All posts with the tag 'Insurance Agency Web Marketing'

100th B2B Marketing Article Published

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

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.

White Hat Insurance Agency SEO Versus Black Hat Insurance Agency SEO

Insurance Agency SEOWhite 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.

5 Tips for Better Insurance Agency Emarketing Subject Lines

It all starts with the subject line, it is the most important component in your e-marketing message. The subject line will determine the success or failure of your campaign. Your email message will be given a few seconds of scrutiny before a reader determines if they will open it or discard it. Further, if they don’t like the message, they may decide to opt out from future emails. Surely the subject line is worthy of great thought and consideration, measurement, analysis and split test variations. I tend to recommend educational subject lines with a call to action for a webinar, white paper or case study. These types of subject lines are different than those used for promotional offers, for example an email from a Groupon or Staples or Best Buy.

Tip #1 Keep it Short

Many e-marketers consider ideal subject line length to be under 35 characters with a 50 character maximum. However, the relationship between the sender and receiver can dramatically skew this rule. For example, if your insurance agency is well known by those receiving your emails, and your subject lines pertain to complex topics, for example healthcare compliance and mandates, even longer subject lines can perform admirably.  The best subject lines offer a glimpse of your important topic, whetting the appetite to learn more, resulting in an email open.

Tip #2 When Possible Target By Segment

Targeted messages will improve open rates. Targeting a specific message which is of key importance to a specific segment will yield. For example, “New OSHA Rules for Heavy Equipment Operators” or “Hours of Service Changes Effective January 1st” will speak to specific audiences, understanding this message is specific to them. These types of subject lines will be deemed relevant, as we will discuss in the next tip.

Tip #3 Make it Relevant and Interesting

Relevant and timely messages increase email marketing open rates (and click through rates). From my perspective this is often more about education and less about selling. Insurance agency emarketing should revolve around rapport building. Agencies or marketing organizations that spew out tens of thousands of emails, touting their new product, program or new and improved pricing will result in greater opt outs, spam complaints and potential black listing from ISPs. Consistency, relevancy and frequency should be the mantra for your insurance agency emarketing subject lines.  For most agencies, you should allow at least a week between emails to the same prospect.

Tip # 4 Make it Informative

Arguably this tip could also fall under a tip called “make it educational.” The subject line should be able to promise informative and educational content, and fulfill that promise within the email body. Your first goal should be to offer interesting and educational topics germane to your target prospects. Once you are engaged in an ongoing web dialogue, your agency will have many opportunities to further engage with your prospects, and they will be more likely to buy since you have established this rapport.

Tip #5 Make it Honest and Keep it Simple

We all know about the “KISS” rule, in so much as simpler is often better. With emails we want the subject lines to be simple, easy to quickly understand and to fulfill the intent of the subject line with your actual email content. Agencies should never promise one thing in their subject line (PPACA updates) and then discuss how they can offer the best service and rates for health insurance in their email body. If your agency is offering a webinar or case study for contractors, the subject line and content should match, delivering on the commitment of your subject line.

Bonus Tip – Don’t Bury the Lead

You’ve probably heard this old adage. It’s good advice for news reporters, bloggers and emarketers.  The subject line should be the lead to your email story. This can include things like:

  • 5 Critical Steps to for Your Next Renewal
  • New Hours of Service Regs for Owner Operators
  • ROI Based Wellness Programs for Small Employers
  • Healthcare Mandates and Compliance Updates

These types of subject lines offer educational value and new and relevant content. These range from 41 to 47 characters in length including spaces. Leverage interesting and timely topics and ensue the subject line is your lead, and measure the results of your campaigns for opens, click throughs and opt outs. Whenever in doubt, leverage split tests to further measure your insurance agency emarketing campaign effectiveness.

 

How to Optimize Insurance Agency Video for Effective Insurance Agency Web Marketing

Insurance agency marketing is rapidly transitioning to a more web centric model. Many agencies have created more professional, attractive and interactive insurance agency websites and are attempting to leverage the opportunities available through social media marketing initiatives. However, to optimize web marketing efficacy, Insurance agency web marketing campaigns must also include web-based video. As agencies and brokers introduce insurance web video into their strategy, it is important to properly optimize this new medium for maximum effectiveness. Here are the steps required:

Add Short Video Vignettes to Your Website- This obvious first step cannot be overlooked and must be executed properly. It is recommended that a Video tab or page be established on the website where all videos are posted, developing a content library. Video should also be highlighted on the website home page. This can be achieved by prominently posting a video on the home page with an attractive tile and clear call to action. Once an agency or broker has invested in video, they need to optimize website placement to maximize traffic and website stickiness. You want to make it as easy as possible that everyone who visits your websites, can quickly see your professional website video is readily available.

