Handwritten Notes for Insurance
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Handwritten Notes for Insurance
Complete Guide to using Handwritten Notes for Insurance companies
Insurance companies often handle multiple customer interactions every day. Insurance agents and brokers always work around the clock, from running promotions on new policies to addressing incoming queries to understanding consumer needs.
But as the number of marketing and communication channels increase, insurance companies are now struggling to balance acquiring new customers and keeping the existing ones engaged.
While traditional emails, phone calls, and text messages add value to this industry, the rapid increase in competition requires insurance companies to be innovative about managing customer relationships.
One such way is exploring the power of handwritten notes for insurance companies.
This extensive guide details everything you need to know about using handwritten notes in the insurance industry, along with examples and steps to get started.
Table of contents:
What are handwritten notes for insurance companies?
Importance of handwritten notes for insurance companies
How can insurance companies use handwritten notes?
Free handwritten note templates for insurance companies
How to get started with handwritten notes for insurance companies?
Do handwritten notes for insurance work?
Give your insurance company a competitive edge
Frequently asked questions
What are handwritten notes for insurance companies?
Have you ever received a note written in pen or pencil from a friend or family member?
A handwritten note for insurance companies is very similar.
Per the fundamental definition, a handwritten note is a message written out using pen and paper.
While this communication tactic has been around for a while, insurance companies have just started using handwritten notes for company and customer communication. These handwritten notes add a personal touch and help cut through the digital noise, which is crucial to success in the insurance industry.
Importance of handwritten notes for insurance companies
Any successful business thrives on meaningful relationships with clients.
Hence, insurance companies must look for ways other than email, cold calls, or ad campaigns - think about how cluttered our inboxes are and how many ads we're subjected to daily.
This is where handwritten notes can help. Here are a few reasons using handwritten notes for the insurance business is a good idea:
1. Helps humanize your insurance company's brand
68% of insurance clients don't have the company in mind when initiating their search.
Consumers think twice before purchasing insurance if they want to protect their homes, car, or family. They spend considerable time looking for companies they can trust, and that's where the human touch becomes essential.
Handwritten notes are a great way to promote your insurance company's products and services and give a peek into the people running the brand.
Human-to-human marketing always gets a foot in the door.
2. Make insurance plans easy to understand
The truth is that most customers need help understanding insurance products and services. They need to be made aware of various policies, plans, and terminologies used by insurance companies. This creates a barrier between the consumer and the insurance company because traditional channels such as web pages, emails, long calls, and messages often seem overwhelming.
This is where handwritten notes come in handy.
You can use them to introduce consumers to the insurance products and services they've shown interest in. This is a less overwhelming way to introduce them to products and services compared to typed and printed A4 sheets bundled together.
3. A cost-effective way of marketing
Handwritten notes for insurance companies may sound dated. But the beauty of these notes is that they don't get lost in messages and emails.
You don't have to spend lavishly on advertisements to make your insurance business stand out. Handwritten notes prove an added benefit, as 88% of customers want more personalization from insurance companies.
You might be shocked to learn that handwritten letters have an average open rate of 99%, compared to the average 22.7% open rate for email marketing.
It's rare to receive a handwritten note these days. But when customers receive a handwritten note, there is an irresistible urge to open, read, reply and even share it!
4. Helps build better relationships
Building long-term relationships with customers help insurers in the long run. Not only will your customers remain loyal to your business, but they will also refer you to others.
When you communicate with your customers through handwritten notes, they will appreciate your efforts and continue to trust you. Appropriately crafted handwritten notes can strengthen relationships, add value, and differentiate your customers across their life cycles.
How can insurance companies use handwritten notes?
Now that we've discussed the importance of handwritten notes for insurance companies, let's take a closer look at different use cases:
1. Promote products and services to generate leads
Most insurance companies contact prospective customers through traditional email, cold phone calls, in-person events, pop up stalls, and ad campaigns.
But with the cost of customer acquisition increasing by 60-65% across all industries online, it's time for insurance companies to look for more direct ways.
Handwritten notes can be used as a part of direct mail marketing campaigns (we will cover this tactic in detail in our blog later). This gives your company a chance to reach the hands of a prospect and get your offer across in an authentic way, leading to better engagement and conversions.
2. Welcome new customers with personalized mail
When a consumer purchases one of your insurance products or services, you can use handwritten notes to make them feel welcome instead of overwhelmed with the next steps.
This handwritten note can be a quick thank you for trusting you with the purchase and could include a welcome note with the following steps written out.
With IgnitePOST, you can even connect your CRM system to send handwritten notes to customers automatically.
