E-mail is a Power Tool

When I was a boy, I played a lot of pickup basketball. A couple of the guys that I played with were Michael and Johnny Flynn, whom we and they, referred to as "The Brothers Flynn.%

Johnny was the one with all the flash. He was the one who'd drive hard to the hoop, the one who would take that game-winning shot, the one with the wisecrack that was always ready. Michael was a lot quieter.

If you just saw that part, you'd tend to think that Johnny was the great ball player, and that Michael was just a guy who happened to be on the court with him and shared the same last name. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Watch a little longer, and you'd see that it was Michael who was usually the one passing the ball to Johnny. It was Michael who was setting the pick so that Johnny could get free for those game-winning shots. And, it was Michael who helped fight their way out when Johnny's big mouth got them in trouble.

Michael and Johnny are a lot like e-mail and the World Wide Web. The Web is the "Johnnyä of this duo. It's flashy. It gets most of the press.

E-mail, like Michael, is often overlooked. It's a powerful, powerful tool. It lets you reach people quickly and inexpensively in ways we never could before. But it doesn't get the press that the World Wide Web gets.

Just like Michael and Johnny Flynn, the Web and e-mail are even better together than they are taken separately. When we talk about e-mail and the Web, it's not a case of either/or. Instead, it's a case of both/and.

The strengths of e-mail are that it is universal and that it's easy to use. In surveys of how people use the Net, e-mail is the one thing that just about everybody (98%) uses. We use it without much instruction. We don't complain about e-mail in the way that we complain about, for example, not being able to find things on the Web.

When you consider e-mail for your agency, you want to look at three particular characteristics that you can use to your benefit. You want to use e-mail for quick response. You want to use e-mail for a more personal response. And you want to use e-mail for ongoing contact.

Since people have been on the Net, we've set some incredible expectations for speed of response. Today, if people visit your Web site and fill in a form requesting more information, they're likely to expect that response almost instantaneously. For regular email, the time is a bit longer. It's a couple of hours. Is it possible to meet those expectations? With a technology called autoresponder, the answer is "yes.%

We've already talked about the autoresponder and how it's used in conjunction with the Web site. You can go further than that to set up autoresponders that can be activated by replies to e-mail. The thing about the autoresponder is it lets you put together a lot of good information, including attachments, and get it out to people without having the delay of needing someone to sort things out.

Also in a quick response area, is the need for follow-up standards. Not every request for information can be handled with an autoresponder. In fact, sometimes the autoresponder sets up a need for a response that takes a little bit of special crafting.

When you have that need, you need a kind of software, such as Cosmotracker, that lets you monitor the status of e-mails that need answering or follow-up. You also need to have performance standards that specify who's going to reply to e-mails and how fast. If we take a lesson from some of the other industries that have adopted the Net for marketing, youâll probably want to have a special group of people responding to the inquiries that come from your Web site or come in on e-mail.

Some of those replies are going to need to be personal. When you get a need for a personal reply, you can still make it up from a lot of boilerplate. We've done that for years with print letters, and e-mail is no different. Again, youâll need a kind of software that allows you to assemble the pieces or send out the standard reply with a couple of small additions.

Youâll also have to make sure that your system is properly linked up to both files and folks. Files are databases. The people in your office who are responding to e-mail should be able to call up information about folks you've already dealt with from whatever back-office system you're using. If it's necessary to have a response crafted by a particular individual, they should have access to the e-mail system that makes it work.

E-mail is also great for ongoing contact. This is where you stay in touch, both with prospects and customers. The easiest way to do that, and probably the most common, is the e-mail newsletter.

E-mail newsletters have become a popular way for businesses to stay in touch with people that they want to connect up to. These newsletters work best if they follow a couple of simple rules.

Rule number one is not to send people things that they haven't asked for. You can have people sign up on your Web site or in response to an e-mail for newsletters on particular topics. Those might be specifically insurance topics, or might be on financial planning issues, or estate issues. Getting their permission first gives you the ability to send them material without them feeling like they're being overwhelmed with spam.

When you send your stuff, make sure it's on-topic and on-target. I've found that it's usually better to not send a newsletter if there really isn't any news or information to convey. You can make this work with your Web site as well, by using a newsletter to send links to more information.

You can use e-mail for sending greetings and good wishes. One of the most successful automobile salespeople of all times was a fellow named Joe Girard. One of the things he did was to send cards to thousands of people every month. Each one said, "Hi. I like you. Joe Girard.%

Sounds simple, and maybe even a little stupid, but it was one of the keys to Joe's astounding success. You can send people greetings and good wishes on dates that matter to them, like birthdays and anniversaries or on the birth of a child or grandchild. You can send good wishes just for the heck-of-it. There's no law against that, and it's easy to do. It helps you maintain contact.

Finally, you can keep that contact going by sending reminders. This fits right in with your role. You can send reminders when premiums are due, reminders when it's time to review coverage, and reminders when it's time to step back and look at some new possibilities.

What makes e-mail excellent for all of this is that everybody uses it, and it's easy for you to use. But to make it successful, youâll need more than just your basic e-mail software. Youâll need some kind of software that lets you handle mailing lists, such as the one youâll use for newsletters, ranging from very small lists to very large ones. You also need some software that lets you track the responses that are in the pipeline and make sure that they get answered promptly and accurately. During the program, I mentioned some software called Cosmotracker that fills the bill.

Most important, youâll need to set your system up so that the people, the technology, and the software all work to help get quick responses out and stay in touch with folks. That's the kind of thing I'd love to help you with.

Now, it's time for the final step. Let's take a look at how this all works together.

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