This blog includes posts on lead generation, eMarketing, Web Marketing, SEO and other leading edge marketing techniques.
-Alan Blume
All posts with the tag 'Insurance Agency Marketing'
Sell More & Work Less Now Available on Kindle – Web Selling Techniques Everyone Should Use
Posted on February 2nd, 2012 by Alan Blume
Sell More & Work Less is now available on Kindle. This web selling tips book focuses on a 4-Phase Sales Process which helps business professionals quickly learn and apply many new web sales tips and techniques to improve their sales effectiveness. Simply said, allowing them to sell more and work less. The 4-Phase Virtual Sales Process facilitates the transition to a web centric sales model offering greater profit potential, improved methods of selling and the more flexible business and personal lifestyle this affords. Readers can replicate the 4-Phase Virtual Sales Process to create their own tailored sales process using the techniques explained in this web selling tips and techniques book. I was fortunate to be assisted by three “in the trenches” coauthors, Mike Lauducci, John Scranton and Andrew Blume in the writing of this web selling tips book.
Sell More & Work Less is now available on Amazon, both in paperback and the Kindle version http://www.amazon.com/Sell-More-Work-Less-ebook/dp/B0072O3KUO/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1328183749&sr=1-1-spell.
For B2B Web Marketing go to www.StartMarketingTech. For Insurance Agency Marketing go to www.StartUpSelling.com.
Top Ten Email and eMarketing Mistakes
Posted on January 27th, 2012 by Alan Blume
What arrives is often different than what you think was sent
When using eMarketing or email communication, it’s better to focus on what is likely to arrive, than on what might look good on your computer screen. In other words, think about what the email will appear as when delivered, as opposed to the original which you perceive was sent. Here is a list of ten important eMarketing (or business email) mistakes to avoid.
- Do not use an enhanced email signature: If your email signature (your name, contact info, etc.) uses a large font, is boldfaced, or appears in a different color, this is called “shouting” in email jargon and Outlook Junk Mail filters and corporate email filters don’t like this. Your email is more likely going to arrive in a spam filter or email junk folder. This is true for large scale eMarketing campaigns and your individual personalized emails.
- Don’t use an HTML email: These days text base emails stand a better chance at getting past junk mail and corporate email filters than HTML emails. Besides, if you’re using HTML, you’re more likely to take advantage of special fonts, invoking some of the issues noted in rule #1.
- Avoid words like “free”: It’s one of the most common words activating junk mail and corporate email filtering. It’s right up there with the prescription dysfunction drug names and other spam alert words and phrases.
- Don’t use colored fonts: Spam filters will sometimes filter these out because they think it is an advertisement, it’s similar to rule #1.
- Don’t italicize, underline or use exclamation points: Again, this is a form of shouting.
- Avoid rush words or phrase: “Act now, offer good today, respond soon, or sale ends tomorrow” are all examples of rush words or phrases. This is a big red flag for filters, sounds like a sales ad and shouldn’t be used.
- Avoid using your personal email for business communication: AOL, Yahoo or Gmail type accounts can cause two issues for spam filters. These personal email accounts are often the source of “spammy” emails (you’ve probably seen these in your junk mail folders), as they are free to set up and easy to abandon. Thus, if you use any type of special characters (shouting) or accidental use of rush words from these types of accounts, your personal email (which is why it should not be used for business) is more likely to appear as spam. Get a business email setup. For example, yourname@samplecopany123.com costs almost nothing to set up and use and conveys a more professional image than a Yahoo, Hotmail or AOL type email.
- Avoid Bayesian Poisoning: Odd or complex phrasing can invoke something called Bayesian Poisoning, which appears to be an attempt to bypass Bayesian spam filtering and results in your email looking like spam. The best way to avoid this is the old, “simpler is better” rule. Keep your eMarketing campaign emails simple and succinct whenever possible, which isn’t a bad idea for general business correspondence either.
- Avoid Graphics when possible: Graphics often display poorly, especially for text base email clients. When sending B2B eMarketing Campaigns, use multipart mime to ensure optimum rendering. When sending individual emails, don’t assume what you see is what they get. WYSIWYG may be true for the email you’re looking to send, but what arrives can be a completely different story. Remember all the retail advertisements you receive and the blank real-estate and little red X’s which appear everywhere? Not only can graphics create a poor look and feel, they can increase the likelihood of appearing as spam. Graphics often connote an advertisement.
