We make three deadly mistakes in insurance direct mailings:
- The failure to be simple
- The failure to be clear
- The failure to be direct
Unless we are simple, clear and direct, we won't be understood. And if we're not understood, we're not going to sell much insurance.
Clarity in writing has a lot of distinguished endorsers. Winston Churchill said, 'Use words everyone knows, and everyone will understand you.' Vic Schwab, pioneer direct marketing author and ad agency president said, 'Use short, simple, sentences-crystal clear in the meaning.'
Even the apostle Paul knew the importance of simple clarity. He said, 'Except ye utter by the tongue words easy to understand, how shall it be known what is spoken? For ye shall speak into the air.' While Paul's subject was speaking rather than writing, it really doesn't make any difference whether the words enter the mind through the ears or the eyes. We won't be understood unless we're simple and clear.
We have too much jargon in our insurance mailings. National Underwriter editor, Joseph S. Diamond, comments, 'Every profession has its own jargon. It's trendy, it's sophisticated, it's impressive. It's an awful lot of things. But it isn't clear, and it isn't helpful.'
Perhaps you think that insurance is too complicated to be described in simple terms. If so, consider this. The Wall Street Journal covers the most complex subjects-finance, taxes, business trends-in language understandable to a 17-year-old. What's more, the front page can be understood by a 15-year-old. Magazines like U.S. News and Newsweek are also written to be understood by a 17-year-old. Research proved to these publications that the simpler the writing, the more is read by their well educated readers.
Let's take a look at some words and phrases that are overused or difficult for the reader.
'Affordable' is used much too frequently. (I suspect it might have been invented by an insurance copywriter.) It seems we're not allowed to say, 'low cost,' so 'affordable' is an alternative. Unfortunately, to the general public, this word is not nearly as commonplace as you might think. It's not even listed in my Webster's Collegiate or Webster's New World dictionaries.
'Existing' is quite popular with insurance copywriters-for instance, 'your existing policy.' Why we can't say, 'your current policy'? 'Survivors' doesn't do much for me either. It sounds like the people able to get off the ship before it went down. And then there's 'confinement,' which conjures visions of a straitjacket, being confined against your wishes, or confined to quarters.
One doesn't see the word 'policy' very much in insurance mailings. You're more likely to see the word 'plan,' which sounds more upscale. Unhappily, the word 'plan' doesn't communicate to the reader the idea of an insurance policy -- yet that's what we have to sell, and what a genuine prospect has interest in. A plan is a program made out in advance to accomplish something; it might include a policy, but it's not the same thing. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) understands this, and states that we must call an insurance plan a plan, and a policy a policy.
Which leads to our reluctance to use the word 'insurance.' Wrongly, we follow the lead of the insurance salesman. He avoids the word 'insurance' because the public perceives insurance salespeople as people trying to sell them something they don't want to buy. Thus the 'insurance salesperson' has evolved to a sort of financial counselor, spending the day 'designing programs,' 'creating estates,' and 'developing plans.'
That doesn't work for us. We must be direct. We must communicate immediately that we're offering the benefits of insurance. Never mind that we're scaring away the great majority of people who have no interest in insurance; we want to make sure only that the very small number of people truly interested in insurance can find 'insurance' instantly when reading through our mailing.
I have a four-page insurance folder from a fine insurance company that sells its policies by mail. The first mention of the word 'insurance' is on the bottom half of page four. True, the word 'coverage' is used on pages 2 and 3, but 'coverage' automatically means 'insurance' only to people in the insurance industry-not the general public. The public sees terms like 'news coverage,' 'sports coverage,' and 'TV coverage' about 20 times for every one time they see 'coverage' used as a substitute for 'insurance.'
'Insurance coverage' is clear, but I feel that 'insurance' is clearest of all. That's what people feel they need. Similarly, they don't talk about 'upgrading their coverage'-they simply want to 'buy more insurance.'
Another fine word used instead of 'insurance' is 'protection.' I remember an ad/interview with Brian Yeowell, the first head of DMIC, in Playboy. The subheading of the ad proclaimed, 'When Brian Yeowell talks about protection, people listen.' The first sentence in the ad was, 'Brian Yeowell has over 16 years of experience in the security and protection business.' Now, to the insurance copywriter, 'security' and 'protection' means only one thing: insurance. But please believe me: In this era of muggings, break-ins, gang killings, and burglaries, that's not how the reader interprets those words.
We foist our insurance vocabulary on the reader with 100% confidence we will be understood. Wrong! Meanwhile, our best prospect-someone who feels a need for insurance-whizzes right by the advertising without realizing it was about insurance.
Another pet peeve concerns what most of us sell: 'supplementary coverage.' Rather than supplement a person's coverage, why can't we just 'increase' a person's insurance, or 'add' to it?
We're also big on 'issuing' insurance (e.g., 'after we issue the policy'). This means putting a policy in an envelope and mailing it. Unfortunately, 'issue' is one of those words with nine different meanings. Why not 'after you are insured' or 'after you receive your policy'? And instead of 'We guarantee to issue your coverage,' why not say, 'We guarantee to insure you'?
It's always best to be strong and specific. We say, 'You are guaranteed this insurance regardless of your health and regardless of your occupation.' Let's bite the bullet and say what we mean: 'You are guaranteed this insurance even if you're in poor health or have a dangerous job.'
Instead of 'The applicant has three benefit level options' (Think of that! Three benefit level options!), let's say, 'You can insure your life for $10,000, $20,000, or $30,000.' Oh well. It could have been worse. It could have referred to the available 'face amounts.'
Here's another instance in which more specific is better: 'Premiums will never increase because of changing health.' The way that is written, it could include health that has taken a change for the better, and that's not what we mean at all. We actually mean, 'You won't pay more because your health fails.' Why don't we say it?
Every time you see it, you should eliminate the phrase 'is designed to' (as in 'The Maximus policy is designed to . . .'). No one cares what it was designed to do. They care what it does.
Wrapping up: Be simple. Be clear. Be direct. Use short words, short sentences, short paragraphs. It's about the easiest way I know of increasing results. Remember this. It's not what we say, or what we mean to say. It's what's understood.