Your
website:
One size does not fit
all. If you’re going to be in the Medicare Supplement (or Medicare Advantage)
market, you need a website that caters to seniors. That includes a site that
speaks to their needs and desires.
You also need one that
is visually appealing to seniors; that means a design and functionality that
work best for your audience: larger font size and easier, more intuitive
website navigation.
Not only is the broker population changing, but the
approach to selling is also changing. A “kitchen table sale” was fairly common
in days past, but not so anymore as seniors are increasingly uncomfortable
inviting strangers into their homes
A
different approach for a different kind of market
Today, one of the best
ways to sell Medicare Supplement (Medigap) plans is to fuse technology with
tried and true sales fundamentals. Targeting is key. Offering the right
products is important. The most successful agents view their role as a medicare
sales broker as more than a job. They provide their clients with a tailored
product offering which helps them advance in their careers.
Technology can help
connect you with seniors eager to buy, while also helping you id entify the carriers that are offering the
top-selling or newest products in your area.
How to Market and Sell Medicare Supplement
Insurance
Agents/brokers must be licensed in the State in
which they do business, annually complete training and pass a test on their
knowledge of Medicare and health and prescription drug plans, and follow all
Medicare marketing rules.
Agents/brokers are subject to rigorous
oversight by their contracted health or drug plans and face the risk of loss of
licensure with their State and termination with their contracted health or drug
plans if they don't comply with strict rules related to selling to and
enrolling Medicare beneficiaries in Medicare plans.
In spite of an
increasing older population, there are fewer insurance agents today serving the
market. The pool of brokers is spread thin in addressing the needs of a growing
market segment.
.
Direct
mailings — is also valuable, because it can be highly targeted.
“You can
get USPS Every Door Direct Mail that lrrets you target by communities or mail
carrier routes in a community. It’s very targeted geographically,
“Direct
mail isn’t about how many you can send out — it can be 500 if it’s an exact
target for your business.”
How do
Medicare brokers get paid?
Independent Medicare insurance agents are paid by the insurance companies. Your monthly premium for your policy
includes a commission built in for your agent. If you enroll through an agent (Medicare
broker), the agent gets paid that commission, and you get all of the support provided by that
agent.
There are many sources
of senior, Medicare-eligible leads – direct mail companies, telemarketers, and
others. The quality of your lead will influence your likely success. Technology
can help you better target your audience.
For more information
on finding and purchasing leads, click here.
Examine
the market:
Identify the right
market for you. Your only limit is your licensing. If the market is better in
your neighboring states, don’t be discouraged. Get licensed there and go
where your sales opportunities are greater.
The truth is that
about 10 states account for nearly half of the current senior marketplace. It’s
probably no surprise to find counties in Arizona
and Florida on the list of areas with the
largest percentage of 65+ residents in the U.S.
Qualify
your prospects:
Your outreach process
should pre- qualify your leads – saving time for both you and your prospect.
Things you’ll want to uncover during your first call are:
- Do they have current insurance?
- If so, what kind of coverage do they have?
- With whom is their insurance?
- How much are they paying?
- What would it take to get them to consider a change?
- What’s covered? Are there any health issues to be
considered? (This could include network provider considerations as well as
ongoing prescription drug needs.)
Lead
management and nurturing:
If your prospect isn’t
a match for a Medicare Supplement sale right now, maybe a Medicare Advantage
plan would make sense. Even if you don’t make a sale, you will want to retain your
prospect’s information, as it could lead to a future sale or referral.
You can turn lemons
into lemonade by building a non-responder list for your follow up later. Maybe
your prospect’s spouse is turning 65 in the future, or maybe they’re been in a
Medicare Advantage plan and will want to consider a move to a Medigap policy
today.
With Individual &
Family Plan business in flux, what’s a broker to do to make up for the lost
income? Help your clients, and yourself, by getting into the growing – and
lucrative – Medicare marketplace.
ABC LEARN ON LINE SUCCESS
1. Implement Content Marketing
As an insurance agent, your primary focus is
on clients who are in need of an insurance policy right now. However, you also
need to focus on keeping in contact with clients during the months and years in
between these transactions. For clients in that phase of life, seeing posts
about needing insurance is not relevant. Instead, share and send content that
is full of valuable information applicable to clients no matter where they are
in the insurance process. This way you stay top of mind so
they remember you when it counts.
