When prospecting new clients for your insurance agency, touchpoints play an important role. There is no solid rule on how many touchpoints are enough, but there are some good guidelines to follow.
What Are Touchpoints?
As a refresher, a touchpoint refers to the interactions you have with potential customers during their buyer journey. It includes in-person conversations, voicemails, phone calls, and emails. Touchpoints are crucial as they boost engagement and help potential clients feel more connected with your agency. This is especially important for something personal like insurance.
More Touchpoints Is Better – Up to a Point
The general rule of thumb is that having more touchpoints is better. With each touchpoint, engagement will increase. But this effect typically stops somewhere around eight touchpoints. If you go past eight touchpoints, you may not see much additional engagement or potentially even a decrease. The potential decrease would be the result of clients feeling overwhelmed or harassed.
Look at Data to See How Many Touchpoints You Need
While eight touchpoints are a general rule of thumb, it is very general. It is not even specific to the insurance agency. The best way to figure out how many touchpoints you really need is to look at data from your own insurance agency. See how many touchpoints your typical client has before converting. There’s your answer.
The Most Important Touchpoints in Insurance
Now that you see you need a lot of touchpoints before converting a potential client, what should those touchpoints be?
Welcome Emails
One of your early goals in the conversion process is to get an email address. Once you have it, your first touchpoint will be a welcome email. You can automate this with your insurance agency management system. The welcome email is there to start creating a connection. It should include a call to action and a way to reach a real person. It should also highlight your unique value proposition.
Insurance Quotes
Another crucial touchpoint is the quote process. If someone asks for a quote, you can assume they are a hot lead and highly qualified.
Follow-up Emails After Quotes
While the insurance quote shows intent and is a touchpoint, you shouldn’t stop there. Follow it up with an email sequence to help you close the deal. Simply put, adding touchpoints here prevents you from losing the deal.
Follow-ups After Initial Policy Purchase
Touchpoints aren’t just part of the initial marketing process. They are also crucial for retaining clients. So, you can think of these touchpoints after the policy purchase as a way of marketing for renewals.
One perfect example of this is the touchpoint after the initial purchase of a policy. This is the time to reinforce the value your agency offers. Include personal contact information for their agent and encourage the new client to ask questions. Give them educational resources and confirm they don’t need any other types of insurance. This should all be part of your insurance agency’s onboarding process.
Surveys
Surveys are another great example of touchpoints for existing clients. That said, you can also send surveys to leads you didn’t convert to see if you can improve your sales process. Overall, surveys provide crucial feedback that can help your agency improve. At the same time, they show clients that you value their opinion. Of course, they also reinforce your connection with the client and remind them that you exist.
Testimonial Requests
Yet another post-sign-up touchpoint is when you ask for a testimonial or review. Reviews and testimonials are an excellent way for your agency to convince potential clients to use your services. But they also have benefits for your relationship with the client writing the review or testimonial.
Specifically, the act of writing the review can make the client remember all the things they love about working with your insurance agency. That can further solidify your agency-client relationship.
Check-in Emails
Throughout the year, it is smart to occasionally send your clients emails. This helps keep your agency fresh in their mind. It also strengthens your relationship. For organic engagement, consider sending messages on holidays, birthdays, or anniversaries. Or send emails about new rates or policies.
Payment Communications
Clients paying you is the most frequent touchpoint they will have. Make the most of it by doing more than just sending an email thanking them for paying. Consider adding some actionable information, such as about the insurance industry.
Renewal Communications
As mentioned, the goal of touchpoints after the initial policy purchase is to market for policy renewals. As such, renewal communications are a crucial type of touchpoint. Your clients expect you to contact them at this time, so meet their expectations. It also gives you a chance to round out those accounts.
Conclusion
The more touchpoints you incorporate into your sales funnel, the better you will engage with potential and current clients. This will help your insurance agency get the initial policy signup as well as renewals.