Articles · Top of mind

Staying Top of Mind Works Even When You Don't Pitch

Showing up in your clients' inbox, even with nothing to sell, builds familiarity. Familiar people are harder to cancel on. Here is why passive contact pays off.

By TJ Larkin · October 12, 2026

A drawing of a house, a car and a heart under a spotlight

Familiarity builds liking, even without a pitch
A person is harder to cancel on than a business
Passive contact still counts, if it is worth opening

Staying in front of clients works even when you are not selling anything, because people tend to like what they see often. A newsletter that gets opened, or even just glanced at, builds familiarity. And people don't cancel on someone they know.

The idea behind it

Psychologists have a name for this: the mere exposure effect. Robert Zajonc formalized it in a 1968 paper. In his experiments, people were shown neutral things, like nonsense words and faces, different numbers of times. The more often they saw something, the more they liked it. According to Simply Psychology's summary, exposure alone was enough to shift attitudes.

That is a lab finding, not an insurance study. We are not saying a newsletter will make clients love you. We are saying that familiarity helps, and it costs very little to build.

Why that matters for an agent

Think about who a client keeps. They keep the agent they have heard from, laughed with, or recognized. They drop the faceless company that sends a bill.

A client who sees your name and face every other week has a sense of you. When a premium goes up and they feel annoyed, they have a person to call, not a logo to cancel.

People don't cancel on someone they know. They also give someone they know the chance to explain.

Passive counts

Many agents believe contact only counts if it is a conversation. It does not have to be.

Most of your clients will never reply to a newsletter. Some will not even read all of it. That is fine. A subject line seen, a photo glanced at, a funny meme forwarded to a friend, all of that is exposure. You are not asking for anything. You are just there.

The research on the mere exposure effect points the same way. Simply Psychology notes that the effect does not need conscious recognition, and that liking rises fastest over the first few exposures. In plain terms, early and regular contact does the most.

Being a person, not a business

There is another side to this. Businesses are forgettable. People are not.

A newsletter with your name, photo, and links puts a human face on the agency. Over time, clients stop thinking of "the insurance company" and start thinking of you by name. That is the entire goal.

This is also why a carrier's email does not do the job. We cover that in carrier emails are not your marketing.

There is a limit

Familiarity has a ceiling. The same research notes that liking does not climb forever. A 2017 meta-analysis of 268 curve estimates, covered by Simply Psychology, found that liking rises, peaks, and then falls with too much exposure.

So do not bury clients. Twice a month is not that. A daily blast of sales messages might be.

What you send also matters. Repetition of something people dislike does not help. A dull pitch, repeated, just gets deleted. That is why the content has to be worth opening.

The retention link

Here is the practical part. A Liberty Mutual study reported by IA Magazine found that among agencies with improved retention, 32% proactively reach out to clients at least once a month, versus 24% of agencies with flat or declining retention.

That is a correlation. It does not prove contact causes retention. But it fits the simple idea above. Agencies that stay in touch tend to be the ones clients stay with.

If you want the full argument for why agencies in particular need this, read why insurance agents should stay in front of clients.

How to do it without more work

The hard part is not the idea. It is doing it twice a month, every month, without it eating your week.

That is the point of retentionletter. We write and send an entertaining issue to your clients on a steady schedule, branded to you, with your name, photo and links. You fill out a form once and customize it. There is no software to log in to. Pricing is on the pricing section.

Sources

Common questions

Do clients actually need to open the newsletter for it to help?

Opening is better, but even a seen subject line with your name counts as exposure. Better content gets more opens.

Is this proven to improve retention?

No. The mere exposure effect is a well-studied finding about liking, and the Liberty Mutual data shows a link between outreach and retention. Neither is a guarantee for your agency.

How often is too often?

Research suggests there is a point where more exposure hurts. Twice a month is a gentle pace for most clients.