An insurance company marketing plan is the best way to build a larger clientele and grow your business. While word of mouth works for some, it’s not the only way you should market your insurance agency.
Today’s customers are online, whether reading emails, surfing social media, or conducting searches in major search engines. If you aren’t marketing to your audience online, you leave your prospective customers to your competitors.
The key is to create a marketing plan for insurance agents that caters to your audience and showcases you as a leader in the insurance industry.
Why Marketing Strategies for Insurance Companies Are Important
Digital marketing is the key to reaching your target audience in any industry, including the insurance business. With the onslaught of advanced technology, customers have many opportunities to find insurance agencies besides those in their immediate area.
A good marketing campaign is critical to reaching your target audience, letting them know what you offer and that you have insurance industry expertise.
The right marketing strategy includes various tactics meant to meet your customers where they are, no matter the platform.
For example, ranking high on Google is crucial, but you shouldn’t stop there. It’s excellent when customers can find you on Google’s first page, but they usually need more. So while ranking on Google’s first page will help increase your website visitors, it takes more marketing strategies to convert them to customers who purchase insurance.
Methods for Insurance Companies to Market Their Business
Insurance agencies have many marketing strategies at their disposal today. Maximizing your insurance marketing strategies to include as many of these methods as possible may help increase your chances of reaching your target client.
You may include some or all of these marketing tips to increase interest in your insurance agency’s customer base and brand recognition.
Local SEO
Search engine optimization is one of the first digital marketing strategies for any existing or new insurance agency. SEO makes your insurance agency visible to your target market. When done right, you should rank on the first page of Google because you’ve used the proper techniques to help your agency rank higher than competitors in the insurance industry.
But local SEO takes it to another level. It aims your keywords at your local target audience. So, for example, if you’re an insurance agent in San Francisco, your marketing strategies would include keywords with the words San Francisco in them.
This method takes your marketing efforts up a notch. It lets you hyperfocus your content on the people most likely to need it. So, for example, if potential customers search ‘insurance agency in San Francisco,’ you’d want to be one of the top results.
Content Marketing
Consistent content is the key to keeping your target audience engaged. Once you have their attention by getting them to notice you in the search engines, you must show you are the leader in the insurance industry.
Use the opportunity to set yourself apart and give yourself a competitive edge.
Content marketing allows you to market without being aggressive. The right content marketing strategy provides valuable content for your audience. In addition, it offers the chance to prove your expertise by providing industry insights, helpful tutorials, and information potential customers can use to consider you a viable choice as their insurance agent.
Content marketing can include blog posts, newsletters, emails, social media, and videos. Providing various marketing materials helps increase your reach to your target audience.
Email Marketing
Email marketing helps keep your audience engaged. It doesn’t require them to visit your website or social media page. Instead, you push out emails in strategic intervals allowing you to provide updates, promotions, or information on insurance policies.
The key to email marketing is to have a call-to-action to sign up for the newsletter. This allows your target client to accept emails from you that may include sales tactics for your products and services.
Email marketing isn’t just about sales, though. It’s another way to show your audience you are an authoritative figure in the insurance industry. When your audience learns they can trust you, choosing to use you for their insurance services becomes natural.
Social Media Marketing
Your business strategy as an insurance agency should include social media. It may not seem practical or necessary, but it’s vital to building brand recognition and earning your target audience’s trust.
The key is finding your niche market and determining the social media platforms they use. Next, you should create a social media strategy focusing on this market. There are many platforms to consider, including LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.
Typically, audiences on Facebook aren’t on the more modern platforms, like TikTok, and vice versa. It pays to know where your audience spends time so your insurance marketing strategy has the most significant return on your investment.
You can interact with your audience much easier on social platforms, responding to comments, posting relevant content, and answering DMs.
Giving your audience the feeling that you’re a ‘real person’ and care about their needs is key to any marketing plan for insurance companies. Because they’re trusting you to protect their assets, they must be able to trust you first.
Relationship Marketing
Relationship marketing is a critical part of the best insurance marketing ideas. Developing relationships with key players in the field can help you build brand recognition.
Think about the professionals in your area or online that you should get to know and who you want to trust, such as real estate agents, attorneys, CPAs, and even small business owners.
The more professionals that share your name, the easier customers can trust you. Never stop networking to keep your audience engaged.
PPC Marketing
PPC campaigns or pay-per-click marketing isn’t an organic marketing strategy but can provide a good ROI. PPC ads are a modern method of cold calling. Interested people will click on the advertisement and follow your call to action. Likewise, your niche market may respond positively if you ask for an email address in exchange for an e-book, newsletter, or other value-added content.
