Online Marketing Strategies for Independent Insurance Agents

Marketing has always been an essential component of success for independent insurance agents. In the last few years, how agents market themselves has changed dramatically.  An industry that was once defined by mailers, brochures, telemarketing and billboards has now transitioned to digital means. Today, independent insurance agents have the luxury of marketing themselves online, with many of these avenues free or at least inexpensive.  Below are some online marketing strategies that independent insurance agents should follow. 

Convert Visitors to Clients 

A well-designed website is a great marketing tool in and of itself. Consumers often use the internet as their first point of contact with a business with which they are unfamiliar, which makes your insurance website a crucial tool for providing information about you, your agency and the products you offer.  Your website doesn’t have to be just a passive marketing tool, though. You can collect high-quality information about potential customers through various forms.  Agents should set up contact forms where people can input their basic information to receive a call from you about the products you offer. You can also provide them with downloadable materials once they fill out this form. And, you can take it a step further and create a weekly email newsletter that is sent to everyone who signs up.  In these ways, you can use your website as a tool to convert website visitors into paying clients. 

Be Active on Social Media 

Designing a basic and functional website that looks good is a relatively minimal investment, compared to some other marketing avenues. Social media is even better in this regard, as it costs you nothing to set up a profile, build it out and start connecting with people.  Once you have your website designed and launched, make sure to create social media profiles on the platforms that make the most sense to you, which should be based on where your target audience spends its time. Drop links to these social media accounts on your website so that people can easily find you.  Then, make sure that you are active on the platform. Post there a few times a week, so that people see that you’re active, as they’re more likely to engage with you if you are.  Your posts don’t have to be obviously “salesy,” either. They can be as simple as photos of you in the office, messages about things going on in your community and even educational materials about insurance products you offer.  Active social media profiles help engender trust among your prospective clients. 

Create Digital Content 

A big part of converting prospects into clients is gaining their trust. And a great way to do that is to position yourself as an expert in your field. If people believe that you know what you’re talking about, they’re more likely to purchase insurance products from you rather than someone else.  One of the most effective ways to do that today is to create digital content that you post on your website and link to on your social media pages. This content shouldn’t push the insurance products you sell. Instead, it should educate your prospective clients about various topics that relate to insurance.  For instance, you might write a blog post about the top five things drivers should consider as they’re shopping for auto insurance. Then, at the end of this post, you can drop in a short message about how you offer auto insurance and would love the opportunity to talk to people more about it.  This digital content can serve as the backbone of your online marketing strategy. Just make sure that you post it consistently and cover a wide variety of topics that relate to the products you sell. 

Don’t Forget Search Engine Optimization 

Whether you’re found online depends a lot about how well you handle Search Engine Optimization, better known as SEO. When your website has good SEO, it’s more likely that your webpage will appear near the top of search engine results.  This is crucial, as most people who search for terms online will only click on the first few results that pop up.  Content will go a long way in boosting your SEO, as search engines consider it to be high-quality and relevant. There are many other components to SEO, including keywords, how user friendly your site is, the metadata you use on your pages and the external and internal links to and from your site.  You could do some of this SEO work on your own, but if you find that you’re struggling to figure it out, or if you’re having trouble ranking high in search engine results, then you might consider hiring the help of an SEO company. 

Discover the Good Life

Doing your own marketing can be overwhelming, but it doesn’t need to be when you have the right support. At Good Life Insurance Associates, our experienced insurance sales associates are here to provide support and training for both new and experienced agents. To learn more about us, remember to explore our business support services. Or, to speak with a member of our team about your journey to becoming an independent agent, contact us today!