Search Engine Marketing: How Insurance Agents Can Take Advantage

Megan L. MahanJames Omdahl

InsureMe.com

About Your Presenters:Megan L. Mahan

•Lead copywriter; InsureMe.com

•Author of award-winning Agent Blog

•Sometimes-contributor to the TAAR Report

•Hearty adversary of direct mail, cold calling & green beans

About Your Presenters:James Omdahl

•Marketing Strategist for InsureMe.com

•Author of award-winning Affiliate Blog

•In-house search engine marketing (SEM) expert

•Advocate of hand sanitizer

About InsureMe:

Online lead generator

Serving 5,000 agents nationwide

1,000,000 web site hits per day

#2 best place to work in America

Located in Denver, Colo.

TRY 5 FREE LEADS!

PAY BY LEAD!

CANCEL ANYTIME!

PERSONAL ACCOUNT REP!

Part One: Why you need to care about the web

210,080,067 Americans are online

Source: InternetWorldStats.com

Megan’s Grandpa: Online since 2000

Web + Consumer = Happy together

Overworked

Overwhelmed

Information hungry

Professional multitaskers

Addicted to leisure

Like it our way

Consumers spend 48% of leisure time online

Source: Center for Media Research

15% spent on personal productivity

12% spent shopping

1 hour 40 minutes of internet use per day

52% surf the web while watching television*

Source: Yahoo Global Marketing Study

*This figure jumps to 60% in the 18-34 demographic

72% can’t remember URLs from TV ads

75% of Yahoo survey respondents said they turned to the web because they couldn’t

remember a URL from a TV ad

What’s it all mean?

Simple web search introduces 79% of consumers to new auto insurance brands

Source: Yahoo Search Marketing Research & Engagement Study

56% of people looked at a site they didn’t intend to because it was one of the first few links in the search

results

Quoteable:

“Customers build an image of a brand as birds build nests: from the scraps and straws they chance upon.

Jeremy Bullmore, JWT

Searchers are looking to be influenced

Web users are most open to discovery

Source: Yahoo’s 2006 Long and Winding Road Summit

Web users consider more brands before buying

Average number of brands considered before purchase

2.50 (regular web user)

1.80 (casual web user)

1.50 (non-web user)

Source: Long & Winding Road

Consumers expect you to be online and they expect to find what they want

72% of auto insurance shoppers use the web to find a policy

Source: Jupiter Research

31 million people visited an auto insurance web site in Q4 2006

That’s double the 15 million who visited the same sites in Q1 2004

Source: comScore; April 2007

29% annual growth in first-time online visitors

Source: comScore; April 2007

58% annual growth in polices purchased online

Source: comScore; April 2007

28 million used the web to receive quotes in 2006

Source: comScore; April 2007

More than 70 million people requested quotes via the web from 2004-2006

Source: comScore; April 2007

This web insurance shopping business brings up a big question:

Will online insurance shopping have me riding the bench?

Good news!

Most people still prefer to buy their policy from a local agent

Source: comScore; April 2007

Of those who bought from a local agent, half used the web to request preliminary quotes and research their purchase

Source: comScore; April 2007

Of those who used the web to find auto insurance, 86% used the web to find related information

Source: Forrester Research, 2005

The rub:

“For marketers who have ignored or underplayed cyberspace, it’s probably a good time to panic a little.

Rob Norman, CEO Group M Interactive

Good news!

Web + Marketing = Happy together

2007 online ad spend: $20 billion

Direct mail

…cold calling

…outdoor advertising

The web can help you build your brand and generate cheap sales leads

The web provides results you can measure

Permission Marketing:

Marketing centered around obtaining consent from a sales prospect to market to them; building an in-depth relationship with each prospect.

Interruption Marketing:

Marketing activities that disrupt consumer activities (SPAM, pop-ups, telemarketing, etc.)

Quoteable:

“Selling to people who actually want to hear from you is more effective than interrupting strangers who don't.

Seth Godin, Marketer and Author

Search Engine Marketing

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