Mail campaigns are the best for serious deals. People perceive snail mail as more ‘trustworthy’, ‘reliable’, and ‘secure’ than digital channels. Professional marketers have unlocked this secret and readily use mail pieces for transactional messages, including insurance direct mail marketing.

Our favorite thing is that nowadays, you don’t need special knowledge to send Medicare postcards or promotional mailers. Thanks to technological advances and automation, mail has become much more flexible and cost-effective than decades ago. At the same time, it remains a powerful means of communication. 70% of prospective customers still prefer to receive healthcare and insurance messages via snail mail.

Insurance direct mail marketing is an excellent way to make you noticeable in the rapidly growing insurance industry. According to recent studies, US healthcare companies spend around $30 billion on marketing yearly, and the number is likely to increase in the future.

Therefore, if you are engaged in this field, you need to look for the best price-quality ratio. Since mail boasts a very promising response rate (around 5% compared to 0.6% for email and other digital channels), it’s definitely an option to consider.

In today’s article, you will discover the other benefits of direct mail for insurance agents as well as:

• A brief overview of key marketing challenges for insurance companies
• Why is automated insurance direct mail marketing so effective for lead generation and nurturing?
• Medicare postcards based on the Medicare plan: the most suitable way to formulate your offer.
• Tips on the effective use of automated direct mail marketing for insurance agents

A Brief Overview of Key Marketing Challenges for Insurance Companies

Both the US and global insurance companies usually specialize in a narrow segment of services and compete for a specific target audience. For example, if you offer life insurance, you need to focus on absolutely different prospective customers than in the case of property and casualty (P&C) services.

In addition, health insurance marketing is heavily based on seasonality. Most healthcare programs are regulated with the universal Annual Election Period (AEP), which lasts from October 15 to December 7. This means that Medicare plan enrollees can switch their plans only within these 3 months. This also means that you will have to market like crazy to keep your existing customers and engage new ones.

Every step you take must be data-driven and tailored to customers’ preferences. The same relates to insurance direct mail marketing. To achieve the highest ROI and efficiency, it’s necessary to know who you are talking to and what they like. Direct mail automation is the simplest way to run highly-targeted and scheduled mail campaigns. It powers traditional insurance direct mail marketing with the latest Martech achievements.

Why Is Automated Insurance Direct Mail Marketing so Effective for Lead Generation and Nurturing?

Insurance direct mail marketing is more convincing than many online means. It nudges customers into taking immediate action. Since people are mailed many important notifications, such as bank statements, debt collection letters, and utility bills, they regularly open their mailboxes. Actually, 79% of prospective customers act on direct mail as soon as they receive it.

Automated direct mail marketing for insurance agents is particularly valuable for lead generation because of its flexibility. You can send a specific design to the selected person in a certain situation. For example, deliver Medicare postcards just before the start of the Annual Election Period or share your insurance agency’s offer once a person gets close to its 65th birthday. The right timing is crucial to generate leads and turn them into customers.

Automated insurance direct mail marketing is a potent lead generation and nurturing tool for many other reasons:

• By using mail automation software such as Inkit, you can synchronize mail campaigns and online channels. Inkit’s webhook seamlessly integrates with the majority of popular CRMs, customer success, email marketing, and other platforms (Check the full list of available integrations here). By combining several channels, you can instantly engage fresh leads and make them follow you everywhere.
• Automated direct mail marketing for insurance agents helps to increase the quality of obtained leads. Automated mailing is based on previously collected customer data and preliminary research of the target audience. Mailing lists are carefully segmented and detailed. Thus, you will only reach the prospective customers that are likely to convert and start using your services.
• If the chosen mail automation tool supports variable data printing, you can tailor the content of every mail piece. Potential leads will see a personalized call-to-action and unique offer that will encourage them to contact your insurance agency.

Note that the actual advantages of automated insurance direct mail marketing depend on the automation platform you choose. Inkit provides a perfect balance of everything: broad integration capabilities, customizable design templates, automated printing and delivery, interpolated customer data, and unlimited batch size.

