Just when you begin to figure out which platforms to market on, the rules get changed on you. Marketing is a constant change and people have to adapt to that. The platforms that work best in April may not work for you in November. Why is that? For one, open enrollment. You are going to have far more people looking for Medicare services in November than you would in April, therefore the cost to get to the target audience goes up as there is far more competition.
This is understandable as nearly every industry seeks big sales numbers at the end of the year. However, as an individual agent, how are you supposed to compete with so many big companies and competitors? It’s actually your personal touch that gives you the advantage and there are ways to market that locally as well as beyond your immediate area. In fact, you can market to the entire state and this year you have a unique advantage.
A New Challenge For Medicare Open Enrollment
It’s hard to have missed that there are some pretty big elections coming up this year. People have become very passionate about politics but also some of the topics that are being debated. As always, one of the biggest is health insurance and especially Medicare. This is a unique advantage for agents who can provide a different perspective than the bigger companies. Instead of focusing on how everyone needs to get coverage, you can instead focus on how everyone can get the biggest coverage for them.
We now live in a world where fast customization is expected. What does that mean exactly? Think of when you get a new streaming service and you sign in and start picking your favorite films and shows to watch. As that platform gains information about you, it begins to know what’s best to show you first. If you do not like what you see, you are less likely to stay on that site or app much longer. Thee same has become true with our health insurance. We want some custom ideas, strategies and if a health insurance advisor can accomodate us, that’s the person we’re most likely to work with.
Why You Need To Market?
We’ve all heard of or known of health insurance agents who do not market during open enrollment. Is it possible? Of course, but few have shown that they can keep such a successful pace, especially with the changes that have hit the industry over the last several years including the coronavirus pandemic. People are less interested in face to face interaction and instead want fast and simple answers. This is where many advisors have had to adapt but the good news is they can handle twice as many clients in some cases.
Marketing allows you to connect with these audiences on a wider scale but also take tasks off your plate. Think of how much time you have to put into each client? Half of that time is on selling them on your services and showing them what you can do. Imagine if a portion of the prospects who are not interested do not even waste your time because they contacted. Expanding your time means expanding your capabilities of customizing healthcare plans for your clients and keeping them updated on important changes and deadlines.
The better your service becomes, the happier your clients are. However, you also are giving yourself more time to aggressively expand and go after more business. That’s what marketing allows you to do without having to produce the content or establish offices around your state. You can advertise the same service throughout your state and get leads and interest from each platform.
How You Can Market?
You are limited in marketing by your budget and your content. Your budget will influence your content and how you can share it. If you have limited funds, the best route to take is to focus on the free options like business listings and posting videos on YouTube. A weekly video about how to enroll in Medicare, some of the tough questions you need to ask and so forth gets results. However, what you will also learn is that people who are researching these topics like to also have communication with the source of the information.
This is how a viewer becomes a lead. By connecting with people by offering free information, you are becoming a resource that they can rely on. If someone is not sure about something as difficult and challenging as health insurance, often times they have no idea who to call on, even if they get coverage through an employer. Seeing you as a resource and someone they can utilize to get the information they need allows you to understand what they need as a consumer and how to best accommodate them.
Invest Smartly
Marketing is a form of investing and it requires your time and your money. However, you should never look for an immediate return. The goal of each campaign is to connect with the right audience. You will be amazed how many times someone see’s a commercial and completely ignores it, yet when they see that brand, they respond to it in a positive way. Why is this? We go with what is familiar because we feel more comfortable with it.
While you may not have the budget to run commercials throughout the day, you do have the ability to connect with those who are looking for Medicare enrollment information. You can offer them guidance in a variety of ways and the important thing to remember is that the easier they feel the process goes, the more likely they are to stick with you. That means you have the advantage because you simply need to focus on doing what you do best, health insurance work.
Marketing takes the sales game out of health insurance sales because it informs the user and gives them the information we want them to be aware of before they contact us. If you are not utilizing your content in a format that gives someone information, allows them to understand why the information is reliable, shows you as an authority on this information and makes it easy for them to contact you, then you need to start over on your content.