For service providers, building strong partnerships with insurance brokers can be a powerful sales and marketing channel. Brokers can serve as a direct line between you and their clients and are a trusted and efficient avenue to charge your distribution efforts. In fact, 54% of companies say partnerships drive more than 20% of total company revenue (Partnerize).
Whether you have an established broker channel built out or are in the early stages of expanding your distribution, you know very well that it can be a challenge to effectively engage your broker targets and accurately measure your efforts.
This post will dig into how to take your prospecting data a step further and turn your broker partner targets into meaningful connections and answer the question: how can I supercharge my distribution channel strategy and drive the most revenue for my business?
Walk First, Then Run: Getting the Right Prospecting Data
You can’t have an effective marketing plan in place without identifying the right targets.
Data is an important part of prospecting, but as the availability of data continues to increase, it is becoming a commodity. And not all data is created equal. With just a quick Google search, you can find dozens of companies that provide basic prospecting data pulled from 5500 forms, plus email addresses, office locations or insurance plan information.
All that is great, but it’s not enough. You must identify the dataset that allows you to find and focus on the brokers who have a book of business that aligns with your ideal customer profile.
Once you have the right data, you can find employers based on your ideal customer profile and identify their brokers. Every organization is unique – and that includes yours. So, it is important to be strategic about the partnerships you choose to pursue. For example, PEOs who specialize in workers comp may be looking to target incumbent brokers of employers that have had issues with OSHA violations in the past, or Cyber companies may be looking to target brokers who work within a certain premium threshold.
Once you’ve identified the brokers that would best match your organization, the real fun begins.
Identifying The Right Channel Partner: Time to Engage
You’ve worked hard to build your brand, but breaking into a new channel and expanding your centers of influence is hard, and the broker channel is no exception. Brokers don’t know the reputation that you’ve built and have no reason to trust you over any other provider that is trying to offer their services.
Yes – lunch and learns, networking at tradeshows, and online advertising can all be very effective – but these strategies only get you so far, and this is where finding the right channel partners becomes the critical next step.
Co-branding with a channel partner who has an existing relationship with brokers gives your brand immediate credibility and guaranteed exposure. That partnership allows you to immediately increase your brand awareness and boosts the likelihood that a broker would be willing to take your call and pursue a partnership.
Message Received: Leveraging Tech
Layering your current development strategies with the offerings a channel partner is able to provide for you is where the real magic happens.
Not only will you get valuable facetime during your lunch and learns, but you will also be taking it a step further by embedding your organization into the brokers tech stack and everyday workflows, ultimately creating more meaningful connections, providing concrete metrics, and driving revenue for your business.
Supercharge Your Channel Strategy with Zywave
The easiest way to put all these pieces together is to partner with a solution provider who can offer the three essential pieces of powering your broker channel distribution strategy: data, engagement, and technology. And that partner is Zywave.
We can help you supercharge your broker channel strategy with:
Data: Our industry-leading prospecting platform allows service providers to access comprehensive insurance profiles from millions of employers nationwide, and to quickly obtain and evaluate a broker’s complete book of business.
Engagement: Our sales solutions make it easier than ever for you to build your brand with brokerages in partnership with Zywave. As a leader in the market working with over 15,000 brokerages worldwide, we’re here to help you create the connections you need for growth.
Technology: Place your marketing content directly within the platforms that are leveraged by over 110,000 individual users every year. Keep your organization top of mind and ensure that brokers can easily communicate your value to their clients without a hassle.
To learn more about how Zywave can help you supercharge your broker channel marketing strategy, click here and we’ll connect you with a product specialist.