New agency leads are derived, or at least should result from a wide variety of sources. Some sources are more traditional, such as word of mouth, canvassing, old fashioned “snail mail” flyers, or telesales. Taking advantage of the new internet offerings opens up many new lead generation sources. Leveraging an insurance agency website to sell is one obvious lead generation tool, but other avenues include insurance agency webinars and insurance SEO to drive traffic, and utilizing insurance agency social media marketing, an important new frontier for any agent. These tools are available to any agency willing to make the commitment to use them effectively. Since insurance agency web marketing and lead generation will continue to grow in importance, it is important to examine these strategies thoroughly.
Webinars often go hand in hand with eMarketing. A common Web Design Kerry tactic is to send out a targeted email blast to a prospect list inviting them to an educational webinar, with a link in the email directing the prospect to a customized registration page, sometimes referred to as a custom landing page. There the prospect would input selected contact information and receive a link to the webinar. Of course, to properly run a webinar there are quite literally one hundred or more steps that need to be reviewed, including effective use of webinar registration, software and presentation tools. There are several key factors that apply to any webinar. One is to know your audience – agents must tailor their message to the people who will be listening to it. This also applies to the length of your webinar. An hour or longer web seminar must offer truly compelling content to be interesting to attendees. As a general rule, shorter is better.
Taking a direct sales approach, that is, trying to sell insurance products to the attendees will often alienate the target audience. Offering an educational topic will make an insurance webinar series an anticipated event, resulting in a more satisfied audience. Finally, make sure your agency has the proper tools in place to run the webinar smoothly, and know how to use those tools correctly. It takes experience to run an effective webinar, and even then problems can arise. If your agency or broker based business does not have the right mix of software, hardware, and expertise in house to run a webinar series, consider outsourcing to a quality insurance agency marketing firm.
Using an insurance agency website for lead generation is not really a new strategy, but few agencies actually do a good job in this area. Many websites haven’t been updated in years – and it shows. Poor coding, browser incompatibility, and outdated content are just a few of the numerous problems seen with a majority of agency websites. It’s important to note that Internet Explorer continues to lose browser market share monthly, and website coding must support Firefox, Chrome, Opera and other browsers. Without this crucial support, a potential client may be completely unable to correctly view your website. Updating your website’s code is only one piece of the puzzle. Another critical item to remember is that a website is the new storefront window – it is probably the first thing a prospect will see when attempting to find information about your business, and certainly one of the most important things a prospect will see. Insurance agency websites should convey agent and broker messages concisely and clearly to visitors, and do so in a professional and attractive manner. The best performing websites are clean, uncluttered, and free of overt virtual agents or overly flashy components. Branding should be integrated with insurance websites. This means that logos, colors, images and other key identifiers are consistent including the insurance agency website, brochures, business cards, promotional items and other marketing materials