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Graphically Rich Email - Use eMarketing Best Practices
Don’t include too many graphics above the fold: When you deem it necessary to send graphically rich emails, like newsletters, make sure the delivered email can render professionally if the graphics are stripped. The best way to check this is to send a test email to a text based email client and observe the results. In some cases it may be important to use graphics (newsletter, photographs for architects or photographers, schematics for engineers, etc.). These could be conveyed as a link to a landing page, or if you deem it important, you can embed the images. Just make sure that the email is professional and recognizable if these are not displayed in a text client.
Conclusion:
For eMarketing campaigns, think in terms of textual email clients and monitor delivery rates carefully. Limit graphics, and ensure your email will look good in a text based email client, or if graphics need to be downloaded (this can be an issue even for HTML clients). For individual email communication, from Outlook for example, consider defaulting to text instead of HTML. And if you do use HTML, refrain from using boldface, italics, capitalization or other forms of shouting. Borrowing a phrase from architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and the minimalist movement, when it comes to eMarketing think in terms that “Less is more”.
Browser Wars – Google Chrome On The Rise
Posted on January 3rd, 2012 by Alan Blume
Google Chrome Gaining Momentum
As reported by Nathan Ingraham on The Verge, Google’s Chrome has show market gains across desktops over the past year, primarily at the expense of IE and FireFox. Internet Explorer is still the dominant player, though one must take note of Chrome’s 84 percent year-over-year growth rate. As an anecdotal observation, I can say that several of my colleagues have commented on Chrome’s speed and simplicity, though this blogger is still using Firefox, in part because of inertia, and also because of the many plugins I use with Mozilla. What does this mean from a B2B marketing perspective? Though there are many nuances to consider, website browser compatibility across the big four browsers, including IE, Firefox, Safari and Chrome, is surely a must.
For More Information on B2B Marketing go to: http://www.startmarketingtech.com/.
To learn about web sales and marketing best practices go to: http://SellMoreandWorkLess.com.
Are the Days of Direct Mail Marketing Dead For B2B Insurance Agencies?
Posted on December 28th, 2011 by Alan Blume
This blog is based on one of my most viewed blogs and articles called, “Are the Days of Direct Mail Marketing Dead For Insurance Agencies?” It was written in June 2010 and discussed the demise of direct mail as an effective, or at least long term insurance agency marketing solution. The US Postal Service was a prominent feature in the discussion, running massive deficits at that time, which as of yet appear unabated.
I received interesting comments, as some marketing agencies, service organizations and insurance agencies continued to extol the virtues of direct mail. But I think most of them today, would agree, there are much better, more efficient and environmentally friendly means to reach prospects. Some of these include:
- eMarketing
- Social Media Marketing
- Web Seminar Marketing
- Blogging
- Video (including YouTube)
- Insurance Agency SEO
For B2B insurance agencies, there are even more compelling reasons to go digital and eschew any thoughts of Direct Mail, which is appropriately called snail mail in this context. Direct mail is slow, difficult to measure in many ways including how many are opened by your target audience. And it’s difficult to determine if the physical mailer reached the person intended. Direct mail will continue to get slower (First Class mail will no longer be delivered next day) and more costly, as the inherent inefficiencies in the model continue to act as an economic anchor on the entire process.
The simple conclusion for B2B Insurance Agencies… If you haven’t stopped direct mail – do so – and do so now! Invest in your future with digital marketing, particularly methods that build a foundation for your future success. For more information, go to: Insurance Agency Marketing - http://www.startupselling.com/insurance-agency-marketing.html
Get To The Point – Webinar Marketing Best Practices
Posted on December 16th, 2011 by Alan Blume
I recently attended a webinar. It started about 4 minutes late. There were two speakers who spent the next seven minutes introducing themselves, bantering and seemingly trying to “warm up” the audience. The webinar was scheduled to run an hour in length. I left after 30 minutes, finding the content too vague and offering too little to make it worthwhile. But, I did learn (or at least validate) something very important.
StartIUpSelling Web Marketing Best Practices
Webinars, particularly those attempting to introduce a company or business concept, build rapport or even evangelize leading edge solutions, should be to the point and succinct. In a recent survey we completed on behalf of a b2b client, almost 80% of the respondents thought webinars between 20 minutes and 45 minutes in length were ideal, while less than ten percent said they wanted webinars of an hour or more. Of the 80% in the 20 to 45 minute category, over half of them thought a 30 minute webinar was ideal.