3. Drive repeat engagement from customers
Your customers become more likely to renew the products and services they have bought from you if they feel they can trust your insurance company.
This is where handwritten notes come in handy. Using these notes at different intervals and stages of the customer lifecycle, you can renew, upsell and cross-sell products and services from your company based on the consumer's individual requirements.
If you use a solution like IgnitePOST, you can connect your CRM to the system to be able to send handwritten notes automatically at different customer milestones. This also helps save time and effort!
4. Appreciate customers with personal notes
Customer appreciation is vital to making them feel connected to your brand. And there's no better way than sending a handwritten note!
Customers love receiving handwritten notes because they know the effort you put into writing a thank you note. This makes the conversation more personal.
A handwritten thank you note can also help you build a good relationship with your customers. Your notes help establish a lasting impression and help you stay at the top of customers' minds, especially those with specific needs.
5. Request reviews from customers
More than 92% of consumers turn to personal recommendations and reviews before even engaging with an insurance company. However, reviewing products and services is not something that comes naturally to most consumers.
Asking for reviews by email or phone often leads customers to ignore them because they're not personalized or simply too busy to engage.
Handwritten notes are a great way for insurance companies to reach out to their long-term customers to request reviews or feedback. Apart from a personal note stating 'why,' you can also provide a quick QR code scan to capture the review online on a desired platform.
6. Send personalized policy renewal reminders
Are your clients planning their next booking or insurance renewal? How about sending them a personalized handwritten note as a reminder instead of an automated email or message?
This does two things - first, it makes the process a lot less overwhelming l to complete. It makes the product or service seem like an investment that is worth it. Second, the reminder does not go unnoticed, which ensures the customer won’t churn due to missed deadlines or misunderstood terms.
We have found that customers receiving handwritten cards are 10x more likely to attend a meeting or renew a policy.
7. Request customers for referrals
Typically insurance companies seek referrals over text or email, but this request often gets lost in their inbox or seems too impersonal.
The best way to use handwritten notes for your insurance company is to seek referrals from your former clients.
Handwritten notes are a personal way to request a referral, making them more likely to engage with it - the effort always counts!
8. Acknowledge your colleagues
Not only can you send handwritten notes to thank your clients, but you can also send them to your colleagues, team members, or someone with higher authority.
It's easy to forget to thank your team members for their efforts, but a handwritten thank you can help motivate them and encourage them to do better. This is important to keep insurance agents and brokers motivated enough to meet their sales goals.
9. Keep in touch with former clients and customers
Building a customer base for your insurance company is no easy feat. But retaining customers and clients is even tougher as their requirements and preferences change over time. This may result in them not renewing the products and services availed through you or moving to another company that suits them better.
But since they have formerly trusted your company, you can use occasional handwritten notes to stay in touch with them. This note could include a quick miss-you message, updates about what is new, things you feel could be relevant to them, and how they can get in touch with you again.
10. Client closing anniversaries
Another way to use handwritten notes in insurance is to reach out to clients on their annual policy anniversary. The handwritten note at this key moment is a great way to stay on top of their minds and deepen your relationship with them.
This ensures that if the client is looking for similar policies for a new car, boat or home at that moment, you’re the first one they will reach out to.
11. Birthday cards
One of our favorite ways to make use of handwritten notes is celebrating with customers. And the one occasion that you can step things up on, is their birthday.
With handwritten notes, you can simply wish them a very happy birthday and thank them again for being your customer. Acknowledging the smallest of these things is also a positive way to stay on top of their minds!
Free handwritten note templates for insurance companies
Nothing beats the warmth and sincerity of receiving a personalized, handwritten note. Leading insurance companies, agents and brokers use them to communicate with their clients and customers, keeping things personal.
While a handwritten note should remain personal and tailored to match your business goal, here are some templates to take inspiration from:
Template 1: Thank you note for signing up with your insurance company
Hi [First Name],
[Name of your insurance company] welcomes you. We are happy to have you as a policy holder.
Here's a $10 Amazon Gift Card for you as a token of appreciation.
Thank you again for choosing our company. We hope to continue providing excellent service.
[Signature/Contact]
Template 2: Payment due note
Hello [first name]
Thank you for choosing our insurance company. Your policy has to be updated on [day] of [month]. Please remit the amount of [amount owed] by [date] to ensure coverage is not interrupted.
Thank you for your business. Have a nice day!
[Signature/Contact]
Template 3: Asking for review note
Hello[name]
Congratulations on completing your two years at [Insurance Company Name]. We appreciate your time and effort and hope you had a great experience with us. If you have a minute, we’d love it if you wrote us a quick review.
