Get Your CRM Engine Revving

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programs are pure adrenaline to sales driven organizations – life insurance agencies are no exception. Follow these tips to ensure your CRM tools are juicing up your sales force momentum, not draining it.

1. Play it cool

Sure, your insurance agents need a little panache to get the job done, but your CRM systems don’t.

Keep it simple. Flare is for the cheesy theme restaurant you hit up for cheap happy hour after work. Any aspect of your CRM system that doesn’t perform a viable function should kick rocks.

CRM’s were developed to make your sales force more productive. Any distraction from that train of thought is a waste of precious resources – your time and your money.

2. Bust a move

Technology has expanded the playing field beyond the confines of an office. We are no longer chained to land lines – so why should your sales data be?

Implement a mobile friendly option into your CRM system to keep your life insurance agents up to date on client stats no matter where they are.

Any successful salesman will tell you they’ve had their fair share of days working around the clock. Every minute you’re not available to your clients is another lucrative opportunity lost. Get after it.

3. Momma didn’t raise no fool

Customers know you are on the hunt for their data – what they don’t want is you creeping around in their comfort zone or treating them like just another number.

Michael Wong, the big chief revitalizing Austrade’s CRM program, remarked on a worrisome trend of companies focusing too closely on the basic platform and technology that CRM’s rest on.

It is important not to forget about the human element that fueled CRM development in the first place. Wong said, “You want them to engage more with your platforms, whereas customers just want to engage as a human and on their terms,” he said. “You want data – lots of it – and the customer wants privacy.

“If your customers aren’t satisfied their outcomes are being met, they’re just going to go elsewhere. At its most basic, if you don’t get this about CRM, you don’t get them. That’s a failure point of your CRM.”

The mob is fickle – ignore the cries of the republic and you will surely face professional execution.

4. All for one

Successful CRM’s aren’t built under the domineering hand of a dictatorship – they require a collage of ideas from every angle of your business.

You need cohesion between your sales team on the front line, the brains in IT, and the creative folks in marketing to a get a comprehensive understanding of what type of CRM best suits your needs.

If you don’t engage all the top minds in your office repertoire there is almost a guarantee that something significant, even brilliant, may fall by the wayside.

Final thoughts…

An astronomical amount of cash is being thrown at CRM development.

According to Gartner, investment in CRM software is up thirteen percent from 2013 – swelling to a little over twenty three billion in 2014.

Don’t set your bank roll on fire – make sure you’re getting the most out of your CRM program.

Digital Marketing – Brand Building on Fleek

Strategies for insurance and financial marketing have evolved drastically over the years… follow these tips to build your brand and ensure you don’t get left in the cyber-dust.

1. Get emoji-nal

What did we do before emojis? I mean, nothing says I love you these days like a winking smiley face blowing a heart kiss, am I right? All kidding aside, emojis are no joke. They bring a visceral element to the visual communication table our current culture feeds on.

And when it comes to circulation, emojis have their cake and eat it too. Nearly as many emojis are used in digital messaging as there are people in the world – six billion every day according to data from eMarketer.

Instagram even allows you to hashtag emojis as they dominated over half of posts. Snaps, the brainchild behind the chicken fry emoji for Burger King, will design an entire emoji suite customized to building your brand.

A picture is worth a thousand words, but apparently an emoji is worth a billion.

2. Hey shawdy

Blink and you’ll miss it… literally. In this age of instant gratification, life insurance agencies need to wrap it up and get to the point. Or at least take a little off the err… end. You know the feeling, strategically hovering your cursor over the “Skip ad in…” countdown button like a vulture so you can satisfy your guilty pleasures on that new viral kitten video.

Forcing unnecessary extended media on consumers breeds annoyance and you inadvertently become “that guy” at the party – subconsciously imprinting your demographic with a formula that reads [your ad] + [ugh, again?] = [ignore].

Not good at math?

Picture this – If your ad had a Tinder profile, consumers would swipe a hard left.

So how do you recover? Get low – An ad that lasts for only a few seconds is too quick to skip and too quick to ignore. According to a recent study conducted by AOL, short videos are more effective at elevating brand recall and increasing the consumer’s intent to purchase than traditional long ones.

3. Don’t work hard, work Smartphone

Lewis and Clark had Sacajawea, we have Siri. The call of the wild instinct within us hasn’t changed much over the years – our means to complete the expedition surely has though.

When it comes to exploring the digital frontier, smartphones are the horse and carriage carrying us through these days. With over half of all searches now being conducted on a smartphone, you’re going to want to ensure your insurance and financial marketing is mobile friendly.

Vice President of Product Management at Google, Jerry Dischler, stated that users now search online in a manner that Google is referring to as “micro-moments,” – brief intervals of search activity. Google even relocated their mobile ad placement to the top of the results page, reducing the amount of time you spend scrolling down the screen.

Social media users are the distribution partners of the new era. Every “like,” “re-gram,” or “#” in and around your logo is pure unadulterated brand building without you having to drop a hot dollar.

Advertising is crucial and consumers understand they must barter for free content, but you also don’t want them associating your brand with wasting time. Modify your media to match the “on-the-go” consumer attitude or get left behind.

Final thoughts…

Digital marketing in today’s world is a lot like the old west – you have to keep up not catch up cowboy. Stop and rest your boot heels for even a short spell and you’ll end up watching other life insurance agents ride off in the sunset with your tin. Keep your eyes on the trail ahead and when you’re looking to barter remember to keep it short, keep it sweet, and keep it moving.