These sentiments are echoed by my own preferences, the first thing I do when receiving a 90 minute webinar invitation, is to reach for the delete button. So, to get to the point of this blog entry, when it comes to webinars, less is likely more. For more information go to StartUpSelling or StartMarketingTech for Web Marketing and Virtual Business best practices.
Top 12 Insurance Agency Marketing New Year Resolutions
Posted on November 21st, 2011 by Alan Blume
Here is a list of 12 important things to consider for your Insurance Agency Marketing New Year Resolutions.
Insurance Agency Marketing New Year Resolutions
- Your Insurance Agency Website is Updated & Current.
- Your Website leverages SEO best practices.
- Your Agency Value Proposition is prominently displayed and rapidly understood.
- You have a prominent Call to Action (above the fold) on your Insurance Agency Website.
- You have a professional and consistent Insurance Agency eMarketing Program.
- You have a Quality Prospect List with X-Dates.
- Your agency (or an insurance agency marketing firm) makes over 500 outbound calls per producer per month to targeted prospects (or you have another type of “drip” campaign in place to offset this marketing initiative).
- You have an Insurance Agency Social Media Initiative in place with LinkedIn and Facebook company pages and a professional LinkedIn profile for all your agency employees (and an Insurance Agency Blog).
- You have your own YouTube channel with pithy videos about your agency, products, services, solutions and perhaps some client testimonials too.
- You’ve rehearsed your elevator, telephone and voice mail pitch. You can quickly differentiate your agency and have a clearly understood “big 3″ list of differentiators.
- You have a clear and efficient (and documented) lead handling process.
- Your eCollateral is Branded & Updated.
And you have determined how to increase your book of business with a clear and concise insurance agency marketing plan for the New Year.
For more information visit: Insurance Agency Web Marketing
Top 10 TTD for Insurance Agency Marketing & Lead Generation in 2012
Posted on November 16th, 2011 by Alan Blume
Though every agency has time and budget constraints, here is a simple Top 10 Things To Do List for Insurance Agency Marketing & Lead Generation in 2012. This is a great time of year to step back and review everything from your insurance agency website to your insurance agency lead generation plans.
- Your Web Site is Updated & Current (with SEO best practices)
- Your Agency Value Proposition is Clearly Displayed and Understood
- You have a prominent Call to Action (above the fold) on your Insurance Agency Website
- You have a professional and consistent eMarketing Program
- You have a Quality Prospect List with X-Dates
- Your agency makes over 500 outbound calls per producer per month to targeted prospects
- You have an Insurance Agency Social Media Initiative in place
- You’ve rehearsed your elevator, telephone and voice mail pitch
- You have an efficient (and documented) lead handling process
- Your eCollateral is Branded & Updated
And you have determined how to increase your book of business with a clear and simple insurance agency marketing plan for 2012. For more information go to: Insurance Agency Marketing
100th B2B Marketing Article Published
Posted on November 14th, 2011 by Alan Blume
Last week I achieved one of my goals for 2011, with a little time to spare, as I published my 100th B2B marketing article in Ezine, a leading online article publisher. My most viewed article is: Should You Hire an Insurance Agency Producer Without an Insurance Agency Marketing Program. I’ve written 38 insurance agency marketing articles. The additional 62 articles predominately relate to B2B Business Marketing, Internet Business and Business Book Reviews, topics germane to StartUpSelling’s subsidiary, StartMarketingTech, which focuses on B2B Web Marketing for technology and professional service organizations.
B2B Web Marketing
With over 18,000 Marketing Article Views, we are very pleased with the exposure and SEO relevance provided by Ezine. Ezine requires authors to conform to multiple pages of standards and guidelines, beyond their requirement for original content, including grammar, keyword density, punctuation, article length and structure. Platinum level authors (a level achieved about 6 months ago) have demonstrated the ability to submit high quality articles while ensuring the content meets Ezine’s strict editorial guidelines.StartUpSelling, an insurance agency marketing agency, focuses on a full-service approach to insurance agency and broker marketing, and publishes blogs and articles on behalf of itself and many clients. StartUpSelling specializes in all fields of insurance agency marketing, including Insurance Search Engine Marketing & Insurance Agency SEO, Insurance Agency eMarketing, Agency Telemarketing and Social Media Marketing.
