If someone asks what you do, a likely answer might be “I’m an insurance agent” or “I sell insurance”. Are those the right answers?
The fact is your number 1 job is: Marketing.
No matter how much you know about insurance products and helping protect your clients with all their insurance needs, without a fresh supply of new prospects, none of that knowledge will be of use. Before anything else, you are a marketer. And as such, it is vital that you be on top of the latest trends in marketing so that you maximize your time, your budget, and always have a fresh supply of new prospects to convert into customers. One of the trends that could very well revolutionize how you market your agency (and be one of the most valuable business exercises you ever do) is creating what is known as MARKETING PERSONAS.
A Marketing Persona is simply a virtual snapshot you create of your ideal customers. This allows you to really get to know your ideal client base and in doing so, be able to offer them the exact info they need WHERE AND WHEN they need it. It allows you to laser focus your online efforts to find your prospects, speak to them in a way that makes them see you as the expert, and the only one who has the solutions they are seeking.
There are several ways to create these marketing personas, but the easiest way is simply to begin to create a fictional character who will represent one segment of your target audience. (Most marketers recommend creating 4-6 different marketing personas to effectively hit most of your core customer base you are looking to attract).
Here are a few questions you can use to begin creating your own marketing personas:
Gender: For the purposes of your initial creations, you can choose 2 women and 2 men.
Occupation: What occupations do these people have? Think about their work life, do they own their own business? Are they in a physically demanding job, or do they mostly work behind a keyboard? Think about the clients that you can help, the ones you have currently, and use this info to help answer these questions.
Detailed demographics: Continue to create the whole persona of each of your “characters.” Where do they live? Do they have kids? How old are they? The more detailed you get, the better you will be able to market to these exact people in the future.
What problems are they facing that you can solve: Once you have really built out the detailed bio of each of your marketing personas, think about how YOU can help solve the problems they have. List several key obstacles they may be facing in their lives and how what you do can help make their lives easier.
While there are certainly other variables and questions you can use to create your marketing personas, the above will give you a fantastic overall picture of a few of your ideal customers. This exercise will help cement in your mind (and the minds of your team members) exactly who your core client base is and with the information you have gathered in this exercise, you and your team will be better able to speak to the prospects you are looking to attract. Marketing personas are an excellent tool to use to plan your social media marketing strategy, create content for your email newsletter or blog, or even create content for an upcoming ad campaign.
Take some time, build out a few MARKETING PERSONAS, and you will have an amazing new tool in your marketing toolbox to reach out to new prospects and rapidly expand your client base! Need more questions to help build your marketing personas? If you found the information to be valuable, please hit the subscribe button for more information about insurance marketing.
Dshanya Reese, CIC 