The following post about Insurance Agency Marketing Components is part of an article written by Roger Gill for Issue IV of the 2019 Smart Choice Magazine devoted to Sales and Marketing for Insurance Agents. Please visit the magazine to read the full article and to learn more about Insurance Agency Sales and Marketing.
Partner With An Experienced Insurance Agency Marketing Firm.
Although larger insurance agencies may have the resources to hire a marketing director and to assign some marketing activities to staff members, the cost is usually much more and the results much less than engaging the services of a professional marketing agency with a team of experts and automated marketing software. The professional insurance agency marketing firm should also be able to utilize the marketing functions of the Agency’s Management System. The EZLynx AMS has many built-in marketing functions that automates cross sells and prospecting with multiple auto-response communication channels–emails, SMS, phone messages, and hard mail.
To hire a quality marketing director with the education and experience to accomplish this feat would cost between $50,000 and $75,000 in salary. Additional staff marketing activities may add another $20,000 per year. This in-house route equates to $4,000-$6,000 per month and will not give you access to the multiple marketing professionals with specialized education and training in the many different marketing areas nor the high-tech marketing automation software that outsourcing does.
Therefore, the more technical and time-consuming Marketing Services should be out-sourced to the MARKETING PROs. Doing so will save lots of money and provide a more effective marketing plan and greater sales and profit results–with a higher ROI (return on investment).
Create An Insurance Agency Marketing Plan
By definition, a marketing plan is a written document that spells out the company’s goals, objectives, strategies and tactics to grow revenue. A marketing plan is a dynamic document that defines the actions a business needs to take in order to achieve certain goals.
Proper planning is critical to the future of any business. The marketing plan is a road map that helps to ensure agency resources are used efficiently for the services needed to meet revenue goals and other objectives.
Once a custom, viable plan has been developed and implemented, it is imperative to track and collect data to measure an accurate Return On Investment (ROI); without the data, the effectiveness of each activity is nothing more than a guess. Using the data, the marketing activities can be tweaked for enhanced effectiveness.
Revisiting the marketing plan each quarter will also provide an opportunity to refine and adjust the activities. As the insurance industry evolves, so should your marketing components, tools, and processes. (See http://www.mplans.com/)
Develop A Local Online Marketing Infrastructure
Building a solid online marketing infrastructure is imperative to the success of your online presence. Here we must take the time to strategically plan each level of the foundation so that the next level will be supported by the previous.
KEY COMPONENTS:
1. Marketing Website–Provides credibility, authority, trust, and for marketing content
2. Online Citation Accounts–Provides agency information on numerous websites
3. Social Media Accounts–Provides more credibility, authority, trust and for marketing content
4. Reviews/Testimonials Accounts–Most prospects read reviews and testimonials before buying.
5. Video Accounts–Provides credibility, authority, trust, and for Marketing Content
6. Facebook & LinkedIn Advertising Accounts–Provides lower cost leads
7. Marketing Data Monitoring–Provides the data to measure ROI
Online Insurance Agency Marketing
1. Create & Optimize Online Marketing Infrastructure
Ensure your website, online accounts for citations, content, and reviews are optimized and linked properly for building brand, authority, lead generation (search engine and social media marketing), top-of-mind awareness, and client centered relationships. Resource: https://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors
2. Design & Implement Content Marketing Campaigns
These are focused campaigns to market a specific product or service. The content is the most important component of all marketing plans and comes in several flavors: (1) Authority Insurance Product and Services Content — for Search & Social Media Marketing (2) Local Social, Non-Sales Content — to be part of and to engage with the community (3) Appropriate Personal Content to build a personal relationship with clients and community.
3. Design & Implement Direct Mail Campaigns via EDDM to complement the Online Content Campaigns.
Marketing flyers are created and distributed via bulk mail to residential mailboxes that compliment and support the online content marketing campaigns.
4. Design & Implement Social Media Marketing Campaigns
The various flavors of content are optimized and distributed to important social media channels–includes articles, videos, and audio files. The content is mostly Local Social, Non-Sales and Personal Content as mentioned in number 2 above.
5. Design and Implement Key Word Focused Communications Campaigns
Often defined as only email marketing campaigns, communications of all types may be used to cross sell and inform current clients and to sell to prospects who have opted in to a communication channel.
6. Design and Distribute Videos
Videos are a major component of the Content Marketing Campaigns–they too follow the flavors of content mentioned in number 2 above and for the same reasons.
7. Design and Implement continuous Referral Campaigns
Agency growth is heavily dependent on continuous referrals and lead generation. Referrals have a higher conversion rate than leads from non-referral sources.
8. Design and Implement Organic Search Marketing Campaigns
Organic Search Lead Generation is vitally important. Agency growth is heavily dependent on a continuous source of new leads.
9. Design and Implement Paid Ad Campaigns
Optimized Paid Ad campaigns are an important component of the Focused Key Word Campaigns. Facebook and LinkedIn ads are working now.
10. Design and Implement a monthly Agency Newsletter
Monthly newsletter is one of the best ways to communicate all of the content flavors. A main component to build relationships.
11. Join and participate in local associations (Home Builders, Realtors, etc…) and the local Chamber of Commerce
Bring value by offering insurance and risk education.
12. Design and Implement Data Reports for Marketing Analysis
The collection and analysis of marketing services data is necessary to know what is working, what needs refining, and to determine the Return on Investment of each component.
13. Offline Insurance Agency Marketing Infrastructure
1. Media Ads
2. Flyers
3. Network Groups
4. Community Involvement
5. Clubs and Organizations
6. Event Marketing
7. Direct Mail via EDDM
For more information, contact Roger at rgill@smartchoiceagents.com or follow his blog.