Post Your Video to YouTube – YouTube has been escalated to a podium position in the world of web marketing. Only Google and Facebook currently see more visitors than YouTube, with YouTube visitors remaining on the video site for long periods of time. This creates an opportunity for agencies to convey expertise and share information with clients and prospects over a very popular and easy to use medium. Posting insurance agency video to YouTube is a simple process that only takes a few minutes. However, the devil is in the details, and you must make sure to integrate your search keywords in the title and tags if you wish for your video to be found. This presupposes that your agency has spent the necessary time researching your keywords through Google AdWords or a more robust fee based solution. As an added bonus, you can consider transcribing all or part of your video for optimum SEO impact.

Post Your Video to Your Blog- It is also recommended that insurance agency marketing videos should be posted to an agency blog. If you don’t have a blog yet, this is another good reason to create one, and when combing video into a blog, it is often referred to as a Vlog (video blog). If this blog is external and lives at WordPress.com or other common blog sites, you can often copy and post the embedding code directly from YouTube. This makes a video blog post a very simple task. However, this again must be property titled, tagged and categorized prior to distribution. For those agents who have a blog integrated with your website, it may sound redundant to post videos to your video page and to the blog. But here is why you should do both: your blog entries are automatically sent to your subscribers, and it offers another opportunity for the search engines to find your dynamic content to improve your SEO standings (SERPs – placement on the Search Engine Results Pages). This alerts your clients and prospects about your new video content, making viewing more likely and timely, driving more traffic to your websites.

By following these simple steps, an insurance agency marketing plan will successfully optimize their web video strategy, resulting in a positive web marketing impact in a variety of important ways. If properly implemented, website video offers greater website stickiness, a more current look and feel, Web 2.0 website elements, social media marketing opportunities, blogging and vlogging and improved SEO. Every agent, producer, executive and owner should be giving serious thought about optimizing their website video opportunities.

For more information go to: http://startupselling.com/insurance-agency-marketing.html. StartUpSelling, Inc. provides outsourced insurance agency marketing, sales and lead generation services focusing in the areas of insurance agency eMarketing, web seminar marketing, insurance telemarketing, insurance agency SEO, insurance agency social media marketing and website development. StartUpSelling, Inc. specializes in innovative entrepreneurial marketing and sales concepts. For insurance agency video marketing specific information, visit http://www.startupselling.com/video.html.

Insurance Agency Marketing Report Card for Web Centric Marketing Campaigns

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.

Insurance Agency Web Marketing Campaign Attracts 600 Executive Prospects – Webinar

A brief, complimentary and educational web seminar reviewing two highly successful insurance agency eMarketing and web seminar campaigns:  In the first case study our web marketing experts discuss a benefits agency webinar that just attracted 597 in-profile prospects to their insurance agency benefits presentation.  The second case study reviews a transportation centric insurance agency (trucking agency) that recently closed a $115,000 commission from a web seminar lead.  Topics include:

* eMarketing Campaign Design Tips
* How to Select Webinar Topics
* Building Webinar Registration & Attendance
* Follow-Up and Lead Handling Process
* How to Close Your eMarketing & Webinar Leads

Date & Time: September 14th at Noon EST

To Register click on this link or copy and paste: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/835551448

StartUpSelling, Inc. provides many tips and tools for effective insurance agency marketing. For more information on these tools, visit http://www.startupselling.com/sales-tools.html.

Effective Insurance Agency Closing Techniques – Insurance Agency Webinar

Join us for this unique webinar as our Insurance Agency Marketing team reviews Effective Insurance Agency Closing Strategies and Techniques. For each concept we review, we’ll share a real world example of these techniques and explain how they have resulted in improved close ratios. We think attendees will find these examples intere

Insurance Agency Marketing

Insurance Agency Closing Tools

sting and elucidating. A few of the stories we’ll share include:

  • How can you close a sale by talking about an old wooden desk?
  • How can you close a sale by working backwards?
  • How can an explosion help you close a sale?
  • How can you close a sale using peer pressure?

The techniques and tools discussed have consistently proven successful and will assist you in growing your book of business and improving your closing ratio.  Topics include:

  1. Closing by telling stories
  2. Closing by leveraging testimonials
  3. Closing with numbers & statistics
  4. Effective Lead Handling Methods
  5. Prospect Scorecard qualification

Date & Time: July 13th, Noon ET

To Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/872194921

This webinar is applicable to any B2B insurance agency (or any B2B organization).

Keyword Density And Insurance Agency SEO

Keyword density, simply stated, is the number of times a keyword appears on your web page divided by the number of total words on the page. For example, let’s say your keyword is insurance and it appears 5 times on a page that has 100 words. Your keyword density for insurance is 5%. The formula expressed here might look like this: K/TW*100 = Density where K is the keyword and TW is the total words on your web page, or in our example 5/100*100=5%. The formula is modified for long tail keywords by factoring in the number of keywords used in the long tail phrase.

