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Digital marketing is still a great strategy to connect with prospects, brand with existing clients and build a relationship with future business owners. Digital marketing to your prospects and/or clients for personal lines insurance can lead to a lot of new business, but most importantly it will lead to a higher retention rate. The key factor here is not simply digital marketing, it’s the ability to put out great content that will cause your prospects and/or clients to open that email. Let’s talk about some key factors that will help your agency get a higher open rate.
I personally feel that one of the major factors in getting our emails opened is the header. The header needs to be precise and interesting, but most importantly it cannot have any words that will send it into the spam box. Another key factor is the opening sentence within your email. In many email programs, the subject line and the first sentence are visible to the user, so if your opening sentence is weak, then chances are your email will make its way into the trash folder.
Additionally, make the email personally from you. You can always take the “from” portion of your email and humanize it. This is important because it shouldn’t sound vague; instead be original and be YOU. The personal touch is very important because it will significantly enhance the chances of your email being opened instead of deleted.
When putting together an email blast, I believe that you should use email authentication because anyone can send an email claiming to be anyone. This is how scams and phishing occur in the Internet world. In order to prevent these emails from wreaking havoc, email providers such as Google and Yahoo verify if the sender is who they actually claim to be. Individual ISPs also have a method that they can use to protect their users from scam emails. Remember, by using email authentication, you will definitely increase your chances of getting your emails opened up by clients and prospects.
When we refer to improving email open rates, we are talking about the percentage of how many emails are actually opened versus company emails sent. Remember to look at your email list, as it may likely have dead weight (meaning you have a lot of email addresses that are no longer valid) so make sure to take the time to go through the list every now and then.
The last piece of advice I would give is to review your past email blasts and understand their results. I know that our agency’s emails have the best open ratio on Tuesday afternoons between one and four o’clock, as well as in the late mornings and early afternoons on Thursdays. We absolutely avoid Monday mornings and Fridays because if you do some research you will see those are days that have much lower open rates, probably due to the circumstances that most people are in when they first show up to work on Monday morning and when they have checked out Friday afternoon. Do your research and spend the time making sure you’re digitally marketing at the right time of the day and week. There is absolutely no ROI in an email blast with a very low open ratio. If it’s not being opened, what good does it do for your agency?