StartMarketingTech offers the same services for B2B companies including technology firms, software companies and professional services organizations. Blume is also the author of Your Virtual Success, published last summer and a soon to be released book called Sell More & Work Less, (another 2011 goal) which is expected to be available in December. Visit Alan Blume’s expert author page on Ezine, which inclues 100 B2B Marketing and Insurance Agency Marketing articles. Or go to one of our blogs at: http://www.startupselling.com.
Insurance Agency Websites and Your Unique Value Proposition
Posted on November 1st, 2011 by Alan Blume
I review many insurance agency websites every day. On occasion, I see an up to date website leveraging Web 2.0 best practices, populated with high value dynamic content, optimized for insurance agency SEO, and utilizing social media icons with a clear and well placed call to action. These websites are easy to identify and the result of time and energy expended by the agency to ensure clients, partners and prospects realize a compelling and professional website experience. However, far more often I see sites in need of attention, some are simply out of date while others are template sites which utilize the same or similar content across many agency websites.
In years past, many clients, partners and prospects may have opted to visit agents at their actual location. Today, far more people visit an insurance agency website than will ever walk through the agency door. This is as true for Personal Lines as it is for Commercial Lines. We’ve all heard the credo that “cash is king” when it comes to business. But when it comes to websites, “content is king”, which should really be quotes as “unique content is king”, and it is imperative that your website has original content and your own unique look and feel. Your website should convey your unique value proposition, your agency theme and the special attributes of your products, services and solutions.
The Top 10 website elements that your agency should review when designing your website:
- Header, logo and value proposition
- Navigation (keep it simple)
- Page title, meta description, keywords (on page SEO)
- Unique design
- Graphic versus content balance
- Color and theme
- Content including text, graphics, video, blog
- Download speed
- Quality inbound links, no-follow outbound links
- Call to Action!
The Top 10 Watch Out tips include:
- Beware of templates that make your agency site look the same as other agencies
- Out of date content
- Out of date images and photographs
- Comingling of Personal Lines and Commercial Lines
- Vague or non-existent Call To Actions on each page
- Too many Calls To Action on a given web page
- Browser incompatibility
- Large graphics or Flash video with limited content
- Broken links
- Using utilities and features that make your site look the same as other sites
Now that you have a target list for your insurance agency website, what is your unique value proposition and how do you convey this to web visitors? Let’s say that you are a trucking agency. Do you offer special group health insurance programs, guaranteed major medical for owner operators, Hours of Service updates in a newsletter, a 24 hour hotline in the event of a spill related emergency? Are you a local firm which provides personal attention to each and every client or a large agency with robust resources and deep expertise? Perhaps you think your agency offers an amalgamation of both of these, personalized service and deep fleet expertise. Does every agent have a Commercial Drivers License (CDL) or have the received specialized training to ensure they can address the unique requirements of your trucking agency clients and prospects?
Your agency website should synthesize your unique value proposition and clearly convey this on your home page, and throughout your website. The same concept holds true for other vertical oriented agencies and also for general agencies. Remember, services including bundled services are often underutilized themes on agency websites, whereas get a quote now, is often an over utilized theme. Make sure your unique value proposition and website are clearly articulated and refrain from using the same content, spokespersons, “chatterbots”. Wikipedia defines chatterbots or chatter robot as a computer program designed to simulate a conversation via auditory methods. If an agency does decide to use a chatterbot, I’d suggest they use someone from their own agency to discuss their value proposition. If you use the same chatterbot as another agency, it would be similar to seeing the same spokesperson on TV pitching competitive products (would GM, Ford, Honda and Toyota all use the same spokesperson in their competing product advertisements). As an alternative to using chatter robots, agencies can record a series of short videos and place them strategically on each website page. These videos also have the advantage of YouTube placement, to help their insurance agency SEO efforts. Agencies, agents and brokers should take the time to provide original content, video and graphics to convey that which makes their unique agency the better choice.
