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Marketing is the fuel that businesses use to grow. Especially when it comes to insurance, if you don’t market yourself, chances aren’t high that people will intentionally seek you out, specifically. Since insurance isn’t something that people typically think they “want” as something fun or exciting to shop for, you have to do your best to get in front of prospects. Otherwise, people will likely go with whoever is the easiest to find and has the best value.
One great way to not only market yourself but also make your agency easy to find is to focus on your content marketing. In recent years, internet usage has grown dramatically. In 2019, 4.1 billion people around the world used the internet. As of 2021, that number grew to 4.9 billion.
In the last couple of years, people have become accustomed to working more from home, using online video calls to conduct business, and shopping online for products and services they would perhaps previously have purchased in person. Consumers who preferred shopping online for life insurance, for example, grew from 17% in 2011 to 29% in 2020.
There’s no reason to suspect that, after decades of internet growth, these trends will slow. These statistics indicate that web marketing is already of major importance for insurance agencies of all sizes, and will continue to grow in the coming years. Content marketing is a major part of any successful web marketing strategy, so let's look at how you can put it to use in your agency.
Content marketing is any kind of written, visual, or even auditory content you create for your agency website. “Content” includes website pages, articles/ blogs, sales material and information, videos, pictures, infographics, and other related work. Other digital content marketing can also fall into a similar category, such as social media posts, email newsletters, and other outreach material.
However, when most content marketers talk about content marketing, they typically mean “website content,” with social media and newsletters as additional means of promoting that same web material. In any case, the purpose of content marketing is to increase your digital audience and expand your credibility in the marketplace by providing helpful and educational material for insurance prospects.
When creating content, keep in mind that your goals are to reach more people who may want to purchase from you (increase website traffic), and to increase the likelihood that someone stopping on your site will choose to do business with you because of the authoritative material you present (increase website conversions). It's all about being viewed as both trustworthy and an expert by your prospective clients.
To accomplish the two goals of website traffic and web conversions, content marketing falls into two outreach categories: national and local. In all cases, content marketing is important to agencies because it allows you to tap into growing internet usage trends, increasing your online presence and sales.
If your agency has licenses to sell insurance across state lines, you can focus on a much larger digital audience. In this case, your content marketing is likely to bring you web traffic from all over the country.
If you have a local insurance agency that’s location-specific, gaining national web traffic may not help you. Instead, you can create content for local keywords and search terms that can generate web visitors from your local area.
The more you produce high-level content for your website (especially on your main web pages and as blog articles) that is focused on important keywords for the insurance industry, the more web traffic you could gain each month through search engine optimization (SEO).
Of course, web traffic alone isn’t enough. What you really want is more online sales or lead generation. It’s also possible to hone your webpage content and blog articles in such a way that they build trust and authority with website visitors, increasing the likelihood that they’ll request a quote or purchase a policy.
Creating a content strategy that works is simple once you become proficient in the fundamentals. That being said, developing basic skills may take some time. In some cases, that may not be worth your effort, as you need to spend the bulk of your time selling insurance (not becoming a digital marketing expert).
As such, the following content marketing tips are broken down into two types: tasks you can do for yourself and tasks that may be better suited for a professional.
Accessible content marketing — work you can do yourself:
Advanced content marketing — work you may consider hiring out:
When creating videos, webpage content, or blog posts, always remember your audience. Keep your writing clear, concise, and relevant. It always pays to plan your material and give your best professional effort. Your writing will, after all, be available online for years to come.
People do business with companies that have a strong online presence, meaning that everything about your website and overall agency appearance counts. Content marketing (and by extension, your website on the whole) are your opportunity to build trust, establish authority, and develop a relationship with your intended audience.
Build your website's portfolio of content marketing with the same intentionality and effort that you'd put into building a dream home. If you cultivate your content correctly, it may just develop enough new sales for you over the years to pay for that dream home.
At some point in every piece of content you create, include calls to action. That may be a call to learn more or to request a quote. Let people know that what you offer is relevant to the content they’re viewing, and remind them that you can provide a quote for whatever type of insurance they need.
When posting webpage content or blog articles, website platforms almost always include a way for you to easily change the content from a “paragraph” to a “header.” Use the H1 tag (Header 1) for the title of your page. H2 tags are the major points of your piece. H3-H4 tags are for the sub-points.
Using header tags helps readers follow your writing, and helps search engines know what your page is about.
Website content is only valuable if it engages your audience. If no one reads your blog articles, the articles (and time you spent writing them) won't do you much good.
Be sure that your content answers common questions that your prospects may have, educates them about important insurance terminology, provides them with proper expectations when it comes to important issues like claims processes, and generally anticipates why they may be looking for insurance information to begin with.
Most importantly, produce content that is interesting, enjoyable, and engaging. Though insurance may not be the most enthralling subject, there are plenty of ways to make your articles stand out, such as through relatable pictures, videos that explain concepts in more detail, or simply through a tone of writing that conveys empathy and real human connection.
Whenever you update your website or post a new article, be sure to let as many people know as possible. Simply include a summary of your content in the post’s description with a call to click through to the article to learn more.
It’s worth checking with your web team, if you have one, to make sure that your website is mobile-optimized. As the use of smartphones for internet searches increases, it’s important to make sure people can still see your site properly no matter what device they use to access it.
Tools like Ahrefs allow digital marketers to see how many searches certain online “search terms” (like “auto insurance near me”) get per month. They can also see how difficult it is to rank in the top spots for those terms. The key is to create content for keywords that aren't too difficult to rank for but have a large monthly search volume.
Backlinks are hyperlinks that go from other peoples’ websites to your own. As we mentioned above, there are certain types of backlinks you can do yourself. However, each backlink has its own level of value. To generate truly high-value backlinks that move your website up in the search results in a substantial way, you’ll likely need to hire a professional.
One great way to get people to spend a lot of time on your site — and to provide lots of value to visitors — is to build interactive tools onto your site. These interactive tools can be things like online quote generators and cost estimators. Many of these tools require some degree of custom coding and may come at a cost, but they do provide another level of value to your website’s visitors.
There are many great strategies for succeeding with content marketing, and it comes with many benefits. Once you get momentum, the content marketing you create will generate website traffic, leads, and sales for your agency for years to come.
However, as you might imagine, it may take quite some time to update your website, create keyword-rich content, build backlinks, and develop your site’s web traffic. During that ramp-up phase, it’s vitally important to make sure that leads are finding you.
Nectar provides top-quality insurance leads at an affordable price. With our leads, you never have to worry about perfecting your marketing approach, either. We do all the hard work of generating quality prospects. You tell us what kind of insurance you want to sell, and we deliver prospects to you who are currently looking to purchase.
Simplify your overall marketing strategy by giving our real-time insurance leads a try today.
This article reflects the features of Nectar as of the date of publication. Features are subject to change at any time. This article is meant for informational purposes only, it is not a guarantee that using Nectar will help you achieve specific business or financial results and is not intended to serve as the sole recommendation for any business financial decisions.
