Archive for the 'Web Seminars' Category
Join us for this brief, complimentary web seminar as our expert team explains how to leverage insurance agency web marketing for lead generation. Expert guest speaker Alan Blume will share keen insights into how to develop a successful web marketing strategy that will produce compelling results. Blume is an insurance agency marketing expert and author of Your Virtual Success. Topics include:
* Social Media Marketing
* SEO
* Search Marketing Optimization
* eMarketing
* Webinar Marketing
Date & Time: Wednesday March 30th, 12:00-12:20 PM EST
To register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/111789776
Tags: B2B Marketing, Insurance Agency Lead Generation, Insurance Agency Marketing, Insurance Agency Web Marketing, Insurance Agency Webinars, StartUpSelling, Your Virtual Success
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Thank you to all who attended our Insurance Agency Social Media Marketing Webinar yesterday. This seminar attracted record high registration and attendance. For those of you who were unable to attend, please feel free to contact me if you would like a copy of the presentation. You are also welcome to contact me with any questions at johns(@)startupselling.com.
For more information about agency social media marketing, please visit: http://www.startupselling.com/social-media-marketing.html.
Tags: Insurance Agency Lead Generation, Insurance Agency Marketing, Social Media, StartUpSelling
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My CEO and I were recently discussing how social media continues to grow and become a larger part of our marketing and lead generation strategy. However, our monthly webinar series continues to be our bread and butter for new prospects and new clients. Below are links and excerpts to three recent blog entries about insurance agency webinars, and how a successful program can become a critical component for growth.
Posted on February 25th, 2011 by Alan Blume
If you’re insurance agency is thinking about implementing an insurance agency webinar series to augment your insurance web marketing plans, it’s very important that you understand the basics. Typically, an insurance agency webinar campaign coincides with a supporting insurance eMarketing campaign. The best way to learn about both insurance webinars and insurance eMarketing, is to ask the key questions. It doesn’t matter if you intend to run your insurance webinar program using internal our outsourced resources. In either case, the important questions below should be readily answered by either group. If they can’t answer these fundamental questions, or seem unsure, your insurance agency needs to step back and ensure you have all the building blocks in place to run a successful series.
Posted on February 22nd, 2011 by Alan Blume
Insurance agency Marketing is morphing toward the web, and any long term marketing plans should embrace an integrated insurance agency web marketing initiative. There are many web marketing opportunities for agents and brokers, one of which is a monthly insurance agency webinar marketing program. These programs rest upon the following key premise, namely your agency should not sell insurance during the webinars, you should offer education and elucidation.
There are six basic steps to create a successful insurance agency webinar series. Granted there are many important sub steps, critical details to ensure the long term efficacy of the series. That said, the basic steps below must be in place to begin your insurance agency webinar program. The steps are:
Posted on February 19th, 2011 by Alan Blume
Over the past year, much attention has been attributed to insurance agency SEO and insurance social media marketing, and rightly so. Insurance search engine marketing and social media marketing are increasingly more important components of an effective insurance agency marketing plan, and will increase in importance for many years. However, acceptance and adoption of these new insurance agency web marketing initiatives should not come at the expense of a strong outbound insurance agency lead generation program, of which, eMarketing and educational insurance agency webinars are a superior choice for many agencies and brokers.
Tags: eMarketing, Insurance Agency Lead Generation, Insurance Agency Marketing, Insurance Agency Marketing Plan, web seminars
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Here are our Top 3 drivers of sales activity so far in 2011:
- eMarketing & Web Seminar Campaign – Integrated eMarketing and monthly web seminar campaign.
- Social Media Marketing – Blogging, ePublishing, LinkedIn, Twitter etc.
- Referrals & Cross-Selling – Referrals and new purchases from existing clients,
Our current inbound marketing initiatives are rapidly growing, and could generate half of our sales activity by the end of the year. A dramatic change from years past.
Tags: B2B Marketing, eMarketing, Social Media, StartUpSelling, web seminars
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Insurance agency webinars generate tremendous sales opportunities when properly executed. They attract in-profile prospects who learn valuable information, provided by your agency. When your producers call, prospects will know who you are – and because you delivered value first, they are much more likely to give you an opportunity.
So how do you run a successful insurance agency webinar marketing campaign? Do not sell insurance!
This is a hurdle we have to overcome with many of our clients. Web seminars can achieve many goals such as improving name recognition and brand awareness, conveying unique expertise, and building a robust pipeline of in-profile prospects. But they will not succeed if they are designed to sell insurance.
