How is your agency progressing with your insurance agency marketing plans? Are you talking about executing these important web marketing initiatives or actually accomplishing these tasks? Are your marketing initiatives yielding the results you seek, and are you measuring the campaigns to determine ROI? Are your programs traditional or web based, or some combination of both? Review the key insurance agency web marketing activities below, and see if your agency receives a passing grade. Check off each item and add your total below to determine your insurance agency web marketing grade.

___ Insurance Agency Emarketing – Your agency utilizes professional e-marketing campaigns offering a monthly webinar, newsletter or case studies and has developed substantial opt in email list (5,000+). You closely follow CAN-SPAM regulations and measure the efficacy of each campaign. You have no spam complaints and honor opt-out requests immediately.

___ Insurance Agency Website – You have an up to date website, attractive, easy to navigate, browser compatible with compelling and sticky content. Social media icons are prominent and link to your social media venues.

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___ Insurance Agency Blog – Your agency provides at least one blog, prominently displayed on your website, with 2-3 postings each week. Extra credit if you’re adding images to your blog postings.

___ Insurance Agency Video – Your agency has invested in website video vignettes, providing information about your value proposition, products and services. This video is leveraged on your website and blog (insurance agency vlog).

___ YouTube – You have created a YouTube channel leveraging the website video mentioned previously, and are working on expanding views of this channel.

___ Insurance Agency Social Media Marketing – Agency executives, agents, producers, account managers and service teams are using LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to expand your insurance agency web marketing reach. Extra credit if you have standardized your employee profiles on LinkedIn and have created a professional company page on both LinkedIn and Facebook.

___ Insurance Agency Webinars – You have created a professional webinar series for your prospects (and clients) and have established a following where you receive 50 – 500 registrants per webinar.

___ Client Testimonials – You have professionally branded client testimonial PDFs, describing how your insurance agency improved service, coverages or solved a unique problem for a multiple accounts. Extra credit if you have both written (PDF) and video testimonials.

___ Value Proposition, Elevator Pitch & Telemarketing Pitch – Your agency has vetted all three versions of these pitches, published them across your agency and practices them periodically at sales meetings and company meetings. These are refined and polished over time as your agency and the marketplace continually change. And, of course, the value proposition is the theme of your insurance agency website, prominently displayed on your Home Page.

___ Collateral – This is actually eCollateral, electronic fulfillment that can be printed on demand if needed. This eCollateral is professional, branded and conveys your value proposition and services. It is used for email information requests and for producers as they work their respective pipelines. eCollateral is critical for lead response and professional lead handling.

___ SEO – Your insurance agency SEO long tail keyword analysis is complete and your website has been professionally optimized. Your insurance agency appears prominently in organic search results (SERPS).

Now it’s time to determine your grade. There are 11 insurance agency marketing initiatives listed above. When we refer to “ongoing” initiatives in the grading, it means that your agency is providing an ongoing monthly webinar series or biweekly e-marketing campaigns for example, not simply one or two of these campaigns per year. Here is your grading criteria:

Insurance Agency Web Marketing Report Card

A – 10 or more of these are completed and ongoing. Congratulations, you’re a top web marketing agency and are well on your way to creating an enviable marketing foundation.

B – 8 or 9 of these are completed and ongoing. Great job, you are well on your way to creating an insurance agency web marketing machine. If video or SEO is a missing item, tackle this quickly, these initiatives offer great marketing value to agencies.

C – 7 of these are completed and ongoing. You receive a passing grade, but there is important work to be done.

D – 6 of these are completed and ongoing. About half of these web marketing initiatives are in need of attention – and your agency should find a path to tackle these as quickly as possible.

F – 5 or less of these are completed and ongoing. The web marketing train has left the station, and your agency is not aboard. Determine which of these open initiatives can be done quickly, assign them to a competent internal source (or outsource that function) and move forward. Social media and SEO often work in tandem and you can move from an “F” to a “B” for example, very quickly.

Many agencies lack the internal resources and expertise to accomplish these initiatives. Even if the tools are available, they may lack the knowledge to properly use them. In these cases, agents and brokers can often outsource these types of tasks to a competent insurance agency marketing firm.