Social Media Marketing For Insurance Agencies Explained
No matter the type of business you are in, digital marketing has to be implemented to ensure your business adapts to the ever changing market. Billboards and fliers are on the outs, and social media and digital marketing is king. If done properly, your insurance agency can substantially increase revenues and change the trajectory of your business.
When using social media marketing for insurance agencies, there must be a clear plan of attack. To adequately utilize social media, you want to identify the goal(s) of the business with your marketing, pinpoint your customer base, outline which platforms your agency will benefit the most from, and ensure you have the right people and tools to execute the marketing plan.
Even if you don’t have an extensive marketing budget, there are still endless ways to use social media platforms to expand the growth of your business. With the average consumer spending at least 2 hours per day on social media, getting your brand on as many platforms as possible will help increase the chances of scaling your agency.
Why Social Media Marketing is Essential for Insurance Agencies
With a social media presence and the right tools, you can create an automated system that will be fundamental to expanding your business. Since just about everyone is on social media and particularly their phones, going digital with your marketing isn’t a suggestion, it’s a lifeline for your agency.
Build Customer Relations
With an online presence, it’s a lot easier for owners to get to know their customers. As opposed to fliers and billboards, a basic phone number doesn’t always yield the response you want. When you have a social media page, people can send you a direct message letting you know the complaint or feedback of your service or product, making it easier for you as an owner to make the necessary changes for an optimal business.
Expand Reach and Improve Referrals
Word of mouth, billboards, and fliers can only reach so many people. With social media however, the reach can be global, offering a much bigger advantage for your business. People are always on their phones, and having a presence where people can rate and review will be helpful for future potential customers.
Regardless of the brand, people operate off of good or bad reviews. If there’s hundreds of 5 star reviews for someone or something they’re not as familiar with, versus a few hundred 3.5 star reviews, they’re undoubtedly going to go with the better reviews, even if they’re not as familiar with the brand.
Improve and Promote your Brand
Even though there are hundreds of millions of people on all social media platforms, there’s always room for more businesses and influences. It just takes the right product or service with the proper target marketing.
You can surely pay for professionals to work your digital marketing for you, or can use all the free tools already available and continue doing things on your own for as lean as you need to. Regardless, social media has had an amazing impact on all types of businesses because it gives people the ability to market to the entire world at their fingertips.
6 Steps to Improve Your Agency’s Digital Presence
If you’re newer to digital and social media marketing, then you might be wondering where to even get started. The following 6 step process is full of general rules of thumb and has a short list of things to keep in mind when marketing your agency as well as how to constantly improve your processes.
Have the Proper Tools and People for the Job
Social media has a lot of moving parts, and can be extremely inefficient. Yes, having the right people for the job is crucial, but you must also have the tools to make your digital marketing as easy and efficient as possible.
Social Media Assistant Apps
There are a handful of apps you can use to help make your social media marketing much easier:
They’re essentially your assistant for your social media accounts, and can help make your or your marketing team’s lives a whole lot easier. Some of the features associated with these types of apps:
Scheduling your posts ahead of time can make things more efficient and save you time by planning when you post, and you don't have to worry about doing so every single day.
Another feature these apps have is the ability to measure analytics and total traffic to your pages. This is beneficial because it allows you to try a certain strategy then see if it’s had a positive, negative, or no effect on your business. Where are customers bowing out in the process, and why might they be doing so?
Having the ability to track all the comments and feedback from regular users of the various platforms, you can see what types of ways you may need to adapt your message. Are they saying good things about your service? Do they have complaints or constructive criticism on how their experience could have been better?
Sometimes a different delivery method is required to make sure it’s appealing, yet gives the end consumer a desire to learn more about what you’re marketing.
Doing posts every single day, from start to finish, can take up a lot of valuable time that could be spent elsewhere. With the help of applications like the ones above, you can be sure you’re utilizing your time and efforts as efficiently as possible.
Set Goals for Each Platform
Regardless of the social media apps you use, you’ll want to have a specific set of plans for each. Not all are the same, so no two strategies are going to be the same. Having goals for each app forces you to have thoughtful planning for the sake of your business and gives you a direction on where to focus your time, attention and resources.
It’s inevitable that your goals are going to change depending on the platform(s) you’re focusing on.
For example, your Facebook posts may need to have a lot better copy than Instagram. Instagram, you’re going to want to focus more on the visuals whether that be photo or video. TikTok, you need to capture attention quickly and have videos that are relatable, especially to a younger audience. If you’re on something faster like Twitter, then you have room to try a bunch of different deliveries and methods to see what works the best.
