When the average insurance agency owner is asked how much he spends on advertising and marketing, this is often left blank.
Because they have no idea that they are spending money, but they just don’t know how much.
An adequate amount to spend on marketing activities to grow the insurance business, I generally hear that it is something like 5%.
Top 25% fastest growing list and other times on the top 25% profitable list.
It costs a lot of money to grow and that reduces the owner’s profit or income.
To grow an insurance agency, one must be prepared to invest in it.
Spend on Marketing:
Growing at an annual rate of 50% and investing all profit growth in the business.
To grow slower, invest less. But remember that it is an investment, not an expense, go ahead and get a return if invest wisely.
Visit one of the insurance agencies to better familiarize and with their operations and ask about their marketing program.
This is a very common strategy among many independent insurance agents, especially in auto insurance sales.
This does not mean that it is a good insurance marketing strategy.
The best musicians in the world can riff on the basics of music and make the resulting sound inspiring. Superstar athletes can obviously do the same.
Help create hundreds of independent agencies.
When comparing the results of those who created strategies and were intentional in their marketing, as opposed to those whose strategy was to be an order taker, the results are roughly 3 to 1.
On average, agencies with intentional marketing efforts outperformed order takers by 300 per cent during the same period.
Prodigy or superstar athletes can take whatever comes along and make gold out of it.
Marketing for insurance agencies is now easier than ever.
Marketing to potential customers is easier than ever.
So the good news is that most people want to buy from agents.
And the communication cost is cheaper all the time.
It’s not about ads, it’s about building relationships.
Marketing is not advertising.
Independent agencies would find it difficult to compete with the massive advertising budgets deployed by the main players in the national insurance industry.
Those are buying Super Bowl ads and increasing the cost of pay-per-click search advertising.
Two-thirds of consumers conducting research online said they prefer to shop from companies that send them personalized news and articles rather than companies that just advertise.
Email marketing, website marketing, and social media marketing are great channels for staying on top of the local community’s mind and driving traffic to the website.
Create a marketing strategy for the insurance agency
A great marketing strategy prioritizes potential customers seeking the service.
Make sure they can find us when looking for insurance.
There are simple steps that can be taken to make sure the agency is found.
Get started with the basics online:
The customer’s search for insurance always includes a search on Google or another search engine.
The agency appears in the search results.
Google, Bing and other NAP citations.
Google My Business.
Take control and management of the Google listing through the Google My Business tool.
By taking control of the listing through the Google My Business account, control what Google shows about the business in regular Google and Google Maps search.
Add helpful information like phone number, website, and hours of operation.
Recommend adding photos to the list, such as photos, which makes the search experience more personal.
One should also include a photo of the entrance to the office, to make it easier for people to find.
According to Google, listings with photos get 42% more requests for directions on Google Maps and 35% more clicks on the company’s website.
Bing locations:
While Google is the overwhelmingly most widely used search engine, Microsoft’s Bing search engine is still used enough to pay attention to it.
Fortunately, Bing has a tool similar to Google My Business, it’s called Bing Places.
We recommend that to go through the same claim and list management process for Bing Places.
In many circumstances, Bing Places can be an effective tool because it is overlooked by most small businesses because Google is so dominant.
Name, address, phone appointments:
In addition to Google and Bing, there are hundreds of other trusted websites where business contact information can appear.
They are like digital business cards.
It is good practice to ensure that each of those lists, known as NAP (short for name, address, phone number) appointments are accurate and consistent.
There are two reasons for:
If a potential customer is on one of these tabs, the agency’s contact information must be accurate for them to connect.
Google and other search engines see these other NAP citations.
If there are discrepancies in the contact information, for example, if the address is inconsistent,
the search engines are less likely to show the business in search results due to potentially unreliable information.
Although there are hundreds of these websites that include NAP dating, one does not need to contact each of them to establish control of the listings.
There are services like Yext and BrightLocal that will correct and manage NAP citations for a monthly fee.
Social media platforms:
- More than 600 million users visit a Facebook Business page every day.
- People use Facebook, in a way, as a search engine.
- Virtually everyone with a Facebook account has done so, at least once.
- Create a Facebook page for the agency.
- Then follow these best practices for social media marketing:
- Take a recognizable profile photo.
- If there is a solo agent, consider using a good headshot.
