Please let is know what topics you would like to see in the next few months. These may relate to:
- Insurance Agency Marketing
- Insurance Agency Leads
- Insurance Agency SEO
- Social Media Marketing
- eMarketing & Webinars
Please let is know what topics you would like to see in the next few months. These may relate to:

Insurance Agency Report Card
The insurance agency web marketing experts at StartUpSelling, Inc. are offering a Complimentary Website Analysis. This analysis will be conducted live during a 20 minute web meeting, and will include:
* SEO Ranking Review
* SEO Competitive Analysis
* Social Media Integration Review
* Design & Navigation Assessment
* Question & Answer Session
To schedule your Complimentary Agency Website Analysis, please contact John Scranton at johns(@)startupselling.com.
This service is recommended for agencies over $1,000,000 in commission revenue. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions.
What’s the difference between Insurance Agency SEM and Insurance Agency SEO? Let’s start with a definition of each. SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing which is a type of Internet marketing which attempts to promote agency websites by improving their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of, paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which incorporates the same goal of insurance SEM, improved agency website visibility in SERPs, but does so targeting organic (free) listings. Insurance SEO is a subset or component of SEM, and is often considered a requisite component of SEM initiatives. Acronyms abound for both initiatives. Here are some of the key elements of SEO, all of which will be found within a description of a more comprehensive Agency SEM program:
a. Agency Website Design
b. On page optimization
c. Off page optimization
d. Social Media (some consider this SEM)
e. Agency Blogging
f. Website Images
g. Website Videos
h. Relevant Backlink building
i. White Hat SEO Wheels
When we discuss SEM, we add pay for performance options including Insurance Agency PPC campaigns and ad words, article submissions, micro blogging, etc. Keyword analysis is performed for both SEO and SEM. Insurance Agency SEM requires constant care and consistent attention, it should be updated and monitored continually. Another aspect of SEM is Social Media Marketing (SMM) and Search Engine Marketing Management (SEMM). SEMM relates to many activities including SEO but focuses on ROI management instead of traffic building metrics. SEMM also integrates organic SEO, aspiring toward top SERP ranking without requiring PPC budget dollars. Thus we can add SEMM, SMM and PPC to our SEM list, completing the basics for the ABCs of SEM and SEO. Let’s review what an SEM list might look like:
a. Agency Website Design
b. On page optimization
c. Off page optimization
d. Social Media (some consider this SEM)
e. Agency Blogging
f. Website Images
g. Website Videos
h. Relevant Backlink building
i. White Hat SEO Wheels
j. PPC Campaigns
k. Ad Words analysis
l. Micro blogging (Twitter, etc.)
m. YouTube (Video)
n. Shopping Carts
o. PPC Campaign Management & Budget Review
p. Conversion Ratio Management and ROI Analysis
Our somewhat more comprehensive SEM list places us more than half way through the alphabet, and it’s just a list of the basics. There are great complexities with SEO and Insurance SEM, neither is likely to be mastered by the casual researcher, a financial professional, agency owner or agency producer aspiring to improve their technological web proficiency. Even well staffed marketing departments of small to midsize agencies, perhaps in the $50 Million to $750 Million premium range ($5 Million to $75 Million in agency commissions), may entertain outsourcing these types of complex insurance marketing initiatives to an expert firm.
For more information on Insurance Agency Marketing go to: http://www.startupselling.com or http://www.startupselling.com/insurance-agency-marketing.html. StartUpSelling, Inc. provides outsourced marketing, sales and lead generation services focusing in the areas of insurance agency eMarketing, web seminar marketing, telemarketing, insurance agency SEO, insurance agency social media marketing and website development. StartUpSelling, Inc. specializes in innovative entrepreneurial marketing and sales concepts.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alan_Blume

Trucking Insurance Agents need to Sell More & Work Less
Perhaps you own a trucking insurance agency and want to increase your activity. Your close ratio might be good but you don’t have sufficient prospects. Using a baseball analogy, your trucking insurance agency has a Ted Williams batting average but your only playing as a pinch hitter so you don’t have sufficient at bats to build your book of business.
There are two quick fixes for this.
* Refine your Target Profile and Buyer Persona and assemble a quality prospect list
* Outsource a marketing/telemarketing campaign that will yield 20 to 40 “At Bats” per month
A Buyer Persona is a one or two paragraph written description of your ideal buyers. For example: Mike Jones is a CFO with a trucking company between $5 million and $50 million in revenues. He’s held this position at least three years and seeks an insurance agency that understands transportation insurance and offers both coverages and expert guidance. He does not make quick decisions, but is willing to try a new agency if they offer deep expertise and competitive pricing. He can make the decision to purchase, but may seek to validate it with other team members. Once he decides, however, the sale is very likely to move forward.
Telemarketing (Appointment Setting), which can be challenging for general agencies, is effective for vertical agencies like trucking insurance agencies, assuming they have a good list (this can be outsourced) and a good telemarketer (this should be outsourced). We average 5 to 10 appointments per week in the 1 to 20 Power Unit profile, plenty of “At Bats”, so your don’t have to be Ted Williams to build your book of business.
Telemarketing Results through Month 18
Telemarketing Results through Month 4
These powerful results are achieved by leveraging a professional telemarketer with deep agency experience, current and accurate prospects lists and a call pitch specifically tailored for the target profile of each agency client.
Natick, MA (PressExposure) October 19, 2010 — In the October issue of Rough Notes, reporter Mike Moody offers a comprehensive view of the insurance agency web seminar marketing strategy which has been implemented by StartUpSelling, Inc. for many insurance agency clients. In this case, the article features a prominent trucking insurance agency. This strategy roughly translates into a new formula for agency producers, in that they “never have to make cold calls again”.
Moody reviews this seemingly bold claim for a moment. When an insurance agency, or for that matter any B2B business, successfully rolls out an executive web seminar series, eMarketing program and social media marketing strategy, the results can change the sales landscape in such a way that all future calls, essentially become “warm calls”. With registration of 50 – 300+ executives at monthly insurance agency web seminars, it doesn’t take long to establish an ongoing web marketing dialogue with a comprehensive prospect pipeline.
These prospects already “know” the sponsoring agency through their webinar program, thus morphing producer colds calls into warm web seminar follow-up calls. It’s a great article and appears on Pages 12 and 14 of the current Rough Notes October Issue: http://roughnotes.com/RN2010/include/10_2010/page/page012.html.