Insurance is a great business as the commission rates are good and the average customer lifetime for policy renewals is long. However, there are big brands with huge marketing budgets in this field and the local level competition is also on rise. So it is essential that you adopt good strategies for marketing your insurance agency to consistently pull customers towards your business rather than being shadowed by the competitors. Nothing is going to happen if you simply wait for customers to somehow find you.
To devise marketing ideas for your insurance agency business (or individual insurance agent), you need to keep in mind the changing dynamics of consumer behavior and act accordingly. The new generation is more tech-savvy than the previous generation and the consumer behavior of this generation is different from the earlier generation. Therefore we have come up with insurance marketing ideas that are relevant to the present trends so that your insurance agency (or independent business) can get new customers continuously. Let us explore these strategies one by one.
1) Website
A website is extremely essential as the new generation user searches and selects most businesses and services online. Your website must effectively advertise your insurance agency and it (website) must be well organized and easy to navigate. You must strive to narrow the difference between the number of visitors landing on your site and the number of people actually contacting you. To do this, you must take care of the following four factors:
a) Mobile Friendly Website: Most people search for products and services on their mobile devices. If your website does not adjust according to mobile screen size or fails to properly load on mobile devices, you will lose many potential customers.
b) Big Bold Contact Number: Any person who comes across your website must get a very clear and visible contact number of your insurance agency or service on the front page/main page itself.
c) Direct Chat: A person who reaches your site might have several questions in mind. By adding a chat plugin to your website, you can encourage him/her to ask questions directly online which will boost the overall conversion rate.
2) Good Ranking
A good and interactive website for insurance business is just one side of the coin, getting it ranked higher in Google is more necessary than the site design as people rarely visit the second page of Google for most queries. So strive to get your insurance agency website on the first page of Google. The mechanism to get first-page ranking is technically known as Search Engine Optimization or SEO (in short). Google takes multiple factors into consideration for ranking any website and if you want to learn about it, you can spend some time going through online marketing websites, forums and videos on YouTube. Alternatively, you can hire an SEO agency to look after your rankings if you want to avoid spending time learning it yourself.
3) Google Local Pack
Google Local Pack is a key factor for online insurance agency marketing. Let’s say a user typed the query “insurance agents in Miami”, then apart from normal results, Google will also show 3 local results for insurance agents along with their address, phone number and number of reviews (if available). Getting your business to appear in this section (out of many available) requires a combination of various factors like the number of reviews, citations, references, etc. You can use the service of any SEO agency to manage ranking in this section.
4) Press Releases
A press release has multipurpose use in the case of marketing an insurance agent or agency. If you create and distribute press releases for your insurance agency/business, then you will get the following benefits:
A) Thousands of quick views due to the PR distribution.
B) Increase in brand value of your insurance agency due to your press release appearing on many news sites.
C) Positive image of your business as your insurance press release will appear every time someone types the name of your business in Google.
D) Links to your official insurance business website due to which your website ranking will improve in Google thereby getting more visitors and sales.
Due to the above-listed benefits, they are used regularly by many small and big businesses alike.
5) Google Ads
If you want to grow your insurance customers quickly, then Google ads is the way to go. Since people searching on Google for insurance agents/agencies are active and targeted insurance leads, getting your ad out to them on Google is one of the best insurance advertising strategies. The only downside is that the pay per click (PPC) rates are high on Google to target such leads and you need constant analysis of keywords, ads and conversion rates to ensure that you don’t end up spending more than what you get. If you are not sure as to how you can manage the ads, you can take service of any experienced agency.
6) Facebook Ads
Facebook has a very large user base and it is one of the top sources for advertising different kinds of products and services. With a big range of options to target people by age, interests, location, etc, you can convey your message easily. It is also cheaper as compared to advertising on Google. You can also use it in addition to Google ads for getting more customers for your policy.
7) Banner Ads
You can advertise your insurance business through banner ads on third-party sites. By using a site like BuySellAds.com, you can find websites that have content related to finance, insurance and related topics and you can then place banner ads on them by paying a fixed monthly fee.
8) Videos
Videos posted on YouTube tend to rank better in Google for low competition keywords. If you find let’s say 10 low competition keywords and create 1 video per keyword, then you will have 10 videos online that will send you insurance leads passively. For a one-time effort, the results that you get from video marketing are excellent. If you don’t know how to create professional videos for your insurance agency, you can try a freelance platform like Fiverr to get it done for cheap. Also apart from creating and posting videos, you can also get insurance leads for cheap by using YouTube ads.