Below is a list of some good goals that can be used across the board, no matter which social media app you’re working with at the time:
Generate leads - you need to get people fascinated in your product so that they will want to learn more about what you’re selling and be interested in buying. These constant touches and drips on people will help them to eventually come around to want to learn more about what you have to offer, and then you can convert that into real sales.
Increase brand awareness - with marketing, it’s imperative that you do everything you can to capture more attention so people are aware of what your product and/or service is. If they don’t know about you, they can’t buy what you’re selling.
Have a call to action - at the end of each post on your social media pages, you’ll want to insert some type of call to action. That could be things like, “Send us a direct message to learn more,” or “Visit our website to order your (insert product or service).” If people aren’t asked or told what to do, chances are high they’ll just keep scrolling.
Increase engagement - people talk about this algorithm and that algorithm, but overall, engagement will help put your post(s) more front and center than others where there is no engagement. From likes, shares, comments, and reposts, the more interaction you get with your audience and followers, the more likely it is to get noticed by more potential customers.
Now, even if you’re not going to use a particular platform, it’s a good idea to make an account and put your business as your username so that it can’t be taken by somebody else. For example, if your business won’t benefit as much from Snapchat or Twitter as it will from other apps, it’s still a good idea to create an account on both platforms so someone else doesn’t take your name and ultimately create a different brand of their own with it.
With that being said, you don’t need to post on every single type of social media in order for your business to expand and sales to grow. Use what will be the most beneficial to your agency and go all in on those. If you start to see a change in trends and adding another channel will help, then do so. Otherwise, it can be too daunting to keep up with every single platform available.
Define Successful Marketing for your Agency
Having a plan is necessary, but that’s only half of it. You need to implement, but also determine if your goals are being met based on the standards you have set for the agency. How are you going to measure success? Is there a certain percentage increase you want to see in sales, web traffic, engagement, or all of the above? It’s important to outline what will deem your digital marketing “successful” or not.
When defining success for your agency, your target numbers should be optimistic, but also realistic and attainable. You should also give yourself a little leeway since it’s your first time dabbling in social media marketing. No one is going to be an ace their first time with any new skill, so be nice to yourself and allow some room for improvement if you don’t hit your exact success numbers right out of the gate.
Start with small wins and go up from there. If you try to set a goal too great and don’t hit it, you’ll feel defeated before you truly get going. Maybe you shoot to see if you can increase sales by 5% or something small within your first month. Hit that, then keep some of your process and alter what you need to get at least that same return and then some. Use what works, replace what doesn’t, always adapt, and then it’s just a process of wash, rinse, and repeat.
Have a Strategy for Each Platform
As mentioned, each platform is going to have a slightly different goal with a slightly different strategy. Since they all have varying experiences and solutions, it is imperative that you don’t treat each application the same.
We’ll go through a few notable platforms and what the goal and types of content are utilized most for each:
As you can see, different apps and sites are used in different ways, and if you adhere to how each can be used the most optimally, then you will give your business the best chance of success. Use what you’re comfortable with, but you might still have to learn some new tricks of the trade if an unfamiliar app is going to be beneficial for your agency.
Something like LinkedIn could be extremely fruitful for your insurance agency, as you have the ability to join groups of similar business owners and can engage with users in the ‘comments’ sections of articles written solely about and for insurance agencies or anything insurance related. This site is designed specifically for people to network and try to share business, so people won’t be upset when you try to pitch how you can improve their lives with your services.
Facebook can be a huge help in driving traffic to your agency’s website. Facebook is free, but if you invest a little bit of money into paid advertising, there is exponential growth that can happen as a result. You can target specific audiences based on demographics and can ensure your message is reaching the people you want it to reach, not just the hundreds of millions of random people on the app.
Instagram is geared a little more towards the younger generations, but is still widely used across the world. It was made popular by posting the best visuals, and has now expanded into being able to host video form as well. The goal here would be to get more attention and build your brand awareness to those that might not have any idea your agency exists. Clever captions and great visuals will help you on this particular app.
YouTube has been around for quite some time, and is still one of the most popular and most used forms of social media. YouTube stars and businesses trying to be informative and build a voice have really milked YouTube for all it’s worth. Strong, informative, and entertaining videos will be your best friend here.
If there won’t be a spot on your website for it, then YouTube will be the perfect place for video testimonials. People want to know that what they’re about to buy actually works. Written testimonies help, but when others see people taking the time to get in front of a camera to tell how much your agency helped them, that speaks so much more, and YouTube would be a great library for that type of content.
With certain channels and shorter or longer form, you can do more Instagram posts a lot quicker and easier than a YouTube post. Due to the time of making the various types of content and letting it soak into the market before you make a new post is going to be crucial with your overall timing of post frequency.
