Craft a Winning Agency Identity

Which marketing program, dollar for dollar, will give your agency the biggest bang for its buck? A direct mail program? Networking? Pay-per-click? The answer may surprise you: A standout company identity. Any kind of marketing program will bring your buyers face to face with your company identity in a hurry. If, at this point, you have a flawed agency identity, the buyer will go away—never to return. Game over.

Honor each touch point. From a company Web site, which might be the first thing a buyer sees, to the delivery person, whose brake lights may be the last, every single touch point between your agency and its market adds to your buyers’ storehouse of knowledge. To capitalize on these moments of truth, identify all of your agency’s touch points and then work hard to improve the most important ones. Those touch points that occur most frequently (for example, a Yellow Pages ad for a taxi service) should be the ones that command the most time and effort.

Strive for consistency. Spread out on a table one of your agency’s business cards, a sheet of letterhead, an envelope and your brochure. Also have your Web site up on a screen. Now, ask yourself this: How consistent is your company’s identity across all these elements? Do you see the same brand images? Are the colors and typestyles consistent?

If just one of these tools lacks brand consistency with the others, you’ll plant a seed of doubt in buyers’ minds.

Always honor your promises. Too many companies these days speak loudly yet carry a teeny-weeny stick. Some marketers fancy themselves a carnival barker and use phrases like “best in the universe” or “no one does it better than us.” Rational people will see through these over-the- top claims and doubt your agency’s character. Watts Wacker, a well-known futurist, once said that “a brand is a promise and, in the end, you have to keep your promises.” Be true. Be authentic. Don’t hype.

Guard against the “We Disease.” Next time you visit a company’s Web site, count the number of times it features the word “we” versus the word “you.” More than likely, you’ll see at least three “we’s” for every “you.” This is significant because your buyers really don’t want to hear about your agency. They only want to hear about how your agency is going to help them. To guard against the “We Disease,” rewrite any section of marketing copy so that there’s a 50%-50% split between “you” and “we.”

Give buyers control with opt-out. A recent Yankelovich Partners study reveals that 65% of respondents feel constantly bombarded by too many marketing messages. As a result, people are turning to devices that keep marketers at bay and regulate the flow of promotional messages. These opt-out devices include caller ID, pop-up ad blockers and TiVo, and they put the control squarely back in buyers’ hands.

To address this new marketing dynamic, always include opt-out language in mailed and e-mailed marketing communications that says something like “If you’ve received this by mistake, or want to be taken off the list, just e-mail us and we’ll be happy to do so.”

Remember, great company identities are made, not born. If you’re really serious about improving your company’s brand identity, devote time to working on it day in and day out.

Jay Lipe (www.emergemarketing.com) is president of Emerge Marketing and author of “Stand Out from the Crowd: Secrets to Crafting a Winning Company Identity.”

Carrier Branding Connection:
Main Street America

Growth—it’s what Main Street America Group (MSA) is looking for in 2007, and strong independent agents represented by a strong brand are how the company intends to get there. “We know we need scale to fund our technology investments; it takes a lot of money to provide the functionality that our customers—independent agents— need at their fingertips,” says Tom Van Berkel, president and CEO of the Main Street America Group. MSA is looking to expand into five more states in 2007.

“Everything we are doing is designed to help the independent agent; our overarching objective is to take care of our customers better,” Van Berkel says. “We will only do business with independent agents; on a macro level, the type of independent agent we are working with is changing—agents are getting bigger.”

Van Berkel notes that in order for both agents and companies to achieve growth, everyone in the industry needs to be on board with Trusted Choice®. “Too many agents think they can brand themselves,” Van Berkel says. “The agent might be known in their community but there is a greater good in the eyes of the consumer. In the research we did for Trusted Choice®, only about 8% of consumers knew about independent agents. The qualities that independent agents bring to the table were what they wanted—they just didn’t know about it.”

MSA was the first company to join Trusted Choice®, and Van Berkel notes that the company has been very public in its support for the brand. When addressing state association conventions or other events, Van Berkel says he always takes the opportunity to talk about the benefits of Trusted Choice®. In addition, he tries to spread the word to other carrier CEOs. And MSA puts its money where its mouth is—it offers to pay half of any agency’s first year of dues that wants to join the brand movement.

“The brand is something that we should all make our goal,” he says. “When consumers know there is a standard of behavior and customer service—that’s the Trusted Choice® pledge—they will join us.”

—Katie Butler