9) Email Marketing
Not all people tend to buy a product or service in the first instance of getting familiar with the product/service. By repeatedly remaining in touch with potential customers, the sales increase as it builds up the trust factor. This is why email marketing for your insurance agency is very important as it can increase the sale volume of your insurance policies. To collect the email addresses of people visiting your website, you can create a free e-book related to insurance (relevant to your website visitors) and can give it away for free in exchange for the email address. You can then send out periodic notifications to your email subscribers along with promoting your insurance policy and plans.
10) Social Media
Popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram are good sources of traffic. Facebook in particular provides a variety of options to promote your insurance business (non-paid methods). You can create a Facebook page for your website and a Facebook group for your local area to market your insurance agency. You can also join big local groups on Facebook and can promote your insurance policies.
11) Influencers
Influencers are people who have a large following on social media. If you don’t have a big audience on social media, you can pay influencers on Instagram and Facebook to promote your service. Influencers in the real estate, luxury and automotive sectors are a few examples of the type of people whom you can contact to get your insurance advertisement announced. You can negotiate charges with these influencers and can accept those who quote reasonable rates. If you find it tough to manually find influencers, you can take the help of an influencer finding and booking site.
12) Content Marketing
If you have good knowledge about your subject, insurance, in this case, you can create articles on this topic and can get it published on high authority sites along with leaving a link to your official site in these articles. To do this, you can come up with a list of keywords related to the insurance niche and can then type these keywords one by one in Google. Take note of all the sites that appear on the first two pages for these keywords and contact them with a guest post request. Send out articles to ones that approve your request.
It will drive traffic to your website and will also boost your official site in Google due to backlink creation as a result of these guest posts. You can also open a blog section on your website where you can publish informative articles regularly to boost your website traffic and brand value. Though it is a relatively slow process of insurance agency marketing, the results will be continuous and long-lasting after working on this method for a certain period of time.
13) Referrals
Out of all the marketing methods, word of mouth marketing gets the best conversion rates as people trust the advice of people whom they know. To get word-of-mouth publicity for your insurance business, you can come up with incentives like commission/prize for referring others.
14) Custom Products
One creative marketing method is utilizing custom printed products to promote your insurance business/agency. You can get custom new year calendars distributed to local shops that will have your company name and logo printed on each page. You can try this with other materials too like pens, mugs, T-Shirts, etc. There are many online custom printing options that do a bulk order for a low price.
15) Achievements
If you have any achievements to showcase, then make sure to use them on marketing channels like your website, social media, offline flyers, banners, etc. If you have done insurance for a large number of reputed clients or have been awarded by any institute or are certified by a trusted body, do mention it on your website and other platforms. Showcasing achievements wins the trust of users which leads to increased sales.
16) Directories
List your insurance business on all top and popular business listing directories like Yelp, Manta, Crunchbase, etc. The more places where a customer can find your insurance business, the better it is for your business. It also helps to build links to your website which leads to a better ranking of your website online.
17) Reviews
New generation people mostly look for online reviews before purchasing anything. Positive reviews signal good emotions and lead to favorable results for a business. Always ask your customers to leave feedback about your insurance business online. It acts as an indirect yet powerful marketing technique for your insurance business.
18) Association
Associate with linked businesses that can send you insurance leads or whose customer base is more likely to purchase insurance. Businesses like fire and safety services, developers, tax consultants, etc can be partnered with to get good referrals. You can also participate and link with the chamber of commerce in your area to get connected with big businesses.
19) Advertise/Sponsor Related Entities
Police and Fire departments serve the safety needs of people. If you provide safety-related insurance services, then you can get in talks with people from these departments and can advertise on vehicles and buildings of these departments. Apart from public safety entities, you can also adopt the same route for private safety-related entities. You can also get customers for your insurance policy by advertising in places like big chemist shops, hospitals, etc.
20) Local Paper Publication
You can periodically write columns in local papers of your area to let people know about your business. Journalists are always in need of good content and if you can create a slightly exciting news angle for your insurance-related business, you can easily publish news articles in local newspapers. It will also help to establish your authority and will lead to bigger opportunities in the future.
21) Free Safety Events and Seminars
You can host or sponsor safety-related events and competitions in your locality to get the word out about your business. To get more participation in such events, you can announce prizes/scholarships/rewards. You can also host a free question answer seminar related to general doubts related to insurance policies.
22) Traditional Offline Methods
Though offline marketing methods for an insurance agency is non-targeted, it still yields results. Traditional methods like newspaper advertising, local radio station ads, banners, flyers, billboards can be utilized to get leads for an insurance policy.
By using the strategies given above, you can grow your insurance business and can get fresh leads regularly. If you want clarity on any topic or have something to say, do use the comments block below.
