Marketing is a big topic in insurance. Like really big. Everyone’s talking about blogging, social media and email marketing. You need a great website, you need a CRM tool, you need it all! Well it all won’t matter if you don’t have this one thing. A strategy.
What are you trying to accomplish with your marketing? You need to listen to industry experts to see if your expectations match reality. We far too often see agencies marketing without purpose. The posts on Facebook are unengaging, emails are flat and all tweets are sales pitches not conversations. For your agency to be successful at marketing you need to have a clear strategy.
Another underdeveloped marketing concept is branding. Yes, your agency also needs a brand. It’s actually the only thing you have to have. Other than that you provide just a promise that no one hopes to use and a stack of papers. Imagine this, you go to a website with 5 late middle aged white guys in suits and you are a nurse with 2 kids. Is that going to speak to you? Or you go to a website with 5 middle aged white guys in suits and you’re an up and coming start up company, does that scream buy from me? Your brand needs to match the needs and lifestyle of your target market. It should be about them not you. Brand makes a big difference in the buyer journey. If the prospect perceives a better experience with you, you get the opportunity. If it seems like a snoozefest, you will lose the opportunity. You can check out some brand guides we have worked on to make the decision, would you buy from them?
Once you have a brand you need a clear strategy that includes:
- Your baseline branding strategy: This is how you are going to get your name out the street. It can be general staff birthdays, community events, new products, office pets and news. This should be about 25% of your strategy. Remember, people want to buy from people they know and like. Make your agency likable. I may not like to go to the dentist but I love my dentist.
- You need to select 3-4 campaigns to target. These should also be in brand, creative and interesting. You may consider:
- Winning back lost business or unsold quotes
- Life Insurance
- Niche Campaigns
- A certain product
- A certain event you are sponsoring
When you create your campaign you want to consider the following:
- Start and End Date
- Budget
- Define who you are targeting and what’s important to them
- Identify the keywords you want to use online
- Establish a landing page on your website
- Determine your call to action
- Create your email, blog post and social media posts
- Identify traditional marketing such as postcards, calls, letters etc.
Next you need to set goals for: the visitors to the landing page, number of contacts and number of sales. Once you do this you have a winning and robust marketing campaign!