PPC marketing doesn’t have to be intrusive or feel offensive. When planned right, it targets the right audience, so the people that see the ad are grateful for what’s put in front of them. Make it a part of your ad budget to get more leads and use broad marketing strategies.
Creating an Insurance Company Marketing Plan
Creating the best digital marketing strategy starts with a plan. Your goal should be to stand out as a leader in the insurance industry, and here are a few key tips to do it.
Create Your Marketing Goal
You can’t create marketing strategies without goals. So start with one, and work your way up as you see progress.
Your goals should be both short and long-term. Focus on what you want to see of your business today, a year from now, and even five years down the road, and determine how your insurance marketing efforts fit into the picture.
Make sure to use SMART marketing strategies:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
When you set SMART goals, you can see your progress and alter any marketing efforts if they aren’t providing the desired results.
Common examples of marketing goals include:
- Increase brand awareness
- Generate interest and leads
- Narrowing your market
- Provide personalized digital experiences for your audience
- Upsell current clients
- Find new clients
Identify the Target Audience (Niche)
You may have already started discovering your target audience when creating your marketing goals, but getting as specific as possible is the key to creating a successful marketing plan.
To identify your audience, list your target customers’ insurance needs, which will help narrow your audience. For example:
- Do you sell auto, life, or health insurance?
- Are your target clients single, or do they have families?
- What types of assets does your target market need to protect?
As you create your audience, you can segment them into groups. This will help when you build content and services tailored to your customers. For example, if you have two demographics – one close to retirement and one with younger generations, your marketing strategies will differ for each group.
Your content marketing tactics should then focus on these goals so it’s of interest to your audience. Whether you’re sending your audience emails, creating blog posts, advertisements, or social media posts, they should focus on the messages your target market wants.
Today’s insurance customer doesn’t listen only to insurance agent advice. Instead, they use digital technology to learn as much as they can to be informed customers. So if you provide that knowledge and guidance, you’ll be a natural decision for them.
Describe What Makes You Unique
When customers search ‘insurance agents near me,’ they come up with hundreds of options. Unfortunately, they may all look the same, so you need to brand yourself and stand apart from the competition.
Think about the values you provide your customers and use that in your marketing efforts. For example, include client testimonials to further your point and show potential clients what you offer.
Consider including your credentials and experience in your insurance marketing strategies, but ensure that your marketing efforts are consistent throughout all platforms. No matter where a customer finds you, they should immediately recognize your brand.
While you should look at other insurance agencies and see what they do, don’t copy them. Instead, think, ‘What can I do differently to make me stand out?’ That’s what will get the attention. When one insurance website looks like another, you don’t give your audience any differentiating factors.
You want to be different. Be the one that stands out and shows your audience why you are the insurance agency they need and not anyone else.
Determine Your Budget and Timeline
Any business decision must consider what you can afford. Every dollar you spend on marketing should have a decent return on your investment. In other words, don’t jump head-first into PPC because it sounds like it will make the most money.
Instead, create a plan that fits your marketing budget and allows enough time for you to see results. You won’t see overnight returns, and anyone that promises that isn’t telling the truth. Marketing strategies for insurance companies take time to show progress.
The best marketing strategies include short and long-term strategies that allow for some ‘quick wins’ and other longer-term efforts to help you today and in the future.
Wisely Choose Content Platforms
Today insurance companies have many options for a digital marketing strategy. Don’t assume one is automatically better than the other. Instead, determine where your target market spends their time and focus your time, money, and effort there.
Some common platforms to consider include the following:
- Social Media Marketing Platforms – Social media is an option for most insurance companies. It provides a way to continue connecting with existing customers while targeting prospective ones. The key is to determine which demographic you’re targeting so you choose the right social media platform to use.
- Email Marketing Platforms – Email marketing is a great way to entice cold leads and build relationships with existing customers. When people opt-in to your email list, they want to hear from you. This works for most demographics as long as you provide valuable and informative content, not just to push sales.
- Send Engaging Newsletters – Newsletters help keep your audience informed about the latest industry news, changes, hot tips, or new products. It’s a way to provide a broad range of information in one email and to show yourself as an influential leader.
- Master the Art of Blogging – Blogging is a crucial content marketing strategy. It allows you to continually rank in the search engines by targeting new keywords and focusing your posts on the needs of your target audience. All blog marketing ideas should be published consistently, whether monthly, weekly, twice a week, or some other timeframe.
Execution and Tracking
The final step is to execute your plan! The best-laid plans are those that you put into motion. This is how you’ll determine if your plan works. You’ll grow your customer base if the search engines agree and rank your content on the first page.
The key is to have analytics to review, so you can tell how your efforts pay off. You won’t know if you’re gaining traction if you don’t have a baseline and then new results to compare.
