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Insurance agencies, like any small business, need a concise and achievable marketing plan. Today, however, we should modify this statement to read; Insurance agencies require a concise, achievable web centric insurance agency marketing plan. I'd also add that this insurance agency marketing plan should target lead generation oriented activities, or at least, a large component of the plan and associated budget should focus on lead generation to ensure optimum effectiveness and return on investment for the agency producers. What type of insurance agency marketing plan does your agency create each year? Is it a comprehensive and detailed plan that is 10 or 20 pages long or a more concise one to five pages? Is it part of an annual business plan or a five year strategic plan? Agencies approach business planning, budgeting and marketing from a wide variety of perspectives. For the purposes of this article, we're going to drill down to a marketing specific plan, then further to a web centric agency lead generation plan. There are many marketing related activities which fall under the insurance agency marketing plan umbrella. Some of these (listed alphabetically) include: · Association Memberships (Chamber of Commerce, etc.) · Blogging · Brochures · Client Testimonials · Club Memberships (Golf, Tennis, Other) · Direct Mail · eBrochures · eMarketing · ePublishing · Events (for both clients and prospects) · Networking Organizations
· Newsletter · On-site Seminars · Pay Per Click (Google PPC Campaigns) · PR and Client Testimonial Creation · Promotional Items · Search Engine Optimization (SEO) · Social Media Marketing (Facebook, LinkedIn) · Telemarketing · Trade Shows · Traditional Advertising (Magazines, Yellow Pages, Radio, TV) · Web Seminars · Website · White Papers That's already a long list, and we're just getting started. Smaller agencies can't tackle all of the activities above, in fact, they should only focus on a few of these each year, and many would agree that they should focus on lead generation oriented activities which will help keep their pipelines full and active. Let's review some of the better lead generation activities from the list above: · Direct Mail · eMarketing · Pay Per Click (Google PPC Campaigns) · Search Engine Optimization (SEO) · Social Media Marketing (Facebook, LinkedIn) · Telemarketing · Traditional Advertising (Magazines, Yellow Pages, Radio, TV) · Web Seminars
· Website Granted, networking oriented activities can generate leads, though these should be pursued in the normal course of business in a manner most comfortable to the individual producer. Thus we are focusing on quantitatively oriented (easily repeatable and highly measurable) lead generation activities. This list is more manageable, but still needs to be culled to ensure proper focus on the respective lead generation activity. A decade ago, traditional advertising, telemarketing and direct mail might have been the preferred path for most agencies. Today, only one of those activities should remain on our list, and as you will see below, the remaining items are all web marketing centric. · eMarketing/Web Seminars · Pay Per Click (Google PPC Campaigns) · Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Blogging, ePublising · Social Media Marketing (Facebook, LinkedIn) · Telemarketing (for smaller profile prospects) · Website Our insurance agency marketing list has now been culled to a manageable level. You may have noticed that eMarketing has been paired with web seminars. This is because many insurance agency marketing experts find a higher response rate to eMarketing initiatives when leveraging educationally oriented webinars as the primary call to action. SEO, search engine optimization for insurance agencies, results in the organic display of your agency website at the top of the search engine rankings (Google, Bing or Yahoo search engine results). You probably noticed that this is now bundled with blogging and ePublishing, since those elements are often necessary to achieve page one search engine results. Organic SEO is a gift that keeps on giving; it does not require fees every time a prospect clicks on your name. PPC, or Pay Per Click ads, appear at the top and side of the Google results, and require that your agency pays anywhere from $1 to $5 per click, depending upon the competitiveness of the search term, regardless if the prospect who clicks is qualified or not. My recommendations for a lead generation, web centric plan would typically include the following: · eMarketing/Web Seminars · Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Blogging, ePublising · Social Media Marketing (Facebook, LinkedIn) · Website This is a manageable list for almost any agency, and a cost effective outsource if the agency lacks the internal expertise to accomplish these tasks. A professional up to date website is essential for
any insurance agency. The website should be optimized for your specific keywords (benefits, workers comp, truck insurance, etc.). Your insurance agency SEO initiative may need to be regionalized or localized (workers compensation Massachusetts). Social media marketing, a presence on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. is fast and easy for most agencies. Blogging and ePublishing require more time, but are essential for most agencies. Fortunately agencies can often leverage their blog content and publish it in well known, online article directories. Lastly, a successful eMarketing and Web Seminar campaign can often yield the best results for insurance agencies. An ideal series might have 5,000 targeted emails combined with a monthly webinar. Be wary of email list brokers advertising inexpensive email lists. We've seen agency lists where the first and last names are merged into one field and many of the emails are info@ or sales@ type emails, a definite problem when it comes to professional eMarketing. EMarketing is both an art and a science, agencies must ensure it is done properly, professionally and obey the CAN-SPAM act. Web centric insurance agency marketing is now a critical foundation for any agency wishing to grow, your agency should be well on the way to implementing these initiatives. That said, don't attempt to do too many activities at one time, you're better off doing a few marketing activities really well than accomplishing a dozen in a haphazard manner.
For more information, read Your Virtual Success (Career Press) available at all major bookstores or visit my website: http://www.startupselling.com. StartUpSelling, Inc. specializes in insurance agency marketing and marketing plans, eMarketing, web seminars and agency lead generation services.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alan_Blume
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