Increasing insurance sales (part III)

Mon, 03 Apr 2017 11:02:53 +0000

Corporate social responsibility is extremely important for large companies looking to stay ahead of the competition, but it can work on a much smaller scale as well.

Giving back to your local community can certainly have a positive influence on the public opinion about you or your agency, which, in turn, can help you to meet new customers. So participating in, or organizing a local charitable event is certainly a good idea – in addition to getting more customers, you are doing something from which everyone can benefit.

Questions and answer sessions work in a similar way as the seminar, but has a more laid-back approach and with no particular topic. If you are knowledgeable about the insurance industry, you will have no problems trying to help people out with any questions they might have. You can organize a seminar in local community centers, libraries, or even top-end bars, and advertise it in good time so people can make time to attend. Once again, you have to be willing to help anyone even if they will not buy from you, but giving a business card to someone after answering their question certainly will not hurt.

Dinner seminars are certainly more expensive than your usual seminars as you are buying dinner to everyone participating, yet they might prove to be more effective as well. As people are much more inclined to participate if they are getting free dinner, you can choose your prospective participants much more carefully; direct mail is probably the best way to send out invitations. Then it is up to you to enchant the audience and set private appointments with everyone interested afterwards.

Online Marketing is equally important. If you do not exist on the Internet, you do not exist at all. You have heard that a hundred times before, and it is as true in insurance business as it is in most other lines.

Surveys indicate that 9 out of 10 internet users searching for local businesses online, will call or visit a local business when they find it online, with local content amounting for as many as 73% of all online activity. Implying that, almost two thirds of all local searches end up in phone calls.

Any doubts? I Do not think so, let us move on then. According to another survey most  of the small business owners believe that having an online presence is extremely important, while a reclusive few think that it is not vital for the well-being of a business. The first step towards having a presence online is your website. There are a few approaches here: while including only a value proposition and contact information works for some, most of us have to provide some relevant and engaging content to get prospective customers to visit the website in the first place.

Local directories are one of the very few types of achieving online exposure which do not require having a website. You can add your NAP (Name, Address, Telephone) information to a handful of online directories and classified websites. While some of them require a fee to include your details, there is also a selection of free directories as well. In addition to driving direct traffic, they are really good for your local search engine optimization, meaning you will show up higher in local online searches for insurance.

Interesting, relevant, and engaging content, including text, images, videos… you name it, provides you with an opportunity to engage targeted visitors.  However, putting content up is only half the battle.  Active marketing and influencer outreach is needed to maximize your content creation efforts. If prospects find what they were looking for, they will be much more inclined to contact you or book an appointment to learn what you can offer.

Search engine optimization methods are used to get your website higher in the search engine rankings for certain keywords. There are plenty of different techniques which involve both on-site and off-site work, so it might be overwhelming at first. However, I believe anyone can optimize their website, so hiring internet gurus or experts might be a waste of money better invested elsewhere.

Make use of pay-per-click advertising. When you search for something on Google, Bing, Yahoo!, or most other search engines, you will notice that some of the listings are sponsored and show up above the organic results with highest rankings. Most of the PPC advertising systems, including Google advertisements and facebook advertisements, are bid-based, so a higher bid for a certain keyword means there is a higher chance of your advertisement appearing in the search results pages. The best part here is that you are paying only when a user clicks the link – they are already interested in your services, so it is up to you whether you get their contact information or not.

While banner advertisements are among the oldest forms on online advertising, they still work. Remember what I said about the effectiveness of visual information? There are some concerns here, as it is important to get your advertisement on a website with users who fall into your target demographics. Most of the time, you will be paying for impressions instead of clicks, only a small number of users who see the advertisement will click on it, so both response and price need to be considered.

Content marketing usually starts with a blog. Valuable, relevant blog articles can work wonders in attracting the right crowd to your website. When blogging, it is essential to remember what your target market is. There are plenty of insurance agents who post information relevant to other agents instead of their potential customer base. While it is true that you are building your authority among peers this way, you will hardly attract any new clients without providing them with information they are interested in.

Posting your own content on other authors’ blogs can also be a great way to increase visibility. First of all, you are accessing their readership and communities, meaning if people find your article interesting, they will be sure to click the link to your website. Secondly, other bloggers might repay the favor, and getting some high quality content for free is always welcome.

Events combine traditional advertising and personal contact, meaning you can communicate the value of your services to more people at a time than when having a personal one-on-one conversation. Most of the people gathering at the events listed below are already concerned about insurance issues, so you are already halfway to turning them into possible customers. Sure, organizing events takes time, effort, and knowledge about the industry, but getting 30-40 interested people into a room is a dream of every insurance agent.

Back links or link requests to your website or blog article on other relevant websites are among the most important parts of search engine optimization. Having plenty of quality content on your website is usually not enough to get other authors to link to it, so sometimes you will just have to ask. Look out for part IV.