We recently administered a webinar for a new client. They focused on an educational topic that their target audience needs to learn about. They attracted a quality audience of high level executives. It was very successful and built a great foundation for future campaigns.
By avoiding selling insurance, they will certainly have more opportunities to sell insurance.
Tags: Insurance Agency Lead Generation, Insurance Agency Marketing, Insurance Agency Web Marketing, StartUpSelling, web seminars
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The 12 Days of Selling using a Multi-Dimensional, Integrated Marketing Campaign:
- On the first day of selling, build a highly targeted prospect list that includes email addresses
- On the second day, send an educationally oriented eMarketing campaign to those prospects
- On the third day, call the prospects who click on your message, or open it multiple times
- On the fourth day, run a web seminar that delivers valuable information your prospects need
- On the fifth day, call everyone who attends, and everyone who registered and did not attend
- On the sixth day, demo your product/service/solution via web meeting to interested prospects
- On the seventh day, ask your prospect qualifying questions – Budget? Urgency? Decision maker?
- On the eighth day, send a simple, understandable proposal to those who are interested and qualified
- On the ninth day, follow up to make sure the proposal is what they were looking for and to answer questions
- On the tenth day, follow up to define a clear path to obtaining a signature and starting project/policy/program
- On the eleventh day, thank them for their business and ask for referrals to anyone else who would be interested
- On the twelfth day, return to #2, rinse and repeat.
This is the general framwork of the process I follow at StartUpSelling, and it has yielded exceptional results. This is a process that you can borrow, adapt and refine – and likely leverage for increased pipeline activity and closes in 2011.
Merry Christmas!
Tags: B2B Marketing, Email List Generation, eMarketing, Insurance Agency Lead Generation, Insurance Agency Marketing, Prospect List Generation, telemarketing, web seminars
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Commitment is the key to a successful insurance agency web marketing strategy. Particularly when you are leveraging a web seminar lead generation program. In Guerrilla Marketing, Jay Conrad Levinson offers his 16 secrets to marketing success. Number one? Commitment.
When I took over our web seminar marketing campaign at StartUpSelling, we had something like eight attendees at our first web seminar. Since I was new to the company and I had no pipeline, I had time to call all eight people. Two met with me, one bought. An agency client ran a highly targeted campaign and was able to sign a 100+ life benefits account after the first web seminar (click here for case study: http://www.startupselling.com/files/johnsondugan.pdf). But both of these scenarios are exceptions.
Two of our longest tenured and most successful agency web seminar clients had very humble beginnings. A handful of attendees the first time, a dozen the second, maybe twenty the third round. But over time, they began to develop a following. Now they both attract over 100 attendees on a regular basis. The challenge they face is not finding ways to reach prospects, its finding enough producers to follow up on their opportunities.
The reason they have been so successful was their commitment to the program. They did not waver or change direction during the early evolutions of the campaign. They made slight refinements, improved processes, used our best practices, and built a robust pipeline.
Carefully select the best marketing plan for your business. This may be insurance agency web marketing, it may be web seminars, or it may be something entirely different. But once you have decided – remain committed to the program and you will earn results.
For case studies and testimonials reviewing these projects, please visit: http://www.startupselling.com/testimonials.html
Tags: Guerrilla Marketing, Insurance Agency Lead Generation, Insurance Agency Marketing, Insurance Agency Marketing Plan, Insurance Agency Web Marketing, StartUpSelling, web seminars
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Many companies hire a sales rep, provide them with a phone, desk and Yellow Pages – and hope for the best. We approach things differently. StartUpSelling recently hired a new sales rep – procured 3,000 emails upon his arrival, ran an eMarketing campaign on his 2nd day, and a web seminar one week later. 20 in-profile prospects expressed interest, we presented our solution to 5 of them and closed 2 new clients within his first three weeks. That’s the power of the Integrated Marketing approach.
Our Integrated Marketing solution consists of many components, but the key elements that made our new sales rep successful were the following:
- Procuring a highly target email list
- Sending bi-monthly eMarketing campaigns
- Running monthly web seminars for prospects
- Making follow up (warm) calls after each step
- Conveneient and effective web meetings
These steps allowed our rep to continuously reach new prospects and quickly turn them into clients.
