say something VALUABLE
Many of the seminars and webinars promoting Internet marketing address the frequency of social media posts or the best times to launch e-mail campaigns. Few address one of the most important topics of all - the value of what you say.
Consider social media much like a chamber of commerce meeting. If you rely on sports or politics as your conversation starters, you are not going to attract a serious audience. If you bring valuable information to the table, you are going to get attention.
Likewise, blogs, e-newsletters, and social media posts will grow followers if you are giving readers valuable, interesting information. Not easy with a low-key subject like insurance. But it can be done - with some ingenuity and creativity.
If you have a forum on your web site, what subjects are viewers commenting on? What are customers calling about? These are strong clues for e-newsletter and blog subjects.
It may be difficult to visualize what Internet marketing might look like day-to-day in your agency. To help understand how the pieces come together, here is a brief scenario describing part of Mary Sullivan's work day.
the scenario
Mary is a commercial lines CSR in a medium-size agency in a town of about 75,000 residents. She is also responsible for the agency's Internet marketing efforts.
Mary starts her day at 8:30 with three e-mails generated by the agency web site. Two are quote requests and the other is a sign-up for the agency's monthly e-newsletter. She forwards the quote requests to a personal lines CSR and sets up a lead follow-up to make sure the quotes are e-mailed back by 10:00 am. Both quote requests are for personal auto insurance probably in response to blog posts and tweets that she has been sending out the last few days regarding a rate decrease by one of the agency's auto carriers.
Next Mary sends a thank-you e-mail to the e-newsletter subscriber letting them know when the next issue is coming out and includes a link to past issues.
Finally, Mary electronically exports the captured contact information for the three new prospects to the marketing database in the agency management system. She also adds follow-up notes for the two quote requests.
Next on mary's agenda is the agency blog - she tries to post at least once a day. Today she is working on a blog post about an agency raffle for game tickets to see the town's minor league baseball team. Part of the agency's strategy is to be recognized as a strong supporter of local organizations and events. The agency recently bought an advertising package with the baseball team that included 50 tickets, which the agency intends to raffle off.
Mary is going to promote the raffle through the agency blog, social networks, the agency e-newsletter, and announcements on the web site. Anyone interested in entering the raffle must register online, where the contact information is captured in the web site database.
The deadline for the agency's monthly e-newsletter is a week away. Mary needs one more article. Personal lines CSRs tell her that they regularly get calls about rental car insurance, so she starts putting together an article on the costs and benefits of buying the coverage. Mary uses the e-newsletter to demonstrate the agency's professional expertise - another part of the agency's marketing strategy.
At 11:15, Mary gets a call from Nancy, one of the agency's three producers. Nancy tells her that one of the agency's lead commercial carriers is about to introduce a new BOP program for bagel shops, pizza restaurants, and ice cream parlors. Both the coverage and pricing is attractive. Nancy wants to set a time to discuss ways to promote the new program using social networks, blogs, and the agency e-newsletter. They agree to meet at 10:00 the next day.
The agency web site contains a "customer-only" section. Mary needs to add a notice in this section about two jewelry appraisal sessions that the agency is sponsoring next month. The "customer-only" section will detail the sessions and Mary will send out a special e-mail invitation to policyholders.
Finally, toward the end of the day, Mary does a quick check on web site activity for the past three days. She does a formal report to agency owners at the end of each week. The report shows trends in web activity as well as the number of new leads captured through the site.
take-aways
This brief scenario highlights a number of ingredients needed for successful Internet marketing.