Insurance is a well-known concept. Most business owners understand that they need insurance and that they need to go to an agent to get it. For agencies, the hard part is drawing those prospects to your business. That’s where online insurance marketing comes in. In order to market effectively online, there are 10 simple rules you should follow.
Create a Consistent Brand
You’ve done your branding. You use a color scheme and logo that everybody recognizes. So why do you use three different versions of those colors and logo between your website, social media and whitepapers? So many insurance agents think vague similarity equals branding. In order to create effective online insurance marketing you need to ensure that everything is consistent across all platforms and marketing channels.
Don’t Ignore Social Media
Another common gap in agencies’ online marketing is a lack of social media activity. It’s not that insurance people and agencies don’t have accounts, they just don’t use them very often. This is usually because agents still think that few of their prospects use these channels. The simple fact is if we’re advising agents to use these channels, other marketers for other industries are offering the same advice. Social media cuts across all industries and demographics; you can’t afford to ignore it.
Find Your Voice
Branding and social media aren’t the only inconsistencies in insurance marketing; many agents find it difficult to create a clear voice online. Every piece of content you create should have a consistent voice, when a prospect reads a blog or tweet and then visits your website it needs to feel like they’re dealing with the same people. Too often website content is written by one person, the blogging is shared and social media is done by whoever has the time. Inconsistency in content can be really jarring; you should take care to avoid it.
Match the Channel
That’s not to suggest that you can’t use a bit of variety in your content’s tone. You should be active across a number of social networks as well as blogging and email marketing. Each of these channels has it’s own unique style; you need to make sure you apply your voice and branding to that style. For example, a blog post is much less formal than a whitepaper, but you can be even more informal in Twitter. It’s all down to the channel.
Blog
Blogs are great because they fulfill so many duties. Your blog allows you to talk about your industry and present your agency’s personality. It also helps to build a community of subscribers and gives you content you can share through social media channels. On top of all that, blogs provide your website with SEO benefits, so your website is found more often. In short, if you’re not blogging, start.
Don’t Scaremonger
A common trap many insurance agents fall into when creating marketing or selling their products is scaremongering. You offer protection against some scary stuff so it makes sense to warn prospects. But you do so much more than that. A good agent can help a business to grow and improve factors like safety culture. Your insurance marketing should reflect that.
Don’t Hold Back
Another common instinct in insurance marketing is to give little detail in blog posts and whitepapers. Agents are afraid of handing over too much information to people who aren’t yet clients. This makes you appear guarded and even unhelpful. Digital marketing is supposed to help you build credibility and trust; you can’t do that if you’re limiting the information on offer.
Make Connections
Selling B2B services is all about connections and selling insurance to business owners is no different. LinkedIn offers the opportunity to meet peers and potential prospects and build valuable connections through group discussions and content sharing.
Focus Your Efforts
LinkedIn brings us to another important point. While a varied insurance marketing strategy is important, you need to set priorities. If you have channels that take up your time but don’t fit with your agency message or don’t generate sales you should consider dropping them.
Analyze Everything
The most important point on this list is to analyze and evaluate everything. Every website visitor, every social media campaign and every blog – you need to know what value they provide and why. That way you can make constant improvements to your online insurance marketing strategies.
Find out how SiliconCloud’s insurance marketing program can help improve your agency’s strategy.
