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How do you know which insurance brands will become obsolete come 2025? Take a look at some of today’s most common insurance brands.Some are all too rationally focused, and have mediocre commercials that revolve entirely around insurance. I personally feel some of these brands will expire a lot sooner than 2025. As more consumers begin to realize they can opt out of advertisements online, insurance brands will surely see that their information is not getting through.
So “Who wins?” is the million dollar question.
Staying Relevant to the “Now”
With over 1.85 million monthly visitors, Esurance.com surpasses the monthly desktop traffic of both Liberty Mutual and Nationwide. It was surprising to me to see that, and I bet it surprised a lot of you as well. On the contrary, Nationwide’s microsite (definition of a microsite), Make Safe Happen, was built around a campaign by the same name, and has seen traffic drop to 1,100 monthly desktop visitors. Furthermore, this illustrates the point that the overall theme of insurance was not sustainable over a longer period of time. The answer to the million dollar question lies within the insurance agency’s brand.
Let’s get off track a moment; within the past month or so, have you looked at the numbers of Instagram? If not, let me help you: Instagram has reached over 400 million users, yes 400 million, and they did it in a short amount of time. Why so fast? Their users are younger, and they are looking for the visual communication, hence why I say visual content is the king of the social world. Esurance is better positioned, and their numbers are looking better than Geico. Many of us question why this is, but it’s because insurance was looked at differently back then. Today, insurers need to think “outside the box,” which is moving them away from marketing coverage. The personal lines marketing world is about savings and speed, which is all about convenience.
Let’s think about marketing in the insurance space prior to the emergence of the digital world. Insurance was just simply insurance before, right? Now as we look into the digital world, we have entered into a new era. It’s an era of multi-dimensional rivalry between the “Progressives” of the world, which are really just technology companies being competitive in their selling of insurance. My point is that we are independent insurance agents, and we need to think differently than we did 10 years ago because technology has had a huge effect on buying habits in our industry.
Look at Geico; their ads are all about their mobile App. Why do you think they are spending millions of dollars trying to get clients and prospects to download there app? Because they are collecting data, and they are marketing to you at a low cost. Think about it, once you download their app, they can tell who you are, and they can start to send you 
push notifications. Push notifications through their app can give you a message at any time, including while you’re texting one of your clients; think about the power of that. The other reason is simply because the number one way millennials buy insurance is based on convenience.
It needs to be easy. Think about this, inside of Geico’s app you have your insurance card, declaration pages, can see your coverage, and you even can pay your bill with one touch of a button. The question is, does your agency have an app? And if not, do you think it’s important? Our agency does, and it has all the same features that allow our clients to pay their bills or report a claim on their time (our agency’s app is www.goinsuranceagent.com).
Digital Marketing Enables Disruption
The law of averages is quickly making room for personalization and individual policy pricing, thanks to telematics. Digital marketing is still very much alive and working well, especially for those who are adapting to this visually focused content world. Yes, the world was used to asymmetric information, but it has been replaced with big data. This all came about thanks to companies like Apple who developed smart phones and other smart devices that have changed the consumer. Today’s consumer wants things on their time, wants to educate themselves at their convenience, and they want to be engaged rather than be sold. So as an agency owner, I would ask you to challenge yourself to think indifferent, and don’t be afraid to invest in technology.
So as I asked earlier, who wins? Well, I personally feel the independent insurance agent can and will win this battle, as long as we are willing to change. We need to change our thought process and have willingness to invest in technology. All the while, we should have a social media marketing staff member and a willingness to listen to agencies like Forrester Research about buying habits. With change, we will win!
