Lesson 1: What Is It and Why Is It Important?

Welcome to lesson one of Grassroots Marketing. So, I was excited to jump in and into one of my favorite topics in the insurance industry. So, we’re going to start with what is grassroots marketing and why is it important? So, a real simple definition for you, for grassroots marketing. It’s the process of generating interest in a product, a service, a brand with the use of a targeted and niche audience. So you’re really building your brand. You’re building, uh, yourself as a subject matter expert in your market,  by focusing in on a target market. If you’re in the Medicare space, you’re gonna focus on senior citizens. You’re gonna focus on where folks congregate, uh, that are 65 years old and older. If you’re selling in the under 65 space, it’s a totally different demographic, so you’re going to go different places. But, generally speaking, grassroots marketing is generating interest in your product, your services, and your brand by focusing on that target market. So you want to go where that target audience is. That’s what we just said. If I’m, uh, selling Medicare products, I want to go where the seniors spend their time. Seniors in my community spend their time at McDonald’s, right? 6:00 AM The coffee club is there, you know where to go. They’re at, uh, fitness locations, but they’re there certain times of the day. So you can gear and, and, and target your marketing strategy, your exposure to that market based on where that audience is spending their time. I do wanna throw in a suggestion with your grassroots campaigns as you begin to build them and integrate them into your marketing strategy. If you will combine your grassroots marketing campaigns with digital marketing, social media marketing, you will exponentially increase the effectiveness and the results that you get from grassroots campaigns. So grassroots, often referred to as feet on the street, a lot of things that it gets called never, never view that as something that is entirely standalone. Layer in additional marketing of the events that you’re gonna do, the activities that you have available. Promote all of those in your digital and social campaigns and you will see significantly more traction and results, from what you’re doing. So, I’m often accused of being the Dave Ramsey of the insurance industry. Perfectly okay with that. Grassroots marketing is a great way to get started on a budget. Most insurance agents aren’t building their book of business or their agency with huge marketing budgets, right out of the gate. They don’t have tens of thousands of dollars, to go spend on websites and lead purchase and all these systems. It sounds good. We all want to get there that most people have to start with a more conservative approach. Well, I’ve got good news for you. Most agents start right where you’re starting with a small budget, limited budget and looking for ways to generate revenue that is going to build their marketing budget over time. That’s where grassroots marketing comes in. It is an investment of time, primarily rather than dollars. There is, some spend that is gonna need to take place just to, make sure that you have the appropriate swag items and giveaways and flyers and brochures that promote your services. But you can get started in the insurance space with very limited financial investment. And that’s what we want you to be able to use this grassroots marketing, strategies that we provide to you to be able to get things off the ground, get, get them running by generating low cost, organic, high-quality, high-intent leads that are looking for you in this industry.

So, being a time-based, strategy, right? Tom is the most valuable asset that you have. We’ll talk about that a little bit later on. It’s the most valuable thing that you will ever possess. God’s not making any more real estate and he’s not making any more time. So, you have to take what you have, invest it wisely, and understand that with grassroots, I’m not gonna see a return most of the time on day one. I’m not gonna see any significant lead flow on day seven. It is a sixty, ninety, a hundred- and eighty-day investment of your energy, your effort. It takes time to build. But when you do, you can expect significant and consistent lead flow by making yourself a value-based partner in your, in your market, within your target demographic, to be able to provide them the information they’re looking for, the services that they’re looking for. So, we’re gonna help you generate, again, low-cost leads, client base that is chasing you down.

One thing that most insurance agents, frankly, are terrible at, I’ve never enjoyed doing, that’s calling leads. You buy a lead, you call a lead. The lead doesn’t answer. They ask for information. They don’t answer the phone when you call to provide it. So, you go out to their door, you knock on their door, my boss makes, makes me come and see you because you requested information and we wanna put it in your hands. You know what they do? They don’t answer the door. So, we’re spending our entire careers feeling like we’re chasing our clients. In reality, with a strong grassroots strategy, your clients are gonna begin to chase you. I don’t know how you like to sell, but I prefer to sell when the clients are look looking for me, seeking me out, uh, looking for ways to leverage the value that I bring to the space. That’s what you want to build your business and your value to the community, you want to continue to build that so that clients are literally calling you. We want to make the phone ring. Okay? So that’s what we’re gonna do with giving you some strategies around grassroots marketing.

Successful grassroots campaigns are focused more on what they can give to their community than what they’re receiving in leads. So, the old cliche saying is, no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. We’ve all heard it, we’ve all said it. We all realize there’s an element of truth in it. But the reality is, during your grassroots feet on the street campaigns, you want to make sure that you are expressing your heart, your passion, your compassion for your target audience. They should feel how much you care before they ever sit down to do an evaluation of their current status with insurance. They should know that you’re going to bat for them. You’re providing, opportunities, information, education, a true service, to that community.

So we’re gonna get into, in some of the future lessons, um, some very specific strategies. But I want you to understand there is absolutely no right or wrong way to do grassroots marketing may. Maybe there is a wrong way. The only wrong way to do grassroots marketing is to set at your desk. That is not grassroots marketing. That’s not gonna accomplish anything outside of that. Anything goes, we can be, uh, creative, we should be consistent, and we should be compassionate. So, the key, to being successful is to understand that there’s no wrong way to do it. If it’s an idea that I’ve come up with, that my clients care about that is gonna provide a value to them, it is gonna keep them coming back to me as a resource in my community and keep them coming back to me sending referrals to me. So, I want to remain creative. There’s all kinds of ideas out there, tons of information, available around feet on the street and grassroots marketing. But I want you to, uh, let your creative juices flow when you get into grassroots campaign. Your community is different than my community. Your target demographic was raised differently with different sets of values than other markets. So be creative. Be specific to your market and be consistent. You don’t want to, show up in an event or show up at a, a place of business, whatever it might be, a senior housing community and, and you show up once every six months by the time you come back. They may vaguely remember your face, but they don’t remember what you do. And the key to all grassroots marketing campaigns is that everyone in your target audience knows who you are and what you do. When they know who you are and what you do, and they’ve seen your heart and your compassion within the market, they’re gonna seek you out for the services that they need. So, allow your compassion to show. And the fun thing about grassroots marketing is it’s just that it’s fun. I get out from behind the desk, I get out of the office. I’m not setting on a webinar. I’m not listening to somebody tell me what I should be doing. I am out engaging my community as a value-based resource specifically to serve them. Grassroots marketing in, a nutshell is just that. It’s serving your community face to face on a consistent basis and being passionate and compassionate about the services you provide. Before we move on to lesson two, let’s take a quick quiz to test your knowledge.