Knowing your market is key to selling effectively. Knowing or understanding more about your market will improve your chances of selling insurance. They will be able to trust you in delivering a product that meets their needs, not only because they will understand why they require insurance policies.
GeoMarketing can be described as a marketing strategy that uses geographical data to enhance your marketing and sales efforts. This allows you to expand the reach of your marketing efforts in a meaningful and successful way. Let’s discuss some of the reasons why this approach is so important.
GeoMarketing: Extreme-Specific Needs-Based Sales
Insurance is not an impulse purchase. It is a purposeful product. Insurance is purchased solely on the basis of need. It must be required by a lender to protect assets and provide income to heirs. It makes sense that appealing to someone’s needs is the best way to get them to purchase insurance.
GeoMarketing can give you an edge and allow you to pinpoint your needs better. You can gain a better understanding about the market and their unique risks by defining it by zip code, county, city, town or country. This information will allow you to create a targeted marketing plan that addresses the specific concerns of your target market. It will also help you capture their attention easier, as you speak directly to their needs.
Consider an area that has a new housing development. These residents are likely to be newcomers to the area and have no relationships or insurance agents they can call. The new homes they are moving into will be built to the latest building codes. Therefore, their home insurance needs should not be based on natural disasters or hurricane risk. If the development is located in a flood zone, a different approach might be necessary. To reach prospects, advertisements in new home buyer guides and networking with builders will work.
An area that has a lot of older homes may be more worried about the possibility of extreme weather or other risks. Your closing ratio will increase if you identify the best ways your markets can insure these specific risks.
Consider areas that are populated primarily by retired people or young families with children. You can target each of these groups with ease and meet their different auto and home needs.
GeoMarketing to Narrow Target
If you take a look at the current policyholders, you may notice that you are more successful in one area than in another. You may have more marketing effort in these areas or a better understanding of the risks facing the people in that area. You can start to think about how you can improve on what you have done well.
You might also consider other areas that you are not getting as much business. You can then create a marketing campaign based on these geo-specific needs.
Monitoring your GeoMarketing Results
You must track the success of your GeoMarketing campaign, just like any marketing plan. You should track the following data:
- What number of leads are you getting in the newly targeted areas?
- How many of these leads turn into sales?
- Are you able to offer insurance products which meet the geo-targeted requirements you are looking for?
You might consider changing your approach to marketing if you are having difficulty closing sales or getting leads. If you have sent out direct mail flyers and have not received any leads, cold calling, electronic approaches, or advertising in local newspapers might be options. You might want to spend more time understanding the risks that your geo-centric leads face if you’re having trouble keeping your closing ratio up. You may need to be more familiar with the risks to truly appeal to your new geo-centric leads.
The wireless internet is closing many gaps. This is an exciting time for the insurance industry. Each agent must make sure they are maximizing every opportunity to gain an advantage. GeoMarketing is a great way to find leads and increase persistence. It also allows you to close more sales by ensuring that you have the best policies for your clients.
