According to a recent study by Marsh, Berry & Co., there’s a good chance that it is.

By the way, would you be surprised?

Think of it is this way: given the current soft market conditions, is it realistic that an agency – or any business for that matter – could thrive without a real business plan, a true sales culture, effective and efficient use of technology, AND a comprehensive plan to market the business?

The standard catchphrase “We are a referral-driven business” is starting to sound a little bit like “We’re not sure how to market effectively. We’re nervous about spending money in this environment. We’re not particularly good at getting business from people we don’t know.”

Great news. If this applies to you, you’re in the same boat as 90% of all independent agents.

AR: When and why did you decide to shift the majority of your marketing efforts to the Internet?
SS: We’ve seen the Internet as a growth opportunity for a while now. All of the major direct writers spend a majority of their marketing dollars driving customers to the Internet. In the fall of 2008, we were looking at new ways to use the Internet to get new business for our agency. We found Astonish Results and made it the major f

Agents across the country are looking to create new strategies to deal with the shifting economy and meet the demands of the modern consumer. They realize that the playing field has changed and to compete in today's insurance market they need to adjust their strategy to meet the following goals:

1. Develop a comprehensive strategy to capture new business using the Internet.
2. Increase customer retention by improving their service and communication to existing customers.
3. Train your people to increase customer loyalty, increase policies-in-force, and increase closing ratios.

In order to help agencies like yours meet these goals, we've outlined the 5 Proven Ways To Grow Your Agency in the Digital Age.

Having a clearly defined Internet marketing strategy is becoming the backbone of the modern insurance agency. Steve Lewis, President and CEO of Security First Insurance, is one of the pioneers of this new marketing frontier. We recently had the opportunity to speak with Steve Lewis about his success. Here is the interview for your benefit.

AR: When did your new Virtual Insurance Office go live and what were the results?
SL: Our Virtual Insurance Office went live late in January. In February we doubled our January sales. Literally, the day we went live with the new site our phones and email quote requests exploded. It was complete mayhem when the leads started pouring in. I also know that we are averaging about 8-10 new quote requests per day. Those are solid leads, every one of them. I would say based on our numbers that we are closing close to 70% of those...

In a time of economic uncertainty, Paul Murphy saw the opportunity to grow his business. Through a clearly defined Internet marketing strategy, Paul Murphy Insurance has been able to use the Internet to generate a consistent flow of exclusive home and auto prospects. In less than three months, his agency went from having zero new policies generated via the Internet to consistently writing new home, auto, motorcycle and recreational vehicles policies daily. Now, less than a year later, Paul has increased his new business by over 230% (in this economy!)

We had the opportunity to interview founder Paul Murphy to discover how he’s leveraging the Internet to grow his business. Here is what he had to say.

With all the media coverage and hysteria surrounding the outbreak of swine flu, a group of savvy insurance agents capitalized on the BUZZ, using e-mail marketing to create timely, relevant messages to catch the attention of targeted prospects. Although the idea was simple and easy to execute, the result was a staggering response rate, and more importantly, NEW BUSINESS.

Most industries today are using email to not only communicate with their current customers, but also to market their business to prospective customers. Surprisingly, the independent insurance industry is behind the curve on this opportunity.

Even though this is the case, there are a handful of agency principals that have seen the opportunity and are using email marketing to reduce their marketing budgets and increase their results.

Hear from agency principals that are using Email Marketing.
We’ve interviewed six agencies that are currently using email marketing to successfully make more money to help you see the opportunity...

In a soft insurance market it’s critical that agencies are focused on growing their book of business and keeping their current clients. While the answer may seem simple, it begs a more daunting question: How will you grow your book of business during this soft market?

• Will you buy more Internet leads?
• Will you attend more community meetings to meet potential clients?
• Will you start cold calling potential customers?

All of these methods will work in growing your book of business, but will they provide enough new business to battle the soft market?

At the first bi-annual e-Agent Summit in West Palm Beach, FL, independent agency principals from across the country discovered the keys to explosive growth within their agencies. Many participants went seeking to learn best practices in the area of Internet marketing. They hoped this would be a simple fix to overcoming the soft market and the flight of disloyal “Internet” shoppers.

After 3 days of education and motivation, a simple principle radically changed their thinking:

It’s not about ONE THING. While it’s necessary for the modern agency to have a strategy to capture customers on the Internet, it’s not a complete formula for success. In order for the modern agency to be successful, agency principals must: create the right VISION, motivate and train the right PEOPLE, create an intelligent and comprehensive marketing STRATEGY, develop and implement the right PROCESS