Has your insurance agency considered bilingual marketing opportunities? In my post below, I’ll give you some ways your agency can expand its reach into a key demographic.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 37.6 million U.S. residents out of those surveyed said that they spoke Spanish at home in 2011. That’s a 117 percent increase since 1990. In its “2012 Agency Universe Study,” IIABA and FutureOne stated that 40% of agencies reported that the Latino/Hispanic population group is among the most important from a marketing perspective in personal lines.
As the number of Spanish-speaking residents within the U.S. continues to increase, so does the need for having a marketing strategy that will speak to them. Here are a few ways that your insurance agency can expand its reach to be inclusive of your Spanish-speaking customers.
- Know your audience. Before you make a cold call, blast an email, send out a direct-mail piece, a renewal letter, or any other form of communication, know who your target demographic is, and what language they speak. The cold call will be over before it began if you reach a prospect who doesn’t speak the same language as you do.
- Create marketing collateral in English and Spanish. Consider having a brochure for your insurance agency in English and a second one in Spanish. Based on your target audience, determine whether or not you may want to also consider a multilingual website, with content in more than one language. This would allow the user to choose their language preference when they visit your website. Google offers some guidelines and best practices to follow when creating multilingual sites.
- Consider adding bilingual insurance agents to your team. While not every agent needs to speak more than one language, it’s a great idea to have at least a few who do. This could significantly improve your leads and curtail any language barriers your team may encounter.
- Ensure any translations you offer in another language are accurate. While there are many online tools available that can translate English to Spanish (and vice versa), not all of them may be 100 percent accurate. Have a Spanish-speaking proofreader ensure that any marketing communications you publish say what you intend them to.
QQ Catalyst can help. Catalyst lets you enter your clients’ preferred language in their records, so you know which languages they prefer. Plus, Catalyst itself is bilingual! Simply select either English or Spanish in User Preferences and the user-interface immediately switches to that language!
¿Hablas español? We’d love to hear any insights you may have on how it has helped your agency reach a broader customer base. Share your feedback in the “Comments” below.