- If there is a larger agency, consider using the logo.
- Use an attractive cover photo.
- The cover photo takes up a lot of space.
- Use it wisely.
- Add a call-to-action button that will allow a potential customer to communicate with the team.
- Write relevant individual and agency information in the About section of the page.
- Include information on how to help clients.
- Post videos and photos to the timeline.
- Pin the most important posts to the top of the timeline for potential customers to see first.
- Consider allowing Facebook users to send messages through Facebook Messenger.
- Respond to comments on the page.
- In addition to Facebook, recommend that to take advantage of LinkedIn, making personal profiles for and the producers; as well as an agency page.
- For agencies selling lines of business, LinkedIn can be a powerful prospecting tool.
- It can also be a good reference tool for both business and personal sales.
The agency website may be the most important marketing asset to have.
A great website serves as a reliable source of new leads and clients.
Here are the best practices to follow when creating an independent insurance agency website:
Make sure the website loads quickly.
Slow-loading web pages frustrate users on mobile devices, and search engines penalize them.
Loading speed is an important factor in search engine optimization.
Check website loading speed with this tool.
Make it easy for website users to start the process of getting a quote or talking.
Place a call to action on the website pages in a prominent position in the middle of the view.
Don’t ask for too much information on the form.
Just get basic contact information so can call or email them.
And then get back to them quickly.
Always include an About Us page and a Privacy Policy page.
Those have become mandatory pages to rank on Google and other search engines.
Ask for links to the website of the organizations to have a relationship with.
Email Marketing:
Email marketing is one of the oldest digital marketing means.
A profitable channel to reach new customers and retain existing customers.
Ask website visitors to subscribe to the blog and/or email list.
Exit Intent Popups are a good lead generation tool for growing a blog subscription email list.
These small subscription forms appear when the user makes a movement indicating that they have finished reading the blog post or web page.
Take care of the reputation:
Poor online reviews can make it difficult to sell to new customers.
It’s a good idea to capture dissatisfied customers before they do that online review.
Fortunately, there are tools, such as BirdEye and Reputation.com, that can be used to encourage positive reviews and detect potential negative reviews before the customer publishes them.
Create buyer personas:
Not every human is likely to be a good prospect.
If one sells personal lines, the best customers are likely to own a home above a certain value.
Obviously, if one specializes in business lines, only business owners and/or senior managers are good prospects.
A helpful buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of the ideal customer.
The buyer personas to be developed will help focus sales and marketing efforts on the leads and referral partners who are most valuable.
To learn more about buyer personas, check out this resource from marketing software company HubSpot.
Having developed the personas, it’s time to start creating marketing content.
Develop the right content and promote it:
Since almost all insurance clients use the Internet to research and buy, as an independent agency, they must create content that helps potential clients become actual clients.
Content Marketing:
Online content comes in many ways.
It can be the written word, like blog posts.
They can also be videos, graphics, and audio (like podcasts). The content can also be interactive, as in the case of an online quote tool.
The key to creating content that engages customers is answering the questions potential customers ask.
Use a COPE strategy to maximize the content to create.
Front Facing means Create once, publish everywhere.
An example of an efficient COPE strategy is:
Write and publish a blog post on the website blog that answers a common question from customers.
Record a video to discuss the question and the answer.
Upload the video to YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Be sure to describe the content in the appropriate places when uploading it.
Share content in all its forms through social media channels and email marketing lists.
Use a marketing analytics dashboard like Databox and examine content analytics to understand which channels are performing the best.
Spend more time and resources on channels that generate new customers.
Social media marketing
Almost 3 billion people around the world use social media.
It is an important medium.
In addition to the COPE strategy, social media is a great way to present the agency in a positive light.
Strive for an 80/20 content mix, where roughly 80% of social media content isn’t necessarily a direct draw for buying insurance.
Make it fun and post regularly.
Make it easy to start the online sales process.
People just don’t talk much on the phone.
Therefore, do not force potential customers to make a phone call to reach them.
Place an introductory form on the website and make sure it is highlighted in the view of users when they visit the website.
Let people get started on Facebook Messenger if someone can regularly monitor the inbox.
Stay flexible:
Established the basics, be patient.
Also, pay attention to which channels work first and add them to the channels that can confirm they are effective.
Once to get started, it will be much easier to make good investment decisions with the marketing budget.