Introduction
Background of the study
There are several insurance marketing strategies that can take any insurance firm from mediocre to success when utilized correctly. Breaking into a new business climate and finding customers is hard work, but when equipped with innovative ideas and proven techniques, financial markets sales personnel can become extremely successful. Key insurance marketing strategies will always include an in-depth review of the value of follow-up. All successful sales intermediaries understand that consumers need to be contacted again and again in order to make a vital connection. Also, great follow-up protocol lets the potential customer know that good, solid customer service will be part of the over-all package.
Follow-up says to a consumer that they are important, thought of, and that their business would be greatly appreciated. The consumer today not only wants a product at a great price, they also want a personal relationship, especially when it comes to financial system sales, such as various insurances (Bakos, 2018).
Though several factors can be readily identified as drivers of this perception including the lack of adequate understanding of the insurance contract, its terms and conditions, limitations, coverage, exclusions and deductibles including the legal and regulatory framework in various countries; the focus of this study is to clearly assess the effect of insurance marketing strategies towards the performance of all insurance companies in Nigeria.
There are insurance marketing strategies that can take any insurance agency from mediocre to success when utilized correctly. Breaking into a new business climate and finding customers is hard work, but when equipped with innovative ideas and proven techniques, financial markets sales personnel can become extremely successful. Getting an education and training is very important in every industry, sales is certainly no exception.
Statement Problem
Majority of insurance companies in Nigeria have developed concrete strategic plans to increase their business, a strategy towards increasing the penetration levels within the Nigerian insurance industry. Some of the marketing strategies put forward are: − intensified marketing activities locally (through market penetration, market development and product development strategies), increased the level of customer service and focus in all departments of the company; intensified personal selling as a marketing communication strategy and pursue a competition oriented pricing strategy in all markets, (Osalo, 2017). In order to operationalize these market driven business objectives, it’s critical to have in place some silent strategies that fuel them such as sales promotion, market intelligence and product innovation.
Mirie (2017) did a study on the marketing of Insurance services; however this study only gave us an overview of insurance marketing but failed to inform us on the effects. Kyeva (2015) did a survey of the marketing mix used by life insurance companies in Nigeria in responding to the challenge of Hiv/Aids pandemic, however this study was limited only to the relation between life insurance companies and Hiv/Aids pandemic Wamwati (2017) did a study on the critical success in the insurance industry in Nigeria, however this study was too broad and failed to look critically to the marketing strategies and their influence on performance Karanja (2018) did a study on the innovation strategies adopted by insurance companies in Nigeria, however this study only served to inform us but failed to establish the relation between innovation and performance.
The argument is that the major contributors to the sector performance are the marketing strategies adopted by insurance companies. It is important to emphasize that good marketing practices by insurance companies in Nigeria is imperative if the industry is to effectively play a key role in the overall development of the country. From this study’s background information, performance and achievements of most insurance companies depends largely on the use of effective marketing strategies that are tailor-made to suit customer needs among other strategies. It is evident from this argument that the development and implementation of effective marketing strategy is a very important function for an organization.
Research Objective
The objective of this study was to determine the techniques for marketing insurance products in Nigeria using a case study of selected insurance companies in Nigeria.