Is Your Insurance Agency Marketing to Millennials? You Should Be

Is your insurance agency Millennial Ready? The Millennial generation now includes many consuming adults in their 20s and 30s, they are the first digital generation, they don't value the same things their parents did, and they shop differently than other generations. If you want your insurance agency to be where the clients of the present and future are then it might pay to review some of your current marketing and business practices in light of what Millennials value and want.

According to a recent study published by accenture:

"There are roughly 80 million Millennials in the United States...and each year they spend approximately $600 billion. While originally typecast as financially dependent teens, today's (many) Millennials...have careers, are raising kids and live in their own homes. While Millennials are already a potent force, they will truly come into their own by 2020, when we project their spending in the United States will grow to $1.4 trillion annually and represent 30 percent of total retail sales."

Millennial purchasing power is significant now and growing, and it won't be long before they are the dominant force in U.S. consumer spending. So how can a local independent insurance agency get their attention and convince this cohort to do business with them? And does that need to be done now?

Each generation looks at the world a little differently, each shaped by the events, technology and the political environment that pervades as we grow up and come of age. Millennial's coming of age experiences were vastly different from those of their Boomer parents: growing up with social media instead of a broadcast media world, multiculturalism as a norm rather than an exception, watching the U.S. economy adjust - sometimes scarily - to global competition and a shift from manufacturing and year-over-year income growth to economic uncertainty - just a few examples.

For an enlightening insight into what makes Millennials tick, Forbes published an interesting study in 2015 that summarizes ten new findings. Here are five of those ten that provide an answer to the questions posed earlier - how does an independent agent get the attention of Millennials and convince them to do business with them?; and when to do that?

Finding #1: "They aren't influenced at all by advertising."

Millennials aren't impressed by what brands and businesses say about themselves (advertising). They are far more likely to be swayed by what their parents, friends and others say about a business. This doesn't mean you shouldn't do advertising, it just means that you can no longer expect ads to cause prospective insurance buyers to beat a path to your door. You need to balance your marketing efforts to include messaging other than traditional advertising. And we've said this before, reviews on third party websites (Google, Yelp, e.g.) carry a lot of weight.

Finding #6: "They want to engage with brands on social networks."

Engage doesn't mean a daily dose of insurance castor oil in your client's social diet. Post to social media, but do it in a way and with content that interests your current and prospective insurance agency clients...and engages them. If you are posting to social so much that your fingerprints have worn off but nobody is commenting, sharing or liking, then you need to change your content. (see Finding #10, for instance)

Finding #8: "They are using multiple tech devices."

Before you decide to create a quote request form that screens prospects so thoroughly the Secret Service would be impressed, and definitely before you create a PDF form for online visitors to complete, remember that certain things just aren't mobile friendly.

Finding #9: "They are brand loyal."

I can't be any more succinct than Forbes was in their summary: "...60% said that they are often or always loyal to brands that they currently purchase. The sooner you build a relationship and deep connection with Millennials, the better, because they will continue to purchase from you...". So it would seem the time to capture Millennials as customers would be now, not later.

Finding #10: "They expect brands to give back to society."

What is your insurance agency doing to give back to your community, to support local charities and organizations? How do you let people know about that? (Hint, hint: see #1, 6 and 8, above.) Most insurance agencies are involved in their communities and volunteer time or donate to charitable causes. But you wouldn't know that judging by what you seen on many agency websites or Facebook pages.

When every household had a big fat yellow page directory sitting next to a landline phone, 'marketing' for many insurance agencies consisted of paying the yellow pages bridge troll a once a year toll. And the phone did ring and policies were written. Yellow page directories made their appearance in the 1880s. They have had a good run, but they just don't work anymore. Fewer than 40% of homes even have a landline phone today and the new yellow page directory is probably in your pocket in the form of your smart phone. That is certainly the case for millennials.

Millennials, and increasingly the rest of us, are digital. Insurance agencies that want to survive and thrive need to be digital as well and they need to do it in a way that captures the hearts and minds of Millennials. Today.

Sources:
Who are the Millennial shoppers? And what do they really want?
10 New Findings About the Millennial Consumer, Forbes, 1/20/2015
Study publised by Forbes and Elite Daily