Targeting keywords applicable to your prospect target market, doing so in a natural language syntax and focusing on a specific  long tail keyword phrase (keywords of 3-5 words used in a phrase like California Business Insurance) for each page on your insurance agency website is advisable. Insurance agency SEO is in great part an exercise in mathematics, particularly for on page refinements. If your agency is seeking to improve your rankings, start with your on page efforts: Keyword effectiveness index (which keywords offer the best likelihood for improved search results), page title, meta tags, header tags and keyword density. Though there are still many other factors to consider, this is still a good start for agencies seeking to improve their organic search results. To determine your KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) you can use a free tool like Google AdWords, or purchase a more sophisticated solution.

For more information: http://www.startupselling.com/insurance-agency-marketing.html or http://startupselling.com/blogs/alanblume/category/insurance-agency-seo-2/

Proving Insurance Agency Marketing Expertise

It can be challenging for insurance agencies to determine where to turn for quality insurance agency marketing guidance. Purported experts are often lacking in one or many areas, and it can be challenging for agencies to separate high caliber marketing agencies from weak imitators. How does your insurance agency determine quality insurance agency marekting services from organizations which do not have the requisite expertise, even though they claim to have a well versed staff and have created a professional website? Here are a few tips to help guide you on your journey.

  1. Proof – seeing is believing: Any insurance marketing agency should be able to demonstrate 10 or 20 (or more) insurance agency websites and insurance agency SEO projects that they have completed. Remember, if a marketing agency is good at telemarketing, it doesn’t mean they understand the nuances of websites. Further, even if they have a purported expert on staff, your agency must see web based proof of successful insurance agency SEO project to determine the validity of any and all claims. Also, the marketing agency should be able to demonstrate their proficiency by showing their own keyword rankings. If their own SEO results are weak, and their Alexa ranking is poor (over 1 million globally or 100,000 US for example) they are likely lost, and your agency is unlikely to glean quality website or SEO assistance from them.
  2. Metrics – it’s harder to fake the numbers: Review campaign metrics and the content from actual campaigns. If you are interested in an insurance agency eMarketing and webinar program, ask to see content from actual campaigns, and ask for the resulting metrics from those campaigns. An insurance marketing agency that is proficient in these areas should have many examples, going back multiple years.
  3. Content – content is king: If a marketing agency claims they understand both web marketing and your industry, they should be able to answer almost any question you ask with a blog or ePublished article. If the insurance agency marketing agency is light on content, they are probably light on skills or bandwidth. Review their website, their content, their blogs and ePublished articles, and you’ll get a better sense of their proficiency in the areas which you seek assistance.

The message in this blog is simple, prior to selecting any skilled contractor, ensure they have the precise skills and background your insurance agency needs to create and complete effective insurance agency marketing plans.

 

Insuring the Success of New Salespeople

About 18 months ago I wrote a blog (and subsequent article) which was viewed by over a thousand people. I guess the subject is on the minds of many, from CEOs to salespeople, from VP of Sales to entrepreneurs. From time to time, I check back on older blogs and articles to see if they are still germane today or if they need an update. After a cursory review, the content below is just as accurate today as it was back then, though I would add a social media marketing element. Today, every salesperson should have a presence on LinkedIn and Facebook. They should understand how to use these tools to further their reach, to glean key prospect data, to help establish a viable internet presence.

With this modest but important addition, the January 8th blog is still an excellent path to ensure the success of new salespeople. Notable were several comments about my title and the use of the word “Insure”. This was done on purpose as a play on words since many of our clients work in the insurance industry.  A good idea for the vertical, though perhaps a tad annoying for those outside that industry!

B2B Web Marketing

B2B Web Marketing

How To “Insure” The Success of New Salespeople

A month ago I hired a sales contractor who we’ll call “Joe”. Joe has three years of sales experience in business insurance, but found the 60 hour work weeks and mundane nuances of insurance to be less than 100% fulfilling. He sought a better balance for his working schedule, greater income opportunities and the opportunity to create his own business. Most organizations fail to create a winning game plan for new hires. Too often I hear of companies that hire two new salespeople, “put them in a room and throw the Yellow Pages at them” to borrow a quote from a recent client of mine.

On Joe’s first day, we created a target prospect list, set up an eMarketing campaign to 3,000 companies, created a custom call script, set up a web seminar on a topic of interest (Integrated Marketing for Insurance Agencies) and scheduled an emailing for the next day. On day two, the emailing was sent and Joe was already responding to inquiries, calling on click through and web seminar respondents. On day three, Joe has already set up web meetings with prospects (Joe set up 4 meetings in his first week). By the end of week #2, Joe had closed his first client, and then closed another one week later.

Granted, there are longer sales cycle solutions than lead generation and marketing services engagements, but I’ve seen this Virtual Sales and Marketing approach (the 4-Phase Virtual Sales Process) work with essentially every B2B business product, service or solution. So when you hire a new sales agent, contractor or employee, make sure you have a virtual game plan and start them off with some well rehearsed plays. If you get an early lead – you’ll win the game.