Round-up of insurance agency marketing how-to’s
Here are the latest insurance agency marketing how-to’s that we’ve curated, to help you grow your agency business. In our last marketing tips post, we took a long look at online reputation management. This month we’re focusing on Facebook changes and how to repurpose your content to make it go further.
What’s happened to your Facebook audience?
You no doubt read last month about Facebook’s update to their newsfeed, so that “people have more opportunities to interact with the people that they care about” rather than seeing business posts. But this isn’t really new news. We watched with a grimace last year as our number of followers went up, yet those who were served up our daily posts went down. So we’re addressing this issue as the first of this month’s insurance agency marketing how-to’s.
The jury’s still out on the best way to counteract this, but for now, there are a couple of things you can do. One is to get conversations going around your posts. Likes and shares don’t count here. We mean Jack talking to Jill about your posts. So get your coworkers into the act. Have them share additional tidbits on your post, in the comments section. And they need to reply to each other as well – not just a one-time post.
The second recommendation that we’ve heard (but we confess, we haven’t tried it yet) is using Facebook Live for a sort of mini-webinar. You can learn more here from our marketing expert friends at Hubspot. Wondering how to market your insurance agency to Millennials? This is a great place to start.
Related: Insurance producer marketing tactics for your social networks
Repurpose your content
Take a look at the multitude of PowerPoint presentations you’ve put together over the years. You’ve got a wealth of content in there, just waiting to be tapped. Perhaps you were pitching work comp coverage to a local manufacturer. Or a BOP (business owner’s package) to a local retail shop. Or even our Automotive Aftermarket Express package to a local stereo store or garage.
Assuming you did all your homework, you’ve got industry stats, case studies and comparison data. You’ve got charts and images. Now it’s time to repurpose that content: rework it just a bit and reuse it multiple times. Here are some suggestions as the second of two insurance agency marketing how-to’s, to help you start thinking.
Create a blogpost. If your agency has a blog, turn your content into a blogpost. First think of two or so keywords or key phrases you think a potential client may use in searching for answers online. If your presentation was for a BOP, you could use such keywords or phrases as “top 10 risks for small businesses” or “what are the most important insurance coverages a small business needs?” or “what small business owners need to know about their insurance coverage.” Use that keyword phrase in your headline, a subhead or two, and a couple more times within the blogpost.
Keep your paragraphs short. Use subheads, numbered lists, bulleted lists, images, charts and white space to break up your paragraphs. Why? Because our attention span right now is at eight seconds – and that’s shorter than the attention span of a goldfish.
Make your headline captivating. Studies show the catchiest headlines are those that pose a question or use a number, as in “Top 10 ways…” or “Six steps to….”
Related: 3 insurance agent marketing solutions and strategies to use this month
Create social media posts. Publicize your blogpost on your various social media profiles, using an image from your PowerPoint. (Note: please be sure you’re not using copyrighted images without the permission of the owner. This can really come back to bite you. There are many free image sites out there. Our favorites are Pixabay and Stocksnap.io.)
And don’t write just one social media post and assume you’re done. For every blogpost, you should publish at least 4 different social media posts: one the same day your blogpost goes live; one a week later; one a month after the initial post; and one a couple of months later.
If you see you’re getting a lot of likes and shares, consider pinning your post to the top, so that your post is always the top post. You can set the length of time you want it to remain up top. Also consider sponsoring or boosting your post (Facebook and LinkedIn use different terminology, but it’s the same thing.) You can select a specific audience you want to see your post, and then pay to have it delivered to their newsfeed. Need more information as to how to market your insurance agency with paid posts? Learn more about Facebook ads here, and LinkedIn sponsored posts here.
Create a newsletter. Once you have a few blogposts under your belt, you can create a newsletter. Warning: once you start, you have to publish consistently, so don’t start off with a weekly or even monthly newsletter. Start with a bi-monthly (every other month) newsletter at first, that’s comprised of a couple of blogposts. In your newsletter, you just need to include your blogposts’ headlines, a couple of paragraphs from your posts, and links back to your blogpost on the agency website so that newsletter readers can click to read the entire article. Using just a couple of posts in each newsletter allows you to begin to grow a backlog of posts you can use in the future. Plus, you’ll want to keep your email fairly short. Remember that goldfish attention span!
Related: Insurance agency marketing tactics for top performing emails
Create a SlideShare. LinkedIn now owns SlideShare, where you can upload your (edited) presentation. Just use your LinkedIn account to access SlideShare to upload your PowerPoint. We say edited – because of course you don’t want to give away your proprietary information such as rates, etc. But using SlideShare is a good way to build your online authority.
Create a LinkedIn article. Formerly known as LinkedIn Pulse, last year LinkedIn integrated their article publishing feature right onto your homepage feed. Remember the box where you go to publish an update? It now gives you the option to create an article. When you choose that option, you open a new screen with a WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get” screen editor) that allows you to add your article title, an image and caption, and your article. Be sure to link your article back to your blog or to your own webpage, so that prospects have a direct way of reaching you.
There are lots of other ways you can leverage your presentation content, from creating an infographic, a podcast, or starting a mini-webinar in Facebook Live, to creating a video using software like Brainshark. Get creative! But in every case, be sure that you provide a very clear way for your prospects to find you. After all, that’s the purpose of these insurance agency marketing how-to’s: to help you uncover more qualified leads.