Starting an internet marketing campaign or even improving an existing one can be a challenging task. Where should insurance agencies start and what should they focus on? Here are 10 great online ideas to help your agency improve its online marketing initiatives.
1. Blog and vlog
Blogs are a great way to showcase your expertise and drive visitors to your website. General themes often get lost in the shuffle. Consider writing about very specific topics that are relevant to your customers and prospects. If you are a trucking insurance agency, for example, this means topics on CSA updates, DOT regulations, fuel economy, fleet management, fuel theft, cargo theft, etc. Use videos to make your blogs more engaging and attractive. And make sure your blogs (and website) are mobile-friendly!
2. Improve your Google/Insurance Agency SEO ranking
Google ranking is one of the holy grails of internet marketing. Being on the first page is where it’s at. When evaluating your online marketing initiatives, consider how they can positively impact your search engine rankings. Track your SEO progress and review your website analytics to determine where your traffic is originating.
3. Create a webinar series
Not enough agencies take advantage of online webinars. Monthly or even quarterly webinars do a lot to elevate you from an insurance sales group to an advisor and consultant. Webinars can be recorded and offered as high-value digital collateral on demand after the webinar. And webinars provide a high-value reason to engage customers and prospects in ongoing drip email campaigns.
4. Use explainer videos
Explainer videos, also known as value propositions or whiteboard videos, can be very useful for online marketing because they are usually short, catchy, entertaining, and reusable across multiple media. They can be posted on your insurance agency website, on your brand’s YouTube channel, in Vlogs, and in an email marketing campaign. You can give your best sales pitch to every prospect. Create videos for each major silo of your company (business lines, personal lines, benefits, manufacturing, trucking, etc.) and distribute them widely via social media.
5. Maximize social media
Social media is often an untapped resource for most agencies. At a minimum, each agency should have a professional and branded presence on all major social media platforms, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+. Beyond this, they should have a “respectable” number of followers. Social media advertising can be effective for agencies, but this is a more complex initiative and you must either in-house or outsource it to an expert.
6. Create a Google+ Agency Page
Although most people don’t use Google+, Google will reward you with a better page rank if you create one and post regularly. It only takes a few minutes and will be well worth the effort to improve your insurance agency’s search engine optimization initiative.
7. Leverage Customer Testimonials or Case Study Vignettes
Happy customers will always sell your business better than you. Profile your loyal customers and ask them a few questions about what they love about your business. Even better, create a video and post it on your website. You can also create anonymous case study bullets, short case studies of customer success stories using the type of business and general location, but not their names.
8. Use LinkedIn to its full potential (and get your employees to help you out)
If your agency is a business lines or benefits agency, LinkedIn is the place to be. You should invest time on LinkedIn to ensure a professional company page, ongoing postings, and create a policy to help your employees assist your agency’s marketing efforts on LinkedIn. Join groups and create your own to expand your reach.
9. Press releases – Press releases
Press releases, often referred to as press releases in the ever-changing world of public relations, offer agencies a great online opportunity to broaden their brand recognition and improve their insurance agency’s search engine optimization. There are free services and paid services that are available to agencies. It goes without saying that all press releases should start as a post on your insurance agency’s website, then move to a press release service, and then go live via social media.
10. Use online/email newsletters
E-newsletters provide agencies with the opportunity for high-quality, direct communication with current and potential clients. There are many cloud-based solutions that provide attractive and mobile-friendly newsletter templates. Or you can outsource this initiative to a competent insurance marketing agency. A great email marketing newsletter campaign can have a huge impact on your online marketing efforts.
If your agency lacks the internal resources to carry out your initiatives online, consider outsourcing them to a competent insurance agency marketing firm.