Overall, you need to have the proper strategies for each channel you’ll be using in order to maximize your efforts and effectiveness in your marketing. Strategies provide starting points and direction, and will help you refine your process as you continue with your marketing approach.
Post Only to Your Page(s)?
You should be active on the pages of other insurance agencies as well as the pages of potential clients that you would like to work with and be in network with. When you comment on their pages and posts, or share and repost their content, then they will take notice and start to identify you as a friend of their page and content.
When you start to engage consistently with other pages and businesses, there is going to be a better chance that they’ll give you the time of day and respond to any inquiries you may send their way when it comes time to pitch them how you could improve their businesses with your agency.
Set What Money You Can Aside as a Marketing Budget
Even though you can do a lot and get pretty far for free, there are a few things that you’ll want to set a little money aside to do. With paid advertising, you can really hone in on your target audience and make your content specific to them, and even make sure they are the ones who are going to see it. When you know your market, sales will be easier to gather when what they know they need is right in front of their face.
Google Ads
Google ads have a profound effect on business and sales growth. As one of the leading ways to successfully advertise, Google ads provide a list of benefits so that you can properly measure and track how they are (or are not) performing:
Target your ads - with Google ads, you can direct your marketing efforts to those with the specific interest of your insurance agency in mind. You can do this in a variety of ways:
Age, location, language: choose the proper demographic of your target audience based on where they’re located, the language they speak, and how old they are.
Keywords: use words or phrases that are highly searched when people are looking for your types of products or services.
Devices: manipulate what types of devices your ad shows up on, whether that be any and all kinds, or specific to a mobile device.
Date, time, and frequency: schedule your ads to run from certain times through certain days so that you can yield the most amount of eyes on your ads as possible.
Rank higher on Google searches - when you use Google Ads, there is a big advantage in being seen higher up on the results pages. We all know that no one goes past the first page, and hardly past the halfway point on the first page. When you have the ability to rank higher on Google searches, there is a much better chance your agency will start to get a lot more traffic as a result.
Control how much money you spend - with Google Ads, there’s no minimum, but you will be able to run longer and more specific ads with a little more capital.
Analytics - Google allows you to measure every part of your ads and engagement. If people click on your link, you’ll know about it. If they click and go to your site, set up a consultation, make a purchase, then you will also know. This helps you see what’s working and what’s not with your marketing campaigns.
Manage campaigns - this is particularly useful if you’re running multiple campaigns. This allows you to see all of your campaigns at once and can assess more efficiently and effectively. You can also use Google Ads Editor to make changes to your campaigns offline, then upload them to your Google Ads page.
It might take a little more time to learn, and a few extra bucks towards the marketing budget, but if you can figure out how to manipulate Google searches and ads to drive more traffic to your site, then you will see an exponential increase in people lining up for consultations for a new insurance, as well as conversions into actual sales.
Analyze Metrics and Constantly Improve Processes
Your marketing data can tell you a lot about how your campaigns are performing. This is the great thing about switching from old school methods like billboards and fliers to digital. With those methods, you were hoping that people saw the ads and showed up to that concert or went to your website to buy something. It was effective to an extent, but also a shot in the dark.
With social media marketing, there are countless ways to enhance your posts by way of simple things like hashtags, forums, and testimonials. This makes things a lot easier to get word out about your insurance agency.
Whether it be Google Ads, Hootsuite, or any of the other applications to manage your marketing campaigns, they can all help you track the data of your marketing efforts. You can see if people open an email, click on your Facebook ad, visit your website, add something to their cart, and if they eventually buy something. When you can see where they dropped off in the process, it is easier to pinpoint the bottleneck and what might have lost their attention and deterred them from finishing their purchase.
Final Thoughts
Marketing can be a challenge, especially if you’re new to digital marketing and social media. First starting out, it might seem a little daunting, so having someone else in your business or even your own kid might help in learning the ropes a little bit quicker. Everything seems to have moved to digital, but that helps when everyone is also always on some sort of device most of every single day.
Social media and digital marketing, whether you like it or not, is the future of marketing regardless of the business or industry you’re in. Insurance agencies can benefit greatly from new styles of marketing and have the ability to spice up how much one can benefit from an agency that is the proper fit for their customers.
If your agency is new to this way of marketing, then follow the steps outlined in this article. These are great starting points and can help give you a sense of direction in a world where it seems easy to get lost in an overload of information. Take things a little at a time, and work on adding a few new things every couple weeks or each month. Try not to compare your progress or learning curve to everyone else, just make a plan, implement that plan, and always be improving based on your customers and your style of business.
Sources:
