A Good CRM A Crucial (And Overlooked) Part Of An Agent’s Tech Toolbox – InsuranceNewsNet

InsuranceNewsNet — Your Industry. One Source.™

Sign in
  • Subscribe
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
Home Now reading Top Stories
Topics
    • Life Insurance
    • Annuity News
    • Health/Employee Benefits
    • Property and Casualty
    • Advisor News
    • Washington Wire
    • Regulation News
    • Sponsored Content
    • Webinars
    • Monthly Focus
  • INN Exclusives
  • NewsWires
  • Magazine
  • Free Newsletters
Sign in or register to be an INNsider.
  • INN Exclusives
  • NewsWires
  • Magazine
  • Free Newsletters
  • Insider
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Editorial Staff
  • Contact
  • Newsletters

Get Social

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
Life Insurance
Top Stories RSS Get our newsletter
Order Prints
August 17, 2021 Top Stories No comments
Share
Share
Tweet
Email

A Good CRM A Crucial (And Overlooked) Part Of An Agent’s Tech Toolbox

Technology can help pull in potential customers who remain in limbo, but want to buy.
By John Hilton

Everyone knows that technology will remain a growing part of the insurance sales business. The pandemic only speeded up the tech revolution.

So why are advisors seemingly failing so bad at the basics?

"What is the number one digital tool that you need to run your agency, that you need to run your practice?" asked Luke Acree, president of ReminderMedia, a sales and marketing company. "I am blown away that what happens in this industry is we know it's a relationship-based business, but, for some reason, we don't really focus on getting a great customer relationship management tool."

Acree was part of a technology panel today during the Performance + Purpose virtual conference hosted by the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors.

There is no way to scale your business and keep everything coordinated and moving toward the same goals without a strong, efficient CRM system, Acree explained.

"If you have a goal you want to hit, there's no way to hit that goal if you're not even first measuring the activity that you're doing," he said. "If you think of the phone calls, are you measuring the amount of phone calls you make? What you're saying on the phone? All of this can be done in a CRM."

Ask The Questions

A huge thing a CRM can assist with is surveying clients. HubSpot is a low-cost CRM that offers survey ability, Acree said. Survey Monkey and Qualtrics also offer free survey options.

"It's amazing to me that a lot of times people will hire coaches or consultants, which are great. There's a time and a place for that," Acree said. "But your best consultant for your business is actually your current clients. What's their experience? What are they responding to? You're going to get so many golden nuggets there to really implement."

The more important step is the first one when it comes to integrating a CRM, added Angela Silbernagel, director of marketing at Real Wealth Marketing. In other words, just get started with a CRM.

"If you use the CRM effectively you can easily switch to a different CRM," she said. "So I would spend less time trying to find the perfect solution and just find one that makes sense."

Likewise, advisors should integrate some form of a "drip marketing" tool, the panel agreed. The idea is to be in front of people so they are reminded who you are. But the content has to be good to be effective, Acree noted, and not just a steady stream of sales pitches.

"You can drip all day, but if you're not dripping with effective stuff, people are just going to delete it," he said. "They're not going to pay attention and it won't drive results for you."

'A Huge Differentiator'

Effective marketing messaging can be personal, it can be information-driven and it can be completely unrelated to the insurance products you are ultimately trying to sell, the panel agreed.

Acree and his wife are new parents of a baby girl, an example of a life milestone that creates an opportunity for an advisor to grow a relationship.

"If I'm an A list client for you, and you know that about me, also include in your social posts that you're automating out things about becoming a first parent," Acree explained. "You can include product information, like here's what you need to think of, Luke, when you have a little girl and you're thinking about college and those type of things.

"What I have found is that is a huge differentiator for people to really connect on that relationship level."

InsuranceNewsNet Senior Editor John Hilton has covered business and other beats in more than 20 years of daily journalism. John may be reached at [email protected] Follow him on Twitter @INNJohnH.

© Entire contents copyright 2021 by InsuranceNewsNet.com Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reprinted without the expressed written consent from InsuranceNewsNet.com.

Older

An ‘Overnight Success’ That Took A Decade

Newer

Pair Of Iowa Men Charged With Felony Insurance Fraud

Advisor News

  • Lexington native convicted of fraud over $1 billion company faces new charges
  • PERSONAL FINANCE: Understanding wills and trusts in estate planning
  • How to master employee benefits
  • Ohio businessman guilty of investment scheme
  • Layoffs may be on the horizon. Is the unemployment insurance system ready?
More Advisor News

Annuity News

  • Prudential FlexGuard reaches $10B total sales milestone at record pace
  • Retirees can rely on annuities as a source of guaranteed income for life
  • Lottery ticket bought in Illinois wins $1.337 billion
  • Mega Millions becomes Mega Billion for Friday drawing
  • Confused by huge Mega Millions prize? Here are some answers
More Annuity News

Health/Employee Benefits News

  • North Carolina woman convicted in $34 million health care fraud scheme
  • Growing number of workers enroll in high deductible health plans
  • The Schumer-Manchin deal’s ACA provision creates another budgetary ‘cliff’
  • They wanted to stop Obamacare. They may have protected abortion rights in Wyoming instead.
  • Miami doctor sentenced in $38 million health care fraud scheme
More Health/Employee Benefits News

Life Insurance

  • How to get the most out of Life Insurance Awareness Month
  • Life application activity down in July, MIB Index reports
  • Dentist found guilty of murdering his wife for life insurance on African safari
  • Should student loan borrowers also get life insurance?
  • NCOIL resolution: certain enhanced cash surrender value endorsements are violations
More Life Insurance

- Presented By -

How to Write For InsuranceNewsNet

Find out how you can submit content for publishing on our website.
View Guidelines

FEATURED OFFERS

Grow your life insurance business with John Hancock • It’s time to see how our cutting-edge solutions can help you and your clients get to know us.

Press ReleasesAll press releases

  • CybeReady Supports Security Defenses with CISO Toolkit
  • Life and Disability Income Insurance Products from MassMutual Now Available on iPipeline®’s End-to-End Digital Platform
  • Business on the Go with The Crump Mobile App
  • iPipeline® Provides Advisors Excel with Unified Path Toward Accessing Core Data Analytics in Financial Services
  • iPipeline® Adds Speed of Underwriting to Quote Engine with Ethos to Deliver Insurance to Agents in Minutes
Add your Press Release >

Topics

  • Life Insurance
  • Annuity News
  • Health/Employee Benefits
  • Property and Casualty
  • Advisor News
  • Washington Wire
  • Regulation News
  • Sponsored Content
  • Webinars
  • Monthly Focus

Top Sections

  • Life Insurance
  • Annuity News
  • Health/Employee Benefits News
  • Property and Casualty News
  • AdvisorNews
  • Washington Wire
  • Insurance Webinars

Our Company

  • About
  • Editorial Staff
  • Magazine
  • Write for INN
  • Advertise
  • Contact

Sign up for our FREE e-Newsletter!

Get breaking news, exclusive stories, and money- making insights straight into your inbox.

select Newsletter Options
Facebook Linkedin Twitter
© 2022 InsuranceNewsNet.com, Inc. All rights reserved.
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • AdvisorNews

Sign in with your INNsider Account

Not registered? Become an INNsider.