White Hat Insurance Agency SEO Versus Black Hat Insurance Agency SEO
Posted on October 28th, 2011 by Alan Blume
White Hat SEO versus Black Hat SEO Definitions
Hopefully your insurance agency is now familiar with terms like insurance agency SEO, insurance agency search engine optimization or insurance agency search engine marketing, the process in which agents attempt to lift their websites to a top position on page one of Google or Bing’s search engine results pages (SERP). There are two basic approaches to accomplish improved search engine rankings, which can ironically (or iconically) be found in old Westerns. I’m referring to the old white hat versus black hat cowboy days featuring white hat actors like John Wayne and Clayton Moore (The Lone Ranger) against black hat actors like Jack Palance. For a more contemporary version, Luke Skywalker versus Darth Vader comes to mind, minus the hat for Luke. Fast forward to today and we’re now referring to white hat versus black hat SEO tactics. Hopefully your agency is not engaging in black hat tactics accidentally or otherwise. As with the movies of yesteryear, the black hat represents the villain, and the villain is usually vilified. Black hat SEO tactics can get your agency in trouble with the search engines, and there is no need to resort to these methods to achieve compelling SEO results for your agency.
Long Tail Keywords and White Hat Keyword Density
Insurance Agency Search Engine Optimization begins by creating a list of preferred insurance keyword phrases, often referred to as trophy words. Examples of this may include: California Liability Insurance, Massachusetts Business Insurance, New York Truck Insurance or Group Health Insurance. These phrases are called long tail keywords and need to appear on insurance agency websites in a variety of ways. Once your agency has determined the best keyword phrases (after reviewing them in Google AdWords or other keyword analytics tool), your agency should populate your website using your preferred keywords. This needs to be accomplished with your metadata (description, meta keywords, page title, etc.) and on the actual content which appears on your web page. Your agency should also measure “on page” keyword density. Each page should be optimized for one to three phrases. Experts and empirical data varies on this, but many consider 5% to 6% to be optimum density for the major search engines. Working within the boundaries of “reasonable” keyword density, meta best practices, quality inbound links to your insurance agency website and a robust social media marketing initiative will yield positive results for your insurance agency SEO web marketing plans.
Black Hat Methodologies, Link Building and Link Farms
This brings us to our first black hat alert. If your insurance agency web page were to continuously repeat your keyword phrase (Massachusetts Business Insurance for example) and were to do this 30 times in a 100 word page, your density would be abnormally high, and you would be keyword stuffing. The same would be true if you repeated Massachusetts Business Insurance five times in your meta description, or ten time in your alt image tags. Search engines can take note of this, resulting in the penalization or marginalization of that website page, which in turn will cause inferior rankings. Other black hat SEO approaches include Link Farms, Hidden Content and Gateway Pages. Let’s review each of these. Link farms are little more than a listing of companies and their website links. If you’re contacted by an organization that boasts they can provide “10,000 inbound links” to your website, you must carefully assess the type and quality of these links (and the company which is contacting you) to ensure there are no black hat tactics being employed. These days, Google and Bing are trending toward quality over quantity, and discount link farms in their complex ranking algorithms.
Hidden Content and Gateway Pages
Hidden content is another taboo, a good example of this is using both text and background that are the same color, allowing agencies to stuff “invisible keywords” on your website without taking up prime real estate. Search engines, however, are looking for this tactic, and if discovered, your website can again be penalized. Gateway pages should not be confused with legitimate landing pages. A landing page is appropriately optimized for your specific solution. For example, you can create a landing page for Professional Liability Insurance, featuring relevant content and appropriate keyword density exclusively for your PLI products and services. One could argue that Gateway Pages (sometimes referred to as Doorway Pages) originally had the same intent, but are now being abused by some companies, as they can be computer generated in the hundreds or even thousands. This refers back to the Link Farming or Link Building black hat tactic because the thousands of generated pages can include a “follow” link back to a designated website. This tactic was purportedly used by a major retailer over the last holiday season, which resulted in their website being removed by Google from Google Page One results.
Conclusion
Most agencies should leverage the old “crawl, walk, run” approach when it comes to search engine optimization, working first on relevant content with optimized meta, meta tags and keyword density, then supplementing these efforts with blogging, ePublishing, YouTube Videos and other Social Media Marketing campaigns. Make sure you or your marketing agency are not leveraging any black hat tactics and you will see your insurance agency SEO results consistently improve. And remember, no matter how pretty that big photo or image happens to be on your insurance agency website, these do nothing to help your SEO efforts. Make sure your website is balanced between graphical appeal and sufficient, relevant content.