For many years, specialists in the insurance industry have acquired leads through traditional marketing approaches like word-of-mouth and face-to-face interactions. Although these ways of attracting clients have been effective, the era of digital marketing has opened the door to new ways of generating leads. By introducing digital marketing to the insurance industry, you can increase online visibility and brand awareness of your agency significantly.
In this insurance marketing guide, you will find tips on how to develop a successful online insurance marketing strategy.
Goals for insurance marketing campaigns
Insurance marketing campaigns are designed to grow a business. To measure growth, you should set clearly-defined goals and track metrics established during a campaign. Here are some of the most popular goals for insurance marketing campaigns:
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- To increase brand awareness. Sometimes potential clients cannot reach out to your brand because they simply do not know about it. A well thought-out and carefully implemented SEO campaign can help boost your company’s brand awareness.
- To get qualified leads. The main focus of insurance agencies is most likely to expand its flow of clients. That’s why most agencies employ marketing campaigns to receive a steady increase in qualified leads.
- To increase the ability to cross-sell. Cross-selling may be the key to the insurance industry’s growth, especially for increased customer retention. Multiple policies qualify clients for additional discounts and lead to a stronger sense of trust.
- To decrease customer acquisition costs. On average, businesses spend five times more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing customer. For insurers, customer acquisition is even more expensive — it costs seven to nine times more for an insurance agency. Managing costs while attracting new prospects presents quite a challenge for insurance companies.
Common marketing mistakes insurance agencies make
There are mistakes many insurance marketing specialists make again and again when performing a digital marketing strategy. Here are some that may significantly decrease the results of a digital marketing campaign:
Lack of consistency. To be truly effective, your marketing efforts should be consistent in the quality, quantity, and message you provide. Infrequent bursts of dissimilar marketing efforts will unlikely be effective.
Not using market research to drive decisions. Data resulting from market research should drive strategic decisions across the organization. By performing market research on a routine basis, insurance companies will be able to have access to data they can leverage when making a final decision.
Relying on word of mouth too much. Although word of mouth can be a way to increase your book of business, companies cannot rely on word of mouth alone to grow the loyalty of customers, lift brand awareness, or improve sales. It’s a tactic that works, but it does have some pitfalls. First, you will never be able to control what’s being said, who’s saying it, and when. Secondly, it takes time to raise awareness about your company and educate clients about how you can alleviate their pain points or add value to their lives. If you lean just on word of mouth and don’t use other marketing techniques, you miss a lot of opportunities to grow your business.
Having outdated or irrelevant content on the website. Old, poor-quality content hurts your search ranking. Google’s Panda penalty slashes rankings for websites that have too many pages with low-quality content. Even if you have website pages with great content that converts visitors and ranks high, it may not be enough to balance out signals of low-quality and expired content.
Not performing a link building strategy. Link building is an essential part of gaining domain authority and establishing partnerships with other businesses. Without it, the website will not be able to rank high for specific searches in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Insurance marketing strategies to consider
Having a proper marketing strategy to promote your agency online will likely result in a higher number of clients. Implementing right digital marketing strategies may help you receive a steady increase in clients. Let’s see how it works in a more detailed way:
Make your website design effective
Some insurance agencies still have outdated websites that negatively impact their online visibility and the conversion rate of traffic. If a potential client stumbles upon an outdated site that looks unprofessional or untrustworthy, they will likely leave your website.
The first thing you should pay attention to is how fast your website takes to load. Faster websites will outperform those that are not, just because most users don’t want to wait more than three-five seconds.
To increase engagement on your website, make sure calls to action, or CTAs, on your website consist of phrases that entice users into taking steps toward a certain action. These are usually placed in the website areas that are most viewed, such as the front page or menu bar. Powerful CTAs are essential to lead generation as they naturally draw the attention of users and inform them of what they can possibly do to engage with your business.
Implement insurance SEO
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the strategy of improving online presence. With a proper SEO strategy, insurance agencies are able to optimize their websites and improve rankings for organic series queries. Implementing search engine optimization can help clients find your agency when they’re looking for insurance agencies in their local area. There are some techniques that can be used when running an insurance marketing campaign:
- Identify keywords that are related to your products or services and are locally specific. By ranking for local keywords, your agency will begin to appear in more specific searches.
- Build a backlink portfolio with local backlinks from domains that are relevant to the insurance industry. It can be a key factor in a successful local SEO campaign. When looking for websites to get backlinks from, it is significant to look at their Domain Authority (DA) and the number of backlinks to their own site.
- Set up your Google My Business account and provide detailed information about your business and location, add relevant photos, and respond to user reviews. It can increase user interaction and trust as well as signal to Google that your website should rank higher. You can also submit your agency into all of the local directories and business listings online.
Use social media marketing
Social media marketing is an integral part of insurance marketing as it enables your business to connect with prospects and clients on a personal level. Social media platforms also allow agencies to review their products and services by sharing posts or providing updates about the company or industry.
By utilizing Facebook, you have the ability to post updates, share news, publish blogs, and create events. You can also share feedback from other people or businesses about your products or services and make people know that you appreciate their opinion (yes, even if it’s not flattering). By showing prospects and clients that you are active within the community and care about their feedback, they will feel closer to your business. If you want to reach a large audience, Facebook ad campaigns can be a great solution.
Insurance companies can also utilize LinkedIn ads to improve their visibility. Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn allows sponsored content in addition to basic ads. Sponsored content is non-intrusive advertising content that appears naturally on a page. When combined with a well-optimized profile, Linkedin ads can increase the number of your profile’s followers.
Invest in email marketing
Email marketing is one of the most widely used marketing strategies in the insurance industry. By regularly sending out relevant and helpful newsletters to prospects and clients, you are providing constant reminders about your products and services. The core benefit of email marketing is being able to provide information to policyholders like new lines of coverage, changes in rates, or upcoming promotions. Even something personal like wishing a policyholder a ‘happy birthday’ can make them feel connected to your agency.
Giving people the option to sign up for your newsletter will allow them to connect with your agency on a regular basis. These reminders may also increase the likelihood of new or repeat purchases from recipients when it comes to acquiring a new insurance policy.
Conclusion
To develop a successful marketing strategy, start with setting clearly-defined goals, and then choose the strategy and tools. Any of the strategies we offered you to take a look at can significantly improve the results of your marketing campaigns. Of course, it won’t happen overnight, but if you invest enough time, effort, and resources there’s a good chance you’ll get what you want eventually.
Anna Grechko is a marketing enthusiast and knows the field inside out. She is the marketing specialist at Smart IT. Sharing knowledge is a big part of her career, so Anna doesn’t miss any opportunity to do so.