Level Up Your List Strategy

By Matt Wagner, ClientFocus

Here’s a question I get at least weekly from agents across the country:

“Matt, what approaches are other agents using to create review appointment lists?”

The simple answer is that we mostly see agents using alphabetical, renewals, birthdays, existing life, high-propensity for life, zip code, etc.

But those are just tactics. Let’s talk about strategy. Specifically, segmentation

Businesses segment customers based on demographics, psychographics, geography, etc.

For our industry, though, the best segmentation comes from two things:

• Product portfolio

• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

That’s because customers with different priorities will stack up differently against these two measures.

When you segment this way, you might get three to five customer profiles that have important differences.

• First, each profile’s priorities and needs are distinct.

• Second, how you attract, acquire, and retain each profile is very different (or should be).

• Third, your baseline conversations with them must be different to maximize your relevance.

• Fourth, the profiles contribute to your business’s financial health and growth differently.

Want to level up your customer engagement strategy? Here’s the short version:

1. Do a back-of-napkin sketch of your customer profiles based on portfolio and CLV.

2. Create a high-level micro-strategy for acquiring and retaining each profile.

3. Integrate your list creation into those strategies.

The (Slightly) Longer Version

Imagine that you have two customer profiles defined.

PROFILE A contains 50 households that look more or less like this:

• 3-4 vehicles, a house, an RV and some toys, etc.

• Life policies and retirement accounts

• Maybe a small business

• Average $1,500 of recurring commissions (ARR or “Annually Recurring Revenue”)

• 20 years of retention

You only have 50 of these, but they’re giving you ~$75K of combined ARR every year.

They’re also rewarding you with Customer Lifetime Value of $30K each at very high profit margins.

By contrast, let’s say PROFILE B has 500 households like this:

• 1 car with minimum coverage and a renter’s policy or a condo

• $100 of ARR and 4 years of retention

These 500 customers provide $50K of ARR and $200K of CLV, but they’re more work and they churn more often. Plus, a bigger chunk of that revenue went to acquisition cost.

Both profiles matter, but they have different needs and warrant different microstrategies if you’re going to optimize them. You’ll need to define and refine:

1. How much you should spend on acquisition.

2. How you’ll attract, acquire, and retain them.

3. How you’ll make your review appointment conversations super relevant.

Moreover, your biggest impact can happen as you help Profile B customers become more empowered insurance consumers as you meet with them periodically. They’ll reward you handsomely for your commitment to them.

Back To List Preparation

Once you have your profiles and your microstrategies defined, integrate them into your list preparation process. Which profiles you add to the list is less important than putting them there on purpose.

You’ll need to have nailed down who will meet with each customer, how they’ll maximize relevance out of the gate, and how they’ll give the most value to each customer*.

*Bonus points if you (a) earn Profile A referrals and (b) make care calls to them between appointment intervals.

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