Effective Insurance Email Marketing
Have you heard that nobody reads marketing emails anymore, or that Google’s new segmented tabs make getting messages in front of prospective clients difficult? While there may be some truth to both of these statements, email is still a very effective tool for when you want to connect directly with your clients. In fact, a study by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) shows email drives more ROI for 67% of companies than any other form of outreach.
So, what is effective email marketing? Many marketing departments broadcast their email ad two to three times per month with an offer or big claim, and call that email marketing. However, there is much more skill and thought involved than that. The first step to creating a successful email marketing campaign is to understand when your customers are most likely to read their emails.
Your email open rates could simply be low because of the time of the day that they are sent. It’s important to research and find out the times when people are most likely to be using their email without choosing the same time as your competitors. For example, it may be more effective to send business emails in the evening rather than first thing in the morning, since morning emails are more likely to get buried under the recipients’ higher priority messages.
Most agencies, MGAs and wholesalers, 39% of them to be exact, tend to send marketing emails between the hours of 6 am and noon. You might not want to do this if you are offering consumers life, home, or auto insurance. For these personal lines groups, there is proof that most people are checking their email between the hours of 6pm and midnight. According to research done by Experian Marketing, email that is sent later in the evening may experience a smaller percentage of transactions, but the average order is much greater. If your marketing department is doing their own email campaign, it’s a good idea to try possible options. Maybe you can consider early afternoon, just have people have returned from lunch. Or another time might be early evening, so emails are waiting for people when they arrive home from work or after dinner.
The best way to determine what works best for your company is to gather the available data and then test the theories. Send messages to segmented lists at various times during the week and note which times work best. If your agency, MGA or wholesaler is not already implementing an email marketing campaign, let Neilson Marketing develop an integrated results-driven digital marketing strategy to benefit your business. Email Marketing provides you with the opportunity to boost sales, cross-market, and solidify lifelong customer relationships.