AEP 365 – Quarter 2 Strategies
Q2 April / May / June
With AEP more than a quarter gone, many people are settled in their plans and are not thinking of any other coverage. Plus, hopefully, you have completed all your Post AEP appointments (if not, it’s never too late to call a client). Now is the time to broaden your reach for new clients and professional partnerships.
Professional Partnerships
While you are your client’s trusted insurance advisor, there are other professionals who work with your same client demographic.
- Estate Planning Attorneys
- Doctors
- CPA / Tax Advisors
- Financial Planners
- P&C Agents
- Group Producers / Agencies
Offering your services can enhance both your agency and their businesses with professional Medicare advice and direction. Many, if not most, of the above professions may have no clue how Medicare works or what is involved when looking at additional coverage options. Likewise, you may not have the knowledge to prepare a will or trust, perform surgery to replace a hip, file their taxes, etc.
When reaching out, invite them for a cup of coffee and have a casual conversation. Remember that relationships take time to build so take it slow and don’t try and invade their client list right away as the may be very protective of their clients (just like you are of yours). Offer some cross promotion such as some spots on their newsletter or one in yours and let the relationship evolve over time. Doing this early in the year sets you up to be a familiar face once AEP rolls around!
TIP: Don’t involve money. While some people may pay for referrals, keep this on a referral only basis with no monitory involvement. A great way to lose a friend is to involve money. The same holds true with other professionals.
Also, by partnering with other professionals, their clients come to you with less resistance since they were referred by a reputable source. If you do seminars, you may also have them participate and broaden your audience’s knowledge with additional topics.
Seminars
If you have a large book of business, you may have already done some client seminars during AEP in order to touch each one of your clients in such a limited amount of time.
Seminars are great way to address a large, well hopefully large, group of people at once. They also put you in an expert light regarding the topic you speak about. Most professionals who speak in front of groups are held in higher regards than those who do not.
You may be thinking, “What am I going to talk about?” That is where Senior Marketing Specialists can help! We have pre-packaged seminars ready for you to use. From Medicare & Diabetes to the Top 10 Things You Need to Know about Your Medicare, we can help you design and implement a successful seminar!
Some Seminar Ideas:
Invite current clients
Yes, they are already your clients, but you want to make sure they stay your clients. Plus, when you send them an invite, make sure you tell them the invitation is for them and a friend (i.e. a referral).
Do them monthly
This may seem overwhelming to some agents, but it’s a great way to keep you top of mind and circulate your name in the community. You could have a monthly Medicare Update meeting at a set time each month. This would make it easy for your clients to remember and the more people see something, the more likely they are to take action, or in this case attend a meeting!
Make them interactive
While you may find Medicare stimulating and exciting, I am sorry to inform you most people do not. I know. I was shocked too. However, that does not mean your seminar has to be dull and drab. Bring some humor (keep it clean and non-offensive) and ask questions to get the audience involved.
Professional Organizations
Chambers of Commerce, civic organizations, and non-profit groups are operating in your community. While many of them may not directly involve Medicare beneficiaries, they have people attend who have parents, relatives, or friends who are on or getting ready to enroll into Medicare and could use some expert advice (i.e. you!).
While it’s important to get your name out there with beneficiaries, it’s ideal that the community knows who are as well. Check out some of these events and organizations to see which ones you fit in with and want to be a part of. Usually, the first few meetings are free to attend. You could also offer to speak to the group about Medicare topics and trends. There is a good chance there are care takers in the group as well and would love to know what resources and who to turn to for Medicare information!
Newsletters
If you are doing quarterly newsletters (hint, you should be at least sending one out per quarter) it is time to roll out your Q2 newsletter. Check out the SMS Agent Connect Facebook group for topics to share or order the FREE quarterly newsletter from our Agent Marketing Portfolio.
Looking for an easy and free platform to use? Try MailChimp.com. If you have fewer than 2,000 email addresses, you can use them for free.
Miss the first part of the series? Catch up here: