Direct Mail For Insurance businesses

Oct. 6

Written By Rebecca Morassutti | Business Growth Strategist | VA Mentor

Direct mail campaigns are a great way to advertise your insurance business. This image depicts two men laughing while signing paperwork in an office setting.

Cold calls. Ads. Billboards. TV spots. Getting the word out about your insurance company seems more complicated than ever. That’s without choosing from the dizzying array of new options online. Should you pay for Google ads? Or how about launching an Instagram account? There is also one option that’s wrongly seen as outdated: direct mail.

Direct mail for insurance agencies is more expensive than other more novel methods of lead generation. But that’s because it works. Rather than impersonal online ads (which are readily ignored), receiving a postcard, flyer, leaflet, or even a catalogue is more likely to get you to read it.

Nevertheless, direct mail is a pricey option. Is direct mail still a sensible way to attract new clients?

Why direct mail should be part of your customer acquisition plan

There are two broad schools of thought for attracting new clients. First is the new approach: build email lists and databases. Then, use targeted ad campaigns to direct your messages toward these potential clients. That creates several problems. For local or regional insurance companies, purchasing ads solely on a geographic basis is difficult. Nor is there any guarantee the algorithm has selected the right people to receive the ad. It’s a shot in the dark.

On the other hand, direct mail is still the preferred method for many customers to receive marketing. In 2012, an American study found 62% of respondents enjoyed checking their mailboxes. A further 73% preferred direct mail. They can read it at their convenience. Indeed, a pop-up ad or digital marketing demands your immediate attention, but direct mail lingers. It stays on the counter or gets pinned to a noticeboard. Even Millennials prefer direct mail, with 57% having purchased through direct mail.

However, direct mail needs to replace your existing or newer marketing strategies. These days an online presence is a must-have: it’s the modern storefront—the place you send people to for a consultation. The same is true today, and direct mail can help you drive traffic.

Here are some important facts to help appreciate the synergy.

After reading direct mail:

44% of recipients visited the company website
34% searched for the company online
26% saved the mail for future reference

Include a URL as a call to action or a QR code to ease the process. Direct mail and digital marketing aren’t mutually exclusive. They’re best when used together.

Improving lead generation with direct mail

As technology shifts, so too do marketing methods. Cars led to billboards; phones to cold calling. But while cold calling is going out of fashion (customers ignore calls or block numbers), mail is still popular. Everyone reads their mail and flicks through their letters. Therefore, identifying customers and sending them direct mail, guarantees someone will glance at your marketing. Collectively, that could be a major boost to your insurance company.

If you want to improve your lead generation, however, you’ll need to focus on two things:

Building a mailing list with an impact
Designing mail that sells your business

First up, building a mailing list can be difficult. You can use existing data on past customers – depending on local data protection laws. Or you can add to it from scratch. Lists don’t even need to be precise. Even identifying potential postcodes that have high populations of demographically ideal customers can improve lead generation. Some postal services even help create geographically targeted direct mail. No mailing list or permits are needed. It’s simple.

Once you’ve selected your targets, you’ll want a piece of mail with appeal. Using a copywriter is likely to be essential. They’ll take your message and refine it down to the core points. No one wants to read paragraphs directly from insurance companies. They want to know: Who are you? What do you sell? And how do you do it better?

Add a dash of good design – a clear, easily recognizable logo – and a prominent URL. You want to lodge in a person’s mind so next time they need insurance, you’re the first name they think of. Without being memorable for the wrong reasons, of course. Then, finish up with a call to action (a free consultation, free quote, or free guide). Anything to draw the customer in and start a conversation.

Benefits of using direct mail for insurance agencies

Marketing, at its core, is nothing more than a simple statistic: return on investment (ROI). In short, how much money you make relative to how much money you spend. No insurance company has unlimited funds. They need results.

Does direct mail deliver the goods?

Yes! Compared to newer forms of marketing, direct mail stacks up favourably. Direct mail had the second highest ROI in one survey, greater than paid search or online display ads. Indeed, it was only one percentage point lower than social media. Overall, direct mail boasts a response rate of around 5% compared to 0.6% for email. Mail is just harder to ignore.

That brings us to the key benefits:

Direct mail is real. People like to touch and hold things. (Believe it or not, physical books still outsell their digital copies.) They want to peruse and read a tangible leaflet. It’s real. It matters. Not like email campaigns, which blur into the white noise of digital messaging.
Because it’s tactile, it’s memorable. Eye-catching designs, stories about past customers, and handwritten notes from the CEO enhance your direct mail for insurance companies, deepening the appeal. If you’re particularly inventive, turn your leaflet into a coupon or add a useful guide to navigating an insurance dilemma.
You can be inventive. By embracing the possibilities, you set yourself out from the competition. Perhaps your insurance leaflet includes QR codes for your company's YouTube channel. Or, if you cater to an older demographic, promote your exceptional customer service with your phone number.
You become more memorable. Gone are the days when customers received a deluge of morning mail. With digital marketing dominating, there’s an opening to get noticed through direct mail. Now you only need to compete with a few flyers and brochures to stand out. It’s a prime opening.

Best practices of using direct mail for insurance companies

As with any marketing campaign, there are a few things to consider before planning your direct mailers. Taking these important factors into account will help ensure your campaign is a successful one.

Know your audience

To get the most out of direct mail: take your time. Start by identifying your target market. Do you sell home insurance, auto insurance, life insurance, or more? Each product needs a different piece of target mail. If you’re selling auto insurance, you might want to focus on neighbourhoods where car ownership is highest or where sales are increasing. Whereas if you sell life insurance, identifying new parents or older relatives is essential.

Test your campaign’s engagement

Once you’ve got your audience sorted: Test. Test. Test.

What do they think of the flyer? Does it engage them? What do they want to know more about?

Try a trial of your direct mail campaigns amongst a selected group and see their responses. Oh, and don’t forget to proofread the finished document. Nothing looks less professional than a typo or grammatical error.

Develop a call to action

In particular, focus on your take-home message: your call to action. For most insurance companies, that will likely be a free consultation—the chance to draw in a customer and start speaking.

You can do this through a website, phone number, or email. Consider how this reflects what you’re selling. For example, life insurance may require a more personal conversation than insuring a customer’s car.

Follow-up

Last, keep track of who engages with your advert. These are your prime potential customers.

Next time you launch a new direct mail campaign, these people should be at the top of your mailing list. Additionally, if you link your physical and digital marketing campaigns, you can track people through social media or access their addresses by getting them to order a free insurance guide.

The conclusion

Contrary to reports, direct mail is as useful as ever. While other marketing campaigns suffer from a scattergun approach, direct mail can be targeted, lucrative, and effective. Insurance companies provide a chance to engage with regional and local customers, integrate old and modern techniques, and make the most of an underutilised marketing method.

The only question is, how will you plan your next direct mail campaign?