Medicare Postcards Based on Medicare Plans. Pick the Most Suitable Way to Formulate Your Offer

Since Medicare postcards are among the most widespread kinds of insurance direct mail marketing, they deserve a separate section in today’s publication. Medicare postcards vary depending on the category of a Medicare plan, which also defines an appropriate call-to-action, design, and most importantly, the target audience.

Generally, Medicare comprises 4 parts which correspond to different types of health insurance services an individual can receive:

• Part A. Inpatient/hospital coverage
• Part B. Outpatient/medical coverage
• Part C. Medicare advantage plan
• Part D. Prescription drug coverage

To find more information about each type of insurance, visit this website. The key takeaway for marketers is that a private insurance company can offer a separate Part D prescription drug plan and Medigap (a Medicare supplement insurance plan). Whereas Part A and B are fundamental and cannot be considerably modified, the other parts are customizable. This gives insurance companies space for competition.

A tried and tested method to benefit from the variety of Medicare plans is to adapt the message in your Medicare postcards. Analyze the needs and tastes of your target audience to understand what can make them notice your offer. Some prospective customers may be more interested in additional prescription drug coverage, while others want a full alternative to the standard plans.

Moreover, there are specific words that provoke a positive reaction to marketing materials. It was found that ‘trustworthy’, ‘knowledgeable’, and ‘cost-effective’ make customers more likely to choose your service than ‘expert’, ‘helpful’ or ‘innovative’. Surprisingly, in insurance direct mail marketing, two semantically similar words may trigger a totally different response. Whereas ‘knowledgeable’ was preferred by 58.4% of respondents, barely 9.4% picked ‘smart’.

When it comes to the use of direct mail marketing for insurance agents, the age of the target audience also matters. ‘Accessible’, ‘helpful’, and ‘safe’ ranked highest among consumers with a high school education or younger than 35 years.

These are just a few of the hints that may shape the fate of your Medicare postcards and insurance direct mail marketing in general. Of course, you can use them when building your mail marketing strategy, but the preferences of your narrow target audience are the most important.

Tips on the Effective Use of Automated Direct Mail Marketing for Insurance Agents

As a mail automation provider, we know the formula of an efficient mail program. Even when you automate production and delivery routines with software, the creative part and strategic planning are still your responsibility. Here are 4 practical tips on automated direct mail marketing for insurance agents. Use them to boost your campaign and promote your services.

Insurance Mailer Tip 1. Direct Mail Marketing for Insurance Agents Must Be Highly Targeted

The better you segment your target audience, the more chances to have to make people convert. Create a customer portrait based on all relevant details you know, including age, gender, occupation, education, social status, purchase power, and previous interactions with your insurance agency. The use of CRMs can provide additional insights about your potential customers and help to make mail marketing more data-driven.

Insurance Mailer Tip 2. Connect Insurance Direct Mail Marketing with Online Channels

The fact that insurance direct mail marketing has one of the highest response rates doesn’t mean that you need to ignore other channels. Mail automation provides a wonderful opportunity to align mail campaigns with email newsletters, online ads, social media, and other digital channels. Omni-channel strategies result in 23X improved customer experience, increased sales, and customer retention.

Insurance Mailer Tip 3. Stay Flexible and Adapt Your Offer

Monitor the market and approaches used by your competitors. The insurance industry continuously changes as well as the federal healthcare spendings and regulations. Every shift that impacts customers must be reflected in your marketing postcards. In this respect, an unlimited batch size offered by Inkit may be just what you need. It allows you to regulate your mail volume and promptly produce any number of mail pieces.

Insurance Mailer Tip 4. Test Your Insurance Direct Mail Marketing

Don’t make hasty decisions. Take time to create several designs with alternative backgrounds, calls-to-action, and offers. After that, A/B test them to obtain reliable information about the effectiveness of each design and calculate your ROI. This will cut your expenditures and save you from unnecessary guesswork. Check out some of the tests possible with Inkit.

Want to automate your insurance direct mail marketing? Do that with Inkit right now.