Washington insurance agent Dave Christy is a “numbers guy” at heart.
Originally from Columbus, OH, Dave moved to Washington during high school and graduated from Washington State University with a focus in Math and Communications. After graduation, he put his skills to the test as a stockbroker for several years before becoming a licensed insurance agent in 1994.
Following the success of his first agency in Spokane Valley, WA, he opened his second satellite office in nearby Pullman, WA in 1997 and has consistently ranked in the top 50 out of 18,000 agencies in his company.
In an effort to help others find similar success, he even helped found www.teammembertrainer.com, which provides educational video workshops for insurance agencies across the country. Since starting the program, Dave and his team have trained over 1,000 agencies on industry best practices across the country.
Besides his work in insurance, Dave is happily married and has four children, including his son Jared Christy who also serves Spokane Valley as a second-generation insurance agent!
We sat down with this longtime insurance pro to learn more about his initial approach to digital marketing and how he ended up joining Melon Local after things didn’t quite add up from other digital insurance marketing companies.
Melon Local: What was it like advertising your agency before digital marketing started to take off?
Dave: I became an agent in a small town. The way to network back then was to become a part of things physically, whether it was community committees for downtown growth or playing basketball at lunch hour with all the local business people or college professors.
It was more of a physical get out there and see people type of thing. Not so much going door-to-door. Those days were over, even back then, but it was more about being seen.
There were no internet leads to buy. There was no social media. It was a simple referral network that you would physically build.
ML: Sometimes, it’s hard to imagine a world without technology — especially when it comes to marketing. How did you approach digital marketing once it became more prominent?
Dave: It seemed like a good idea to let as many people as possible know what you did on social media when it first started becoming popular. At the same time, it seemed more like a popularity contest. In my company, you’d create a page, and 1,000 people would like it, but the problem was they all worked for our company! In terms of generating business from it, you weren’t going to get any because my followers did exactly what I did.
The business benefits of social media started to become clearer over time. So we started to work a little more strategically on the messaging, the optics of what we’re doing and to be appealing as possible. As social media best practices and abilities changed far more rapidly than our skillset, it became more important to align ourselves with somebody who knew what they were doing.
ML: Is this part of the reason you eventually signed up with Melon?
Dave: The two insurance marketing companies I’d been with prior talked a very good game but could never actually show me anything. I’m a math guy! They couldn’t show me if they were returning any form of revenue in exchange for their fees. Couldn’t prove it!
Through various friends within my company, I was referred to Melon Local because of the clarity of their reports and their knowledge of our processes since they had so many other agents as clients.
My client success manager, Kate, showed me sample reports, had me pull some of my interim reports and matched up the numbers. We decided to go on a trial basis, and after 60-90 days, we noticed significant improvements. That was good enough for me!
ML: What has kept you with Melon Local?
What’s kept me at Melon Local is the clarity of reports showing business results.
I don’t want my social media and digital stuff to simply be an electronic billboard that I hope a number of cars drive by. Since they can actually do the tracking, I like the reports that show that info. I actually want to know how many cars drove by!
That’s why I stick with Melon!
Dave: What are some of the results you’ve liked seeing so far?
We get reports on the number of leads to our agent-specific microsite, as well as leads that come directly from phone calls. Both of those have improved significantly.
That’s how I’m really basing the business value of Melon Local — the before and after. I can see that I get far more leads than most agents in my area because I’m actually spending money to make myself known through Melon.
What I like about Melon Local’s social media services is that it’s a little more specific to our agency and to our team. It’s a little more intentional from a business edge as opposed to generic content used by thousands of other insurance agents.
ML: You’ve become extremely successful in your industry. What advice do you have for new agents who would like to achieve your level of success?
Dave: I think most agents have a tendency to plateau fairly early in their careers. There’s a tendency sometimes for newer agents to not spend as many dollars as a percentage of your gross income on marketing, and that slows down your growth. So my advice would be to maintain those percentages indefinitely.
As the years go by and you learn what types of marketing work in your community, whether that’s digital and social media through Melon Local or sponsoring local events, you will get smarter about how you spend your money over the years by trying to measure return on investment. But the key is not to slow down on your spending, and that will facilitate growth.
Thank you, Dave, for the kind words about Melon Local! It’s so awesome to hear we’ve been able to deliver your agency fresh leads and create engaging social media content for you. We’re so glad to hear how you — as well as your son Jared — have benefitted from our digital marketing services.
If you’d like to generate quality leads and be one of the best in the game like Dave, then schedule a demo with our team to find the right insurance marketing package for you!