Everyone has heard of The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. While the message is certainly positive, applying it to your insurance agency’s marketing plan can have an unintended downside. I have always said that the number one rule of marketing is to never say “I wouldn’t like that” in opposition to any marketing campaign. Instead we need to look at what works for the greatest number of people or segment them where possible and do more specific marketing efforts that would be more successful for each segment.
Here is where The Platinum Rule comes into play. The platinum rule simply changes two words: Do unto others as they would have you do unto them. Not everyone wants to be treated the way that you do and not everyone will respond the same way to your marketing efforts as you would.
A non-insurance example of this in marketing and product execution is Burger King’s slogan of “Have It Your Way”. Not everyone wants their fast food hamburger the same way. What if I don’t like mustard or ketchup? By offering up the opportunity for me to order the burger anyway that I want instead of being dictated based on what someone within the company chooses.
The most basic example of this in insurance marketing has stemmed recently with the rise of social media. There are a minority of agency principals that would’ve believed that any type of social media marketing would work to drive leads into their agency. However, according to a recent study, social media marketing is in the top 3 of successful marketing efforts. If we applied The Golden Rule to our marketing, many agents would not be considering a social media marketing strategy, yet 27.1% of agents indicate they are having success in this area.
There are some that think that The Platinum Rule may not even go far enough. Often clients don’t tell us what they want or do not understand what they need. Therefore if we only listen to what they say and for what they ask, we still may not hit the mark. For example, most people complain about ads and business related posts on social media, so they would probably say that they don’t want to see them. However, we know that it works. So we have to interpret The Platinum Rule as to do unto others as they would have you do unto them even if they don’t ask or don’t know what they want! This lines up with a great definition of good service that I have used for years: Good Service is defined at providing people with what they need, not just what they ask for.
The key to being successful in marketing is tracking your results and then using this information to drive your marketing decisions. By taking this approach, we let go of our own biases and stop focusing on doing unto others as we want and start to market to them in a way that will make it more likely to respond.
As we have keyed on a little in this article, using The Platinum Rule can be applied to all areas of your agency. For prospects and clients, this is having diverse ways of being contacted and contacting them and understanding what is in their best interest. This can also be applied internally with your staff or co-workers. By treating people the way that they want to be treated instead of simply the way that we want to be treated, we will increase profits but also provide a superior customer experience and employee environment.
Contact us today to learn more about our AppX Marketing program or any of our programs to learn more about how The Platinum Rule can be applied to all of the aspects of your agency.
