Market Focus - Insurance Agents : Shine the Silver Lining

But once the staples are taken care of (literally and figuratively), there are still other avenues of opportunities within this niche. Van Aartrijk offers up a few:

• Automobiles. Considering agents often are on the road, car leases and related services are constantly in demand.

• Promotional products. Logoed items help keep an agent's name (or agency's branding) top-of-mind with clients. "These can run the gamut from cheap plastic pens all the way up to more expensive items," he says.
• Travel. Because agents have disposable income, offers for hotels, flights and the like can be marketed for both business and pleasure.
• Advisers. Accountants, lawyers and real-estate agents are necessary, especially for independent agencies that often reach out for third-party consulting.

Technology Trumps Tradition?
Though, as van Aartrijk mentions above, many agencies haven't yet cracked the Web code for their businesses, it's still a viable method for reaching the insurance community. Chris Luke, publisher of two insurance-industry B-to-B magazines, American Agent & Broker and The National Underwriter Property & Casualty (NUP), notes that each publication's Web site is extremely content-rich, with resources for time-crunched subscribers. "NUP focuses a lot of its resources on posting information on our Web site daily, sometimes hourly," he affirms, adding, "As for American Agent & Broker, again the Web is a strong vehicle for us to present compelling online products including podcasts, and special videos and exclusive Web content." Moreover, Luke says, 93 percent of American
Agent & Broker subscribers indicate they will conduct business over the Internet, so it's a strong vehicle for marketing promotions.

Van Aartrijk also has found this to be true. "They do read e-mail pitches, although mostly ones from insurance providers who are offering new products for them to sell," he says.

Yet, Hassan says, it's important to not let more traditional means go out the window in marketing to insurance agents-i.e., direct mail, phone pitches and good, old-fashioned face time. "Insurance agents are salespeople ... their comfort level is the phone and one-on-one meetings," he says.

Surveying the Landscape
Regardless of the medium, no message can get through if it's not hitting the right audience. "Smart direct marketers will know the differences among agencies ... so they can tailor pitches and find the right person, whether it be agency owners or salespersons (often one and the same in smaller firms) or service staff," van Aartrijk says.

The purchasing power for the market is considerable, yet Hassan is quick to note that, because income is largely commission-based, it can depend widely on numerous factors, including the economy and size of policy sold.