You can also set goals, such as obtaining five new customers a month or reconnecting with ten current customers, and see how you do.
The key is to constantly check your progress, see how you’re efforts pay off and make any necessary changes.
Additional Insurance Marketing Ideas
Digital insurance company marketing is paramount to growing your business, but here are some additional marketing ideas to grow your business even further.
- Build Relationships with Leads and the Community – The key to any marketing strategy for insurance companies is to build relationships with your leads and the community. Find unique ways to get involved in your community so your brand becomes a household name. You want your name known even in the mouths of people outside your target niche. The more people who know and talk about you, the more business you’ll get.
- Become a Local Sponsor for an Event – By sponsoring a local sports team, schools, or other local community events, you get your name out there while helping the community. When you support something, you aren’t pushing sales. Instead, you show you’re invested in the community and care about them. Again, this naturally gets your name out there and in the eyes of your target customers.
- Write a Book – If you want to create the image that you’re a leader, write a book, and you’ll jump leaps and bounds ahead of your competition. There’s something authoritative about having your name on a book.
- Your audience will look to you as the expert because of the large amount of information you share with them. They’ll think of you when they need insurance services.
- Become a Podcast Guest – Podcasts are becoming more popular today, and hosts always look for guests. Find a podcast that speaks to your audience and be the ‘expert guest’ sharing bits of knowledge that makes your audience think of you when they need insurance products or services. In the podcast, you can provide educational content as well as humor or fun to shake things up and show the ‘human side’ of yourself.
Keys to Successful Insurance Company Digital Marketing
Market volatility, competition, and the sheer stress of providing a unique value proposition to your audience can seem overwhelming, but here are some simple ways to ensure your insurance company’s marketing ideas work.
- Invest in a Quality CRM Application for your Leads – The back-end work required for any marketing efforts can feel overwhelming and take a lot of time. However, using a quality CRM application can streamline the process, allowing you to automate many processes, making the most of your time.
- Establish Effective Processes and Organization – Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Find effective methods, get support from a marketing professional, and organize your time. This ensures you don’t burn the candle at both ends without seeing results.
- It may require trial and error to see what marketing efforts work and which don’t. Some may be too time-consuming or not sit well with your audience; others might blow the numbers out of the water.
- Build Your Sales Funnel – It’s essential to have a strategy to move your potential customers through the sales funnel. They’ll start as cold leads, but once they show interest, they are warm leads, and then your job is to turn those leads into customers. It’s a process of relationship building, educating, and selling.
- Use Google Advertisements – Google ads may help you get more leads, but it costs money. Make sure you’ve created a workable marketing budget that includes the leads. While most of the strategies discussed here are organic (free), this method requires you to pay for more visibility, but it may help you earn more customers.
- Make it Easy for People to Book a Call with You – Prospective customers don’t want to hunt for a way to book a call with you. If it’s not readily apparent how they get in touch with you, ask questions, or book an appointment, they’ll move on to your competition.
- Make Your Website User-Friendly and Compliant – Be sure your website is as simple and user-friendly as possible. Let visitors know how to reach you or ask questions instantly.
FAQs
How Do I Track the Performance of My Insurance Company Marketing Campaigns?
There are many ways to track the performance of your insurance company’s marketing campaigns. At SJ Digital Solutions, we use a variety of analytics to determine how your campaigns perform and share the information with you so you understand the next steps.
How Much Should I Budget for My Insurance Company Marketing Plan?
Every insurance agency has a different marketing budget. Since there are many organic ways to get leads, you shouldn’t have to break the bank for your marketing plan. However, you want to budget enough that you’re able to see the results you desire.
How Long Do Insurance Companies Need to Market Themselves Before Seeing Results?
No one sees results from marketing overnight. Therefore, we also can’t say exactly how long it will take for your critical insurance marketing strategies. For some, results are apparent within a few months; for others, it takes six months or longer to see a difference.
How Often Should Insurance Companies Send Emails?
How often you should send emails depends on your audience. Typically once or twice a month is good, but if you target the younger generations, you may get by with more frequent communication to engage your audience.
Do Insurance Companies Need to Be on All Social Media Platforms?
Insurance agents should be on the social media platforms their target audience likes. For example, if you target older generations, Facebook will likely give you the best return on your investment, but if you target younger generations, you may want to look into Instagram and TikTok.
Get Professional Help With Your Insurance Company Marketing Plan
If you’re scratching your head wondering how you’ll start or implement an insurance company marketing plan, it’s time to get professional help. The experts at SJ Digital Solutions provide extensive experience and knowledge in both insurance services and marketing to help you create a marketing plan that works.
If you’re ready to work with an agency that will help you see a real difference in your client base with new marketing strategies, contact us today!
