Brokers should utilise marketing to acquire and retain more customers

Finding new customers and keeping existing customers is an every day concern for all brokers. But only a small number use marketing to achieve growth and survive in today's crowded marketplace.

Effective marketing is not just about multi-million pound national TV advertising campaigns; marketing activity can be employed locally to great effect. Tried and tested marketing is a powerful tool and a sound business practice. By taking advantage of the support available from insurers, such as Zurich, marketing is also cost-effective.

Marketing is about truly understanding your customer's needs and delivering a service to meet those needs. Marketing helps promote the value-added service that brokers provide and maintaining a high profile in their local community is vital to ensuring brokers stay on the insurance `shopping list'.

Local press adverts, poster displays and leaflets dropped through people's doors can all be used to drive consumers to their local broker. Promotional incentives can also been included to add further impetus.

However, despite the knowledge that customer acquisition is only part of the story, customer retention that is neglected, even though most businesses are aware that keeping a customer is much more cost effective than obtaining a new one.

Understanding why a customer cancels their policy and increasing the number of products each customer buys can also be addressed through marketing. One way brokers can help stop their customers draining away is by embarking on a re-solicitation campaign. Contacting a previous customer at their next renewal introduces a way to re-quote for the business and can lead to between 25-50% customers being attracted back.

If a brokerage decides to embark on a marketing campaign, what are the first steps? Customer satisfaction surveys are a good starting point and can be used pre-renewal or mid contract to achieve a greater understanding of each customer and their needs. It is important to be clear about the objective that the campaign needs to achieve - is it acquisition, retention, re-solicitation or cross-sell that is the priority?

Zurich believe that marketing can make a real difference and the insurer provides a unique support package to brokers that includes an interactive guide to marketing, free of charge, to help brokers market their business. In-house training and advice is also available along with support to help re-solicit business and increase the amount of products cross-sold to customers.

Marketing is a powerful tool that is accessible to all brokers regardless of their size or budget. As those who have adopted marketing campaigns will testify, a little investment in marketing certainly reaps the rewards.

Max Todd, head of intermediary marketing for Zurich UK Personal Insurance.