In today's competitive environment, it can be hard to make your business stand out. But by using effective marketing techniques, your business can maximise its potential to attract new business and retain current clients, relatively easily.
Marketing is essential. It's vital to get the right message, to the right audience, in the right manner to generate new business and retain current business.
To ensure you're ahead of your rival firms and still competitive, the practical marketing techniques and tools on Aviva's HealthcareZone could make a huge difference to your business.
Segmenting your customers
Group your clients - by age perhaps; or their life stage; needs; geographical location; circumstances or business type. By doing this, and identifying groups of people or businesses for whom your message is appropriate, you can tailor your efforts on creating effective marketing communications.
There are several software options, but one of the simplest ways to segment your database is with an Excel spreadsheet. List your data consistently and make sure that data is regularly kept up to date. Include these details if you can:
• Personal details, such as name, age and address
• Family details, such as marital status, number and age of children
• Life stage - singles and couples, young families, mature families, empty nesters, etc.
• Employment status and your clients' salaries
• Products held and their renewal dates
• Notes on attitude to risk and savings
• For business clients - their industry, number of employees, location, methods of communication with staff or even the type of product/service being supplied.
Outbound calling
Keeping in touch with clients by phone is easy. Ask how things are going, and if they've received their policy documents - those are easy conversation starters. Here are some top tips for outbound calling:
• Prepare well. Jot down some topics to discuss on a notepad
• Be confident, calm and professional. Try to be sincere and provoke 'natural' conversation - people can tell if you're reading from a script
• Accept that a 'no thank you' is possible - treat it as a positive response, meaning a cleaner database to work with next time
• Get an end result - either a note of 'don't call again', a face-to-face appointment, or simply a call-back at a more convenient time
• Be courteous, and follow-up with the action you've promised in the timeframe agreed.
Email campaigns
For many of us, emails are part of our daily lives - at the office, on the move. But effective emails need careful planning - timing, testing, targeting and evaluation are key to any email campaign. Here are a few tips to think about when emailing:
• Write a subject line that will capture the audience's attention - make it engaging, but to the point
• Make it pertinent. Think about what you want to say, deliver that message succinctly
• Use your client database appropriately. Think about who is receiving it, and adapt the language and messaging for that audience - making sure you're targeting the right people.
Direct mail campaigns
Direct mail can be a cost-effective way of contacting hundreds of potential clients - usually through post, but can take the form of email, letters, brochures, news articles or even postcards.
It helps you to get a message across without spending large sums on advertising, but it is important to understand what's involved in a successful campaign, particularly three key elements:
• Targeting You'll need to know people's names and addresses. They could come from your own client base, a directory of local businesses; or you could buy details (known as 'cold data'). Some data providers can give you very specific targets - for example, you could send a campaign to a postal area where many high net worth individuals live. The more defined you are about your audience, the more likely it is you'll get a good response.
• Testing Think about your own experiences. What did you like? What did you hate? What did you throw away? Was the product uninteresting? Was the offer unclear? Testing your direct mail is vital. Multi-testing (deciding on two or three versions of the message in your campaign, and measuring the success rate across similar audiences) is recommended.
• Timing Think hard about how much time your audience has, to read your message, and factor in relevant seasonal messages too. Are there topical news stories that could help promote some products?
Newsletters and articles
A small piece of commentary in local business newsletters and articles, is a good way to display your expertise and raise your profile significantly. If you specialise in a specific area, a well-written, well-timed and well placed article in a local journal could stimulate a pro-active contact.
Research your audience well - this way you can write something more relevant, and cover subjects they're interested in. Incorporating facts and figures to back up what you're saying is a great way to bring an article to life.
Networking
This involves interaction with people, developing professional or social contacts, and building business opportunities. By being sociable, approachable and knowledgeable, you can demonstrate your values as the friendly face of your business - strengthening your relationships too.
Whether in the form of business networks that organise events, or online networking via LinkedIn, opportunities to promote your profile and make contacts aware of the services you provide is a great way to market your business.
Seminars
Running a seminar is an ideal way to engage with potential clients and present yourself to an invited audience. These events, whereby specialist information on a particular topic is offered, ideally in a formal location, can be a valuable method of displaying expertise and knowledge of your field.
Seminars are not about selling anything, but more for engaging an audience with details of the services that may be of interest to them - in a professional and informative manner. Make sure you use case studies to back-up what you're saying (even if fictional examples) as this can help your audience to better understand how they can benefit from your services.
Aviva's HealthcareZone is bursting with powerful ways to grow your business. Look into these marketing techniques and tools in more detail, and find out about other ways to maximise your business' potential by visiting HealthcareZone.
