Personal letters may work best today 

Personal letters that include enclosures such as agency brochures, producer profile cards, a simple pre-qualification questionnaire, and postage-paid business reply cards are still in vogue.  In fact, well-written letters with well-conceived enclosures rank near the top in terms of gaining attention and producing action. 

They work even better if you have a company that has an appetite for a special commercial risk and a conquest rate or unusual coverage benefit. 

Here is a sampler. 

Economical, effective mailings 

Personal letter packages facilitate low-volume, economical mailings.  You can afford to do repeat mailings, altering the letter copy and the enclosures for each repetition.  Also, you can address your letters direct to the decision-maker or decision-makers in a friendly, highly-personal way. 

Here’s an example of a pre-approach letter targeted to funeral directors.  It promises a follow up contact.   

Dear Mr. Jones: 

We are pleased to announce a new Funeral Directors Insurance Program.  By comparing it with others on the market, we know it is one of the most comprehensive and competitively-priced available today. 

The program is designed exclusively for your profession.  It provides a package of coverages that protects your business from risks that are most worrisome. 

Best of all, we can tailor the program to meet special needs you may have and eliminate features that you do not need.  The result is the right coverages, at the right time and at the right cost. 

I will call you next week to see when it might be convenient for us to discuss this new program and its benefits for your business.  

Thank you for your consideration. 

Sincerely, 

PS  We invite you to visit us at www.insuranceagency.com. 

Encl: Agency brochure      

About enclosing a carrier brochure 

If you have a carrier with an outstanding product brochure, by all means consider enclosing it with a personal letter. 

Unfortunately, most carrier product brochures that we see are written by an actuary or an underwriter.  The language tends to be insurance-ese and the consumer benefits are buried in a barrage of features that few lay people can fathom. 

You may be better served by producing your own benefits’ highlight flier and using it as an enclosure. 

The three business card gambit 

This routine works.  Enclose three business cards (pocket-billboards, I call them) with every mailing.  Two may be discarded.  But the third one will be kept.  Americans have a certain ethic about wastefulness:  Three is too many to waste; two, okay---but not three!