To make it easy, just scan the QR code on this card!
Take care
[Signature/Contact]
Template 4: Keeping in touch with former client note
Hello [first name]
It's been 6 months since you connected with us. They’re not wrong when they say that time flies! Thank you for your support.. I hope you had a great experience.
Just wanted to reach out and see if I can help you. We are happy to answer any questions about your current insurance plan. The best way to contact me is by phone or SMS [contact details].
Best
[agent name]
Template 5: Reminding customers about upcoming renewal dates
Hi[First Name],
It’s [agent name], your life insurance agent. We have you on the schedule to update your policy on January 25th at 2:00 PM.
You can also set a new date or select a different time by scanning the QR code on the front of the card and choosing a different time on the calendar.
I look forward to seeing you again. Have a great time!
Thanks
[Insurance agent]
How to get started with handwritten notes for insurance companies?
Now before you hire an entire team or give your marketing department a go at handwritten notes, here are some steps we recommend following:
1. Identify your business goal and objectives
The very first thing you need to do is define what you want to achieve out of handwritten notes. Do you want to bring a new product or service into the limelight, win back lapsed customers, increase your market share, generate more leads, or similar - the more defined the campaign is, the better will be your strategy.
2. Define your target market and ideal customer persona
Depending on what your objective is, define your target market and ideal customer persona in detail. For example, if you want to generate more leads, you need to specify the areas in which you want to send the notes, the agents who will handle incoming queries, and so on.
3. Segment your existing customers
Look at your existing customers and segment them based on previous interactions, purchases, preferences, and requirements. The idea is to use data to establish how you can reach them with handwritten notes.
4. Choose the right technology for handwritten notes
You next need to find a solution to help you create and send these handwritten notes. Ideally, this solution should leverage the latest technology and offer you the highest customizations to personalize the note.
IgnitePOST is one of the leading solutions for handwritten notes in the insurance industry. With the intelligent use of robotics and advanced automations, the tool enables insurance companies to customize handwritten notes to match their brand, personalize campaigns on an individual level, and ensure timeliness of delivery.
5. Pick a style that suits your brand
The next step is to define the style of your handwritten notes. This includes the smallest things, including the size of your notes, design, font, colors, and the envelope you want to send them in.
Remember to keep things simple.
6. Measure and optimize
Remember to treat handwritten notes as another marketing channel for your insurance company. Keep track of the response on these notes across different campaigns and the segments you are targeting.
It’s okay to only double down on segments that offer the highest value in terms of business when it comes to sending handwritten notes. This will also keep your budgets in check.
Do handwritten notes for insurance work?
At IgnitePOST, we have had the chance to work with a number of insurance companies, agents and brokers.
For instance, Smart Choice is a network of over 9,000 independent insurance agents and 100 carrier partners in the US. It provides their network top-rated markets, product training, and sales and marketing support to help deliver the best insurance solutions to their customers.
The insurance company wanted to further expand their network but was seeing low to no success with online campaigns and direct mail.
They took to sending personalized handwritten notes, experimenting with messages iteratively based on the response.
This led to a 23% increase in agent sign ups across different demographics and better relationships with each.
Give your insurance company a competitive edge with personalized handwritten notes
In an increasingly competitive environment, it is difficult for insurance companies to differentiate themselves.
But adding a personal touch to their communication can help you stand out because personalization makes customers feel recognized and understood.
Handwritten notes for insurance companies are one form of communication that holds untapped opportunities.
The good thing is that writing and sending handwritten notes no longer requires endless manual hours.
Solutions like IgnitePOST combine the power of robotics and automation to write and send handwritten notes at scale!
Due to its customization and personalization capabilities, IgnitePOST has delivered 20x more replies to insurance companies through handwritten notes.
Can handwritten notes add value to your insurance company?
Book a free demo to explore IgnitePOST.
Frequently asked questions
1. How do you thank an insurance customer?
The best way to thank an insurance client is with a handwritten note. It makes them feel special and recognized. Use our thank you note templates mentioned in the blog above.
2. How do I market myself as an insurance agent?
There is no better marketing strategy than word of mouth. Give your insurance clients a unique experience by sending handwritten notes and making them feel special. They will, in return, give you referrals and spread the word about you.
3. When should insurance companies send a handwritten note?
While there is no said rule for when you should send a handwritten note, we do recommend tapping into all the key milestones a customer has with your company.
For example, when they sign up to know more about your products and services, when they make their first purchase, when their product/ service is due for a renewal and similar moments.
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