As they say, necessity is the mother of invention. Insurance agencies clearly need help with marketing. And that need led us to start our marketing division at Q4i where we provide help and guidance in developing and managing the critical marketing functions all agencies need to be embracing.
I’m concerned about some of the activity I see playing out among brokers and advisors with their online social activity. And I’d like to note that paradoxically this concern is actually a cause for celebration.
LinkedIn is an amazing tool if you choose to take advantage of it in a way that can expand your network and open your mind to new ideas and educational opportunities. At Q4i, we’ve long felt that the power of LinkedIn was substantial, and as more people joined in and started to participate in a productive way, we felt that it would grow in importance and we’d all benefit from it.
In the hustle and bustle of the Q4 crazy, planning your marketing strategy for the upcoming year can easily get shifted to last on the list when it comes to prioritization.
Unfortunately, the more this gets pushed aside, the more you will find yourself scrambling at the beginning of the year to get your ducks in a row.
We have had a huge marketing epiphany. Okay, epiphany may be a little strong, but we’ve had a whole lotta learnin’.
Marketing in a New Era.
This is the subject line of an email I received from a benefits producer I correspond with occasionally. He replies to articles and brings up thoughtful questions, and then we have some back and forth exchanges. I want to share one with you that I felt was particularly relevant to our readers regarding insurance sales and marketing.
People don’t buy what you sell. They buy you and your ideas. And when all you talk about are your products, you’re losing potential buyers.
Marketing has taken on a critical new role for insurance agencies, and understanding what that role is, how it impacts your business, and what you need to do about it is simply table-stakes for successful businesses. It’s not a nice-to-have anymore, and it’s time to decide that you’re either going to commit to it, or you’re going to become increasingly irrelevant to potential buyers. Your choice.
I have the craziest conversations with people telling me that social media and marketing activities are a waste of time, and they don’t see how social/marketing could influence anything substantial, like their business. And when I look at their LinkedIn profiles, I see zero activity. Yet, some have hundreds of connections.
Go figure? They believe in it enough to use it as a Rolodex, but don’t believe in it enough to actually use it for strengthening their business connections.
Full Disclosure – Ours posts are 99.9% purely educational. However, this is one half of the .1% exception. While it primarily focuses on explaining why marketing is important to your growth, it also introduces our new division for insurance agency marketing and lead generation – Sales Enablement Services.