Tags: Email List Generation, eMarketing, Prospect List Generation, StartUpSelling, web seminars
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As we close the books on November 2010, StartUpSelling has achieved a record sales month. We were able to sign more clients this month than any other in our 7 year history, and renewed a few client contracts along the way. The important question that I am asking myself this morning is – how did we do it? Identifying this will allow us to reproduce those results, and I wanted to share what I came up with to help you build your business. This record growth was achieved by executing our Integrated Marketing Strategy, and making it as easy as possible for prospects to become clients. Here are the key elements to the process:
- Outbound Marketing- Our monthly eMarketing and web seminar series provides consistent outreach to our target prospects. Consistent and effective outreach has been our most productive and reliable source of prospects. We prefer the webinar approach to cold calling, because it builds momentum and a foundation for future growth.
- Inbound Marketing – Social Media Marketing and Search Engine Optimization have produced a steady stream of inbound leads (with no hard cost). This makes our lives much easier when trying to hit our weekly and monthly appointment/demo goals. Refining our ability to quickly qualify these inbound leads has made this an effective source for new business.
- Warm Calls – I still make cold calls periodically when I think there may be an opportunity, but I spend time every day making warm calls. Successful outbound and inbound marketing campaigns have created a library of prospects that know who we are and have a level of interest in our offerings. Then it becomes a matter of finding the right time to talk or engage.
- Simple Proposals – By using very simple proposals with minimal legalese, we make it as easy as possible for clients to sign. Having contracts hung up in legal is a nightmare for salespeople, and providing a brief and concise legal clause minimizes the possibility that this will happen. You can find a sample agreement in Alan Blume’ Your Virtual Success.
The integrated approach of blending outbound and inbound marketing campaigns with consistent warm calls has allowed us to build a robust pipeline. Simplicity in the signing process has assisted our efforts to close new business. These elements have been the key contributing factors to our record month, and I believe would help many salespeople improve their results. Happy selling!
Tags: eMarketing, Insurance Agency Lead Generation, Insurance Agency Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Social Media, StartUpSelling, telemarketing, web seminars, Your Virtual Success
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We are seeing signs that the economy is picking up. My personal contacts in a variety of industries have shared that conditions are improving. Many experts believe that 2011 will be a positive year for growth and productivity. That being said, the real question is whether or not your business will be poised to take advantage of this opportunity.
Many businesses have been hanging on, waiting for the rains to come and revive their ailing pipeline. These businesses will first need to return to stability before attacking the marketplace for growth. Unfortunately, many of them will be too late to the party and simply watch as more prepared competitors zip past them and latch onto opportunities.
At StartUpSelling, we have been very fortunate and have worked very hard to post record sales numbers in 2010. This is not an attempt to brag, but it is important to note how and why we were able to achieve this despite the economic challenges. And more importantly, we have positioned ourselves as one of the aforementioned companies ready to latch onto the opportunities offered by economic recovery. I can attribute this to 3 things:
- Thought Leadership – We have invested significant time and money in the advancement of our technology, resources and people. We have invested more time and money in the cultivation of new ideas and products. By consistently delivering cutting-edge solutions to our clients, we have developed thought leadership in our space. People now seek our opinions, and often our services. This can be achieved in nearly any industry with any product/service/solution.
- Social Media Marketing - A few years ago, and marketing person suggested that all salespeople should be present on LinkedIn and Facebook. I responded by saying that I am employed and engaged, so I do not need social media to find a job or a date. Over time my opinion changed, and my actions followed. In 2010, 30-35% of our sales will have come from social media sources. In 2011, we anticipate that will increase to 40%. If you are not pervasive in your social media efforts and exposure, you are losing ground to a competitor. If you lack the time or expertise to accomplish this – find a partner who can.
- eMarketing & Web Seminars - Creating an outbound marketing program that builds a foundation for the future is paramount. We choose eMarketing and web seminars to accomplish this. Over time, we have developed a following within our target market by offering monthly, educational, complimentary web seminars. Concurrently, we have built an email database of several thousand prospects. Many of whom indicate interest, respond regularly and ask questions when we send messages. This is a long-term outreach program that will generate prospects in perpetuity.
Executing these 3 items continually has yielded record results for our organization in 2010 – and it has prepared us to take full advantage of future economic growth, whenever it may arrive.
Tags: B2B Marketing, eMarketing, Facebook, Insurance Agency Lead Generation, Insurance Agency Marketing, Insurance Agency Marketing Plan, LinkedIn, Social Media, StartUpSelling, web seminars
Posted in B2B Marketing, eMarketing, Insurance Agency Lead Generation, Insurance Agency Marketing, Insurance Agency Marketing Plan, Social Media, Web Seminars | Leave a Comment »