.
2. Embrace Social Media
Most
everyone is using social media, but as an insurance agent, are you using these
channels to grow and nurture your business? If you said no, make this your goal
for 2018. When thinking about where client and prospects are, you can find them
online.
One
mistake that insurance agents make with social media is only posting “boring”
information about insurance. Get creative and share content to all of your
pages that is engaging and valuable, regardless of whether they are currently
in the market for a policy or not. Post interesting questions and ask your
network share their own thoughts in the comments, and be sure to respond when
they do. This is another way to engage with your clients and potential clients
that’s fun and doesn’t feel like work.
7 Steps to Start Social Media Content
1. Quality vs. Quantity
2. What do you intend to accomplish
3. Define your target
4. Choose one social media to start and work on
5. Then go to the next one
6. Videos and Images great content
7. Post Frequently and respond to comments
Get an
Intern forr Internet Marketing
Consultant or call your local
college.
3. Monitor Your Online Reviews
Consumers have quite a bit of power to make or
break your company’s reputation through sites such as Google Reviews, Yelp, and
Facebook reviews. In fact, 97 percent of
consumers read online reviews for local businesses in 2017 and
85 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation.
With percentages like this, obtaining these online reviews is important and
should be added to your business activities for 2018.
Wondering how to do this? The quick answer is
to do great work and have happy customers who want to brag about you. Customers
may not know how valuable these reviews are to you, so taking the time to ask
for these reviews is important. If you need to reach out for help with building
up your online reviews, we’ve put
together 10 tips on how to ask.
Managing
your online reputation requires you to monitor sites and be proactive in
addressing these. Having the ability to leave a positive review also means a
customer may leave a negative one. The best way to deal with any negative
reviews is by following up, asking questions and discovering what you can do to
better address the situation in the future. Remember that you won’t be able to
make every customer 100% happy, and that’s okay. Do your best work and provide
great customer service and your loyal customer base will grow and so will your
positive reviews.
4. Ensure Brand Consistency
This
means having a consistent brand across all online and offline channels. What
this doesn’t mean is uploading a logo or headshot to every site that may be
applicable to your business and never returning. You need to ensure that your
information is the same on each channel – your website, review sites, social
media profiles etc – and then continue actively monitoring it.
Besides
information and images the experience a prospect or client encounters on each
channel should be consistent. Respond to messages, tweets, emails and phone
calls in the same tone and communicating the same information. The experience
of each client or prospect should be the same regardless of when, where or how
they find you.
You
would never want to miss out on a client because they called the wrong number
or sent a message to the incorrect email. Avoid this by taking the time
required to maintain a consistent brand.
5. Go Mobile
Do you know where your phone is? Like most
people these days, it’s within arm’s reach. Mobile use is steadily on the rise
with users spending upwards of 5 hours a day on
their mobile devices. To meet the growing mobile audience, focus on
having a responsive website so users who visit via mobile or tablet have just
as great of an experience as those using a desktop computer.
And there are a lot of internet users on their
phones. Internet users spend 51 percent of
their time on mobile or tablet compared to 48 percent on a desktop. Facebook is
the world’s most used social media platform and 1,149 billion of
their users use are mobile only. That’s a lot of potential clients! Avoid
causing hassle for clients and prospects and make improving your mobile
experience a priority this year.
6. Don’t Wait, Clean up Your Data
If you
have a database full of bad contacts, then all of the effort put into crafting
and sending newsletters goes to waste. Receiving too many bounces, unsubscribes
or spam reports and your sender reputation and your ability to even make it
into the inbox will also plummet.
Having
clean data impacts your email deliverability as well as your ability to expand
your reach. Take the time to clean up your data regularly and remove
unsubscribe requests to ensure you’re making the most of your marketing
efforts.
7. Automate Your Marketing
As an
insurance agent, managing a healthy pipeline of clients and prospects is
essential to growing your business. You have a long list of tasks you do on a
daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis, which means it can be difficult to
find time for generating and sharing content in addition to following up with
past clients.
Automated email and social media marketing is
a great way to consistently reach your audience, even when you don’t have time
to pick up the phone or send that handwritten note. There are several tools that
allow you to automate this on your own, but if you want content created for you
from start to finish, OutboundEngine’s automated marketing is the right choice
for your business. Click here to
set up a live walkthrough and find out how it will help you succeed.
