Attention Independent Agents – Improve Your Email Deliverability!
Ways to increase email deliverability as an insurance agent
Email marketing offers returns over 40% higher than SEO and keyword advertisements, according to Oberlo, making it one of the most effective ways to sell to clients. But what good is your email marketing plan if your emails never make it to your customers and prospects? Here are some practical tips for improving your email deliverability rates.
Send relevant messages
Before you send an email, think about who would benefit from the message. Would you try to sell flood insurance to someone who already has a flood policy with you? Remove any recipients who would find your email confusing or irrelevant before you hit send. This will help you avoid spam complaints and increase credibility with your customers and prospects.
Use your real email address
Make sure all emails look like they’re coming from you, even if you use another service to send emails on your behalf. It’s easy to do this with a simple email domain verification process. Any email marketing service you use should be able to provide you with the information your domain registrar will need. Ask your email marketing company to provide you with the nameserver or SPF records needed to verify the subdomain they’re using to send emails on your behalf—your website provider or IT person should be able to do the rest.
You may have received advice to use a look-alike email address or a fake email address to send emails, but you should not do this. This confuses your customers, damages your brand reputation and may violate regulations about unsolicited email marketing.
Skip the graphics
Emails containing images consistently underperform compared to plain text emails. In fact, HubSpot researched email click-through rates for emails with pictures compared to plain text emails and found that emails containing graphics had 51% lower click rates than those that didn’t. Emails with pictures are more likely to end up in spam, so if you need to send an image, link to the graphic instead.
Image-based email marketing works well for some industries, such as shoe companies and other retailers, but insurance is different. When so many businesses are flooding consumers’ inboxes with graphic-ridden emails, your plain text email will be well-received.
Use engaging subject lines
Emails that use a personalized subject line have open rates 50% higher than those that don’t, according to research done by Yes Lifecycle Marketing. Write subject lines as if you were sending a message to just one person, even if you’re planning to send your email to a large group. This will feel more authentic to your recipients and be less likely to get moved to spam. Some email providers automatically classify emails as spam if the subject line contains words like “free” or “discount.” Instead, try asking a simple question such as “Do you know about this policy?”
Keep your email distribution lists up to date
Keep detailed and accurate records of all your prospects and customers. Collect emails and other contact information during your onboarding process. And ask for any updated contact information during renewals. Download a list of all your missing or invalid email addresses and ask each team member to reach out to their own clients to get this information updated. If you get a “message failed” notification after trying to send a customer an email, call or text that person to see if they’ve changed it. And if you don’t have their phone number, it’s better to stop emailing them. If you continue to send emails to fake or invalid email addresses it can damage your reputation as a sender.
ACT Supporting Partner ClientCircle® is a leading insurance communications platform in the U.S. Their all-in-one platform helps insurance agencies manage customer relationships, collect and analyze feedback, improve retention and reputation, collect reviews and testimonials, grow referrals, automate cross-selling, build websites made for insurance, and send communications spanning multiple channels. For more, visit www.clientcircle.com.