three-day weekend, and thank you for tuning in each week. We hope you find our blog posts to be both informative and intellectually stimulating.

Proactively call your clients to alleviate their fears and concerns
The current recession is worsening everyday and is affecting the vast majority of people and businesses in some way.  One of the segments of society that has been hit hardest is the senior market.  Investments made by many seniors have seen huge losses, causing them to question the security of their retirements.  The doom and gloom stories of mass media are only fueling the concerns of seniors, with many articles spreading FUD.

As an expert, now is the perfect time to call your clients and answer questions, as well as correct any misinformation they may have come across.  Providing answers to their questions will alleviate their fears and concerns and further strengthen your advisor-client relationship.  If you don’t have the answers, work with them to find a solution – an excellent opportunity to cross sell a new product.

Quality in business is all about exceeding customer expectations.  “Exciters” are product and service benefits that excite customers because they don’t expect them.  Exciters are vital to increasing customer loyalty, recommendations, and brand image.  Proactively calling your clients, recession or no recession, is an exciter that is a sure way to grow your business over the long term.  Remember, retaining a current client costs five times less than gaining a new one.