How To Turn Insurance Agencies and Their Brand Into A Success

All great businesses have a story to tell and a person who speaks their story into people’s lives. Steve Jobs took a few ideas in his garage and branded a computer company based on the love of calligraphy. John Paul Jones DeJoria took on many jobs as a traditional renaissance man before forming John Paul Mitchell Systems. And before Richard Branson became a significant business magnate, investor, author, and philanthropist, he had dyslexia and poor school grades.

So what do these great business gurus have to do with branding for success? Each one of these great men had a story to tell to brand their company and relate to their audience. They built their empires all by formulating a relatable tale that impacted their audience and sales in a way that gave people real emotions and experiences.

And they marketed these ideas as brandable and relatable.

Does your brand tell a story, and does it say to the story of what your brand is? Does it captivate your audience to move to action? And if it doesn’t, how do you engage an audience with branding our businesses?

Let this article guide you on your journey into building real relationships and long-lasting clients that will take your insurance agency to the next level.

Often, business owners focus on the business aspect of building a new business. Insurance is one of those topics that seems very stressful to relate to as an audience. But as business owners, it’s our responsibility to educate our audience about the services and care we provide.

The question we should ask ourselves as business owners is, what kind of brand do we want to build? Is our brand personal, relatable, and deep impacting, or are we just a quick fix, simple solution format?

Here’s an example. Let’s say you sell car insurance. Many states require car insurance in most cases, and many people would be a fool to drive without car insurance. Yet we hear instances all the time about people driving recklessly and without guarantee. That’s when we have to ask ourselves, why do people put themselves in these risky situations?

Personalizing is an excellent opportunity to tell your story of why insurance is necessary. Tell your customers what it’s like to be uninsured and the scary risks that are involved. Weave a personal account of a situation where you have struggled and how insurance came in and gave you peace of mind that everything will be okay.

When your audience can see that you are a person who relates to their situation, branding becomes more impactful. You can start to write other relatable articles of different types of insurances that you sell other than car insurance. Suddenly, you turn into their friend and one shop supplier for home owner’s insurance or life or medical and so forth.

It is critical to be their one-stop shopping experience as insurance can quickly become complicated to understand as you add policies to your clients. And that’s where you will have the advantage and ability to help them.

Local independent insurance agents have an advantage that most large corporations are missing, and that is the ability to make in-person information available to their clients. Phone calls are great, but frequently in a society of convenience, they do not offer the personalization and human interaction that an in-office meeting can offer.

Because of this personalization, flexible coverage options can be tailored to fit a person’s budget and personalized needs. Local agents know the local economy and market meaning that they understand when money gets tight for individual savings seasonally. This situation means as a local agent, and you have the unique advantage of giving expert guiding information in choosing the right policies that help your clients while growing your business.

Major corporations offer better prices through their commercials, but the reality is that the small agent has the real money-saving abilities that the corporations often omit in their advertising. Claims are made all the same, whether you’re a large corporation or local agents like we are.

As a local agent, though, now we get to know our clients’ names, their spouses, kids, parents, and extended family and friends just because of our connection. And this advantage is vital in winning long term clients.

Being a local agent gives you a unique advantage in being able to fill gaps your clients would otherwise not know is within their policies. Does your homeowner’s insurance cover flood? Or if your client works from home, is their small business covered under their current policy? These are critical questions that your client will never learn from a large corporation or advertising.

Moving your clients to up sales can increase their policies, and you could feel guilty. However, you could be saving them a lifetime of hurt from lost documents or fire risks or confusing flood policies that they otherwise thought they were protected when they were completely vulnerable to these losses.

When your client knows they are adequately covered, they feel more comfortable and so do you knowing that you did what you could to ease your customer’s mind. And these small upsells do not make you a lousy agent for asking for more money. Instead, it means that you put your customer’s wants and needs above your own to provide the best service you can.

Be your brand ambassador for your independent business, just like Steve Jobs, John Paul Jones DeJoria, and Richard Branson. As an independent agent, you have real-life stories that can relate to your audience to build the branding and the kind of business you want your customers to have. These great gentlemen knew what real struggles were, and they weren’t afraid to personalize their stories and weave them into a brand that speaks volumes into the world.

As economic policies change and sometimes deteriorate due to political clients, be the brand, your customers trust the most, just like these world-class gurus built with their giant corporations. And be the difference your client needs in the world to navigate the unfamiliar waters of insurance.

Dshanya Reese, CIC is the brand marketing manager for an independent insurance agency in Austin TX.

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