Marketing for Independent Insurance Agents on a Shoestring Budget

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Big Business Online Marketing on a Shoestring Budget

How to Market Like the Pros Without Breaking the Bank

Jeff Sauer

Online Marketing Tactics

• Public Relations

• Social Media

• Video Production and Distribution

• Search Engine Marketing

• Email Marketing

• Program Measurement

Public Relations

Why Public Relations?

PR Helps Build Brands

How the Pros Do PR

Enterprise PR Platforms and Agencies

What the Pros Pay

Working with a PR agency costs at least $100k/year

$0 $1MM +

The Agent Alternative: Self Publishing

Start by creating a website or blog using WordPress. Use this site to make major announcements and publish thought leadership

The Agent Alternative: Self PublishingWordPress is easier to use than MS Word, helps search engines find your business and is widely supported by most web hosts.

The Agent Alternative: Self PublishingMake it easy to share your content and join networks of similar publishers to gain credibility and followers within your niche

The Agent Alternative: PressWhile you may not have the connections of a PR firm, you can find them using free services to locate reporters in need. HARO is a tool that allows you to sign up as an expert and receive requests to share your expertise with reporters.

Cost Comparison

$0 $1MM +

ProsAgents

Social Media

Why Social Media?

Social media provides an unprecedented opportunity to communicate directly with current and prospective customers

How the Pros Do Social Media

Pros use Large Enterprise Systems or in-house “command centers” to monitor and respond to comments on social networks

What the Pros Pay

Subscriptions to tools start at $1,000/month and managed services can be $100,000+ per month for complex brands

$0 $1MM +

The Agent AlternativesUse Google Alerts to get updates on a particular topic via email or RSS feeds. Set alerts on employees, competitors and your business name

The Agent AlternativesListen for any mentions about your business, affiliated companies and competitors. Use this information to understand competitive landscape and sentiment of commentary

The Agent AlternativesUtilize Tweetdeck to schedule tweets, manage multiple accounts, search for topics and filter users

The Agent Alternative

Use syndication to feed content into social media accounts

The Agent Alternative Establish an editorial calendar to consistently post to social networks and blog

Monday

3-5 Posts

Tuesday

3-5 Posts

Wednesday

3-5 Posts + BLOG

Thursday

3-5 Posts

Friday

3-5 Posts

Cost Comparison

$0 $1MM +

ProsAgents

Why Video?

Consumers spend more time watching television than any other entertainment source

How the Pros Do Video

The pros pay large sums of money to hire a company to create, shoot, and produce commercials and then purchase broadcast spots from local and national television station

What the Pros Pay

$0 $1MM +

The Agent AlternativeUse affordable movie software with a working camera in good lighting and publish to YouTube

The Agent AlternativeYouTube is the largest video website on the web, with 60 hours of video uploaded every minute and 4 billion videos viewed per day. Marketers can easily upload videos and share on a custom channel. YouTube is also the second largest search engine after Google

Cost Comparison

$0 $1MM +

ProsAgents

Search

Why Search Engine Marketing?

When consumers are interested in learning more about a product or service, they turn to search engines to find information, often clicking on the first result

How the Pros Do PPC

Pros have the budget to spend incredible amounts of money to get the top spot on search engines.

How the Pros Do SEO

Pros also have the status and the credibility to rank high for organic search results… and SEO can be get pretty complicated!

What the Pros Pay

Average cost of search marketing for Pros in Insurance is millions per month

$0 $1MM +

The Agent AlternativeFocus on Long Tail Keywords for driving searchers. Instead of ranking for “Insurance”, try to rank for “Auto Insurance in Maple Grove, MN”

The Agent AlternativeFocus on Long Tail Keywords• Use your long tail keywords for CPC campaigns with Google AdWords Express• AdWords Express will help you tailor your campaign to your budget • Will tailor to both mobile and desktop users

The Agent AlternativeClaim Your Business with Google Places and Getlisted.org. Encourage customers to review your business and provide other insights

Tools for SuccessTool Recommendation: Google AdWords Keyword Toolhttp://3deep.co/KeywordInsurance

Cost Comparison

$0 $1MM +

Agents Pros

Email Marketing

Why Email Marketing?

Email marketing helps to keep your current and prospective consumers engaged throughout the entire buying process

How the Pros Do Email

Pros use email marketing software solutions such as ExactTarget, Eloqua, Epsilon, Responsys and Silverpop to deliver sophisticated email programs

What the Pros Pay

Depending on the size of your mailing list, pros begin paying $25,000 per year for software all the way up to $1MM+ for a fully managed email solution

$0 $1MM +

The Agent AlternativePrograms like ConstantContact and MailChimp help you to design attractive email newsletters, manage mailing lists and execute an email marketing campaign

The Agent AlternativeEmail marketing can be easy with templates that allow you to easily edit text and images while adding social media links for a professionally designed email campaign

Cost Comparison

$0 $1MM +

Agents Pros

Measurement

Why Measure Effectiveness?

Without properly measuring marketing efforts, it is difficult to understand whether online marketing is successful

How the Pros Do Measurement

Omniture and WebTrends are enterprise class web analaytics tools. Foresee Results and iPerceptions are expensive voice of customer analytics tools

What the Pros Pay

These technologies cost at least $10,000/month and upwards of $1MM/year

$0 $1MM +

The Agent Alternative: Free

Google Analytics is a best in class web analytics tool, and it’s free. 4Q Suite provides actionable voice of customer data, and has a free version for beginners.

Google Analytics provides many great insights on your visitors and is widely adopted: 50% of all websites use Google Analytics

Learn how many visitors complete their tasks, as well as how many have trouble finding information on your site with 4Q Survey

Cost Comparison

$0 $1MM +

Agents Pros

Marketing on a Budget

Yearly Online Marketing CostsUsing the tactics mentioned in this presentation, you can compete with the pros in many aspects of online marketing.

You can work with Agoragate

$0 $10MM +

ProsAgents

Agoragate Program CostsThe Agoragate program was designed from the ground up by the pros to provide independent insurance agents with a complete web solution.

Learn more today at www.insuranceagoragate.com/products

$0 $10k

Starting at $1,560 Per Year

Questions?

Sign up for the Agoragate Program Today at:www.enhanceinsurance.com/signup

Link to Today’s Presentation:3deep.co/InsuranceTrust

Free/Inexpensive Tools Mentioned Today:

WordPress - wordpress.org Google Alerts – google.com/alertsSocial Mention – socialmention.comGoogle Places – google.com/placesMailchimp – mailchimp.com4Q Suite – 4qsurvey.com

HARO – helpareporter.com

Tweetdeck – tweetdeck.comYouTube – youtube.comGet Listed – getlisted.orgConstant Contact – constantcontact.comGoogle Analytics – google.com/analytics