66-69 Medicare Supplement Mailings

[dstrack]

What may attract one senior could be vary different than what will attract another.

BINGO! Well said...

Even if people want to save money... they want it for different reasons. Thats what your copy needs to speak to.

Thats why you must know your markets deep down pain and have the ability to speak to each of those types of people specifically in your copy to the point they say "thats me", "wow this guy gets me" when they read it.

This is why I don't like cold DM to a 66-69 list. You have no idea where they are mentally. (If there was a list of people with recent rate increases it would help.) Then you must deal with advantage plans and health issues. Majority of the people on your 66-69 list should never even be mailed to.

There isn't a scalable way to get around this with DM.

Am I saying that a simple rate reduction letter to the masses won't work? No... But its sure not an ideal way to spend your time and money. And going forward the ROI on these will continue to become worse and worse.

As Bevo pointed out marketing and markets are changing... So if you don't adapt you will be looking for another job. (we are marketers first, agents second.)

Good marketing makes sales like shooting fish in a barrel.

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I agree completely. If a normal guy with normal looks tries to discuss business with me, I generally look the other way.

The abnormal agent has a distinct marketing advantage.

Yet you were quick to post some rah rah drivel about generic rate reduction mailers?

Interesting...

 

[bill3173]

Yet you were quick to post some rah rah drivel about generic rate reduction mailers?

Interesting...

Your comments are the most interesting and inspiring of anyone that I've met. Thank you.

 

[GreenSky]

Regardless of the message DM is not cost effective compared to getting a telemarketer. The only exception is niche marketing such as what I'm doing to generate business for D-SNPs.

Rick

 

[dstrack]

Regardless of the message DM is not cost effective compared to getting a telemarketer. The only exception is niche marketing such as what I'm doing to generate business for D-SNPs.

Rick

Um...

ALL marketing should be to a niche with a combination of demographic, psycho-graphic, and psychic-graphic parameters otherwise you're wasting a bunch of money.

That's my whole point here!

Maybe that's why the DM you wrote doesn't work.

Generic rate reduction letters are not as profitable as niche marketing and it takes real copywriting skills to understand and write to the psycho-graphic, and psychic-graphic niches.

If the demographic niche is super small then you might get away without using psycho-graphic, and psychic-graphic niches but you are leaving most of the money still on the table.

Telemarketing just allows you to be a sloppy marketer and still see results due to the fact a live person can have a dialogue to probe for pain and qualify. (Savvy marketers do this with DM and/or other automated systems.)

Every market is different but generally a professionally written DM piece, to the correct market will crush telemarketers in speed, scalability, and overall ROI.

 

[GreenSky]

Every market is different but generally a well written DM piece to the correct market will crush telemarketers in speed, scalability, and overall ROI.

Umm... Prove it.

Rick

 

[John Galt]

Um...

ALL marketing should be to a niche with a combination of demographic, psycho-graphic, and psychic-graphic parameters otherwise you're wasting a bunch of money.

That's my whole point here!

Generic rate reduction letters are not as profitable as niche marketing and it takes real copywriting skills to understand and write to the psycho-graphic, and psychic-graphic niches.

Telemarketing just allows you to be a sloppy marketer and still see results due to the fact a live person can have a dialogue to probe for pain.

Every market is different but generally a well written DM piece to the correct market will crush telemarketers in speed, scalability, and overall ROI.

Can you post some staristical historical data tied to your own production? Dm vs telemarketing?

 

[Thad.Sipple]

Telemarketing just allows you to be a sloppy marketer and still see results due to the fact a live person can have a dialogue to probe for pain and qualify. (Savvy marketers do this with DM and/or other automated systems.) Every market is different but generally a professionally written DM piece, to the correct market will crush telemarketers in speed, scalability, and overall ROI.

Totally disagree..............

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Scalability maybe, speed, never, ROI, no way.

 

[Rearden]

First, we have to acknowledge what an insurance agent's marketing is supposed to do.

Generally, we are looking for people to raise their hands up and express a base-level of interest.

That's it; that's the goal of a direct mail LEAD reply program.

The lead does not serve to SELL the product; it only serves improve the odds of identifying POSSIBLE prospects, then, attempting to set an appointment with them to qualify whether or not the lead is a PROSPECT or a SUSPECT.

What's the most important part of a marketing campaign? In my opinion, it's the LIST. WHO you mail to and what type of life situation they are in matters WAY more than what the card says, or whether or not the card is pink or goldenrod.

While I don't mail for Med Supps, I would wager a campaign to a list of AARP Med Sup policy owners who just had a rate increase, would have a vastly-improved response rate over mailing all 67+s regardless of who the Medicare Supplement is with, even if the card is exactly the same.

And, like many FE and Med Supp agents understand, working a "mature" market with suppressed response rates, it is becoming more imperative to use leads that heighten response rates and give agents more ability to get in front of more people, due to the nature of selling FE/Med Supps.

 

[dstrack]

I told the original poster not to waste his time with DM in this market.

I have stated on here numerous times that for supplements TM works better than DM, ...generally.

That's why I said every market is different but generally DM works better. Generally means over all businesses. It was an overall marketing principle statement not directed to insurance products or supplements specifically.

If I confused you guys by throwing out a general statement I apologize.

Dan Kennedy, one of the top marketing masters alive, talks about this extensively in his newsletter.

There are many different ways to funnel leads but most of the medium to larger businesses use DM as their first touch lead gen more successfully than TM.

Thad...

You're saying that TM is faster than DM?

So you can hire, train, and build an infrastructure of TM's that can equal sending out a 10,000 or 100,000 piece mailer in the next two weeks?

Then you have the cost of ongoing recruiting, training, call center rent and equipment.

We could get into ROI but there are so many variables its pointless without a specific example we both are aware of.


For a small one man show TM is cheaper since you only need one or two good TMs that can work from home to keep you fed. But if you look at businesses over all markets the ones that need more leads do much better with DM.

 

[GreenSky]

Any decent telemarketer will generate about 1 lead an hour at a cost of $10-15. So you can get at least 30 hours of calls and 30 leads for the same cost of a DM piece that will return 1-2%.

I don't see how DM makes sense in most markets.

Most indy agents really don't have the need to mail 10-100,000 pieces.

Rick