Insurance agencies find themselves in a complex business within an online universe that wants simple solutions. Attracting new insurance customers to your site can involve a long list of digital marketing chores that include blogging, emails, building funnels for lead capturing, making videos, and posting insights on social media. Though there are several DIY tools and guidelines that assure success, the intricacies of digital marketing, especially those related to SEO, call for expert hands.
Here's a look at some of the most common online marketing mistakes made by insurance agents and how they can avoid them.
10 Online Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
1. Trying to market your brand on your own
Usually, it takes a team of expert marketers to build a strong online brand presence. However, many businesses do not hire digital marketers in-house due to the cumbersome amount of work involved.
DIY marketing has multiple loopholes, especially in terms of financial and time-related constraints. Marketing your brand without expert guidance is bound to propel you towards devastating failures. Outsourcing complicated technicalities to a competent digital marketing team will act as a turnkey solution for handling SEO, ad campaigns, and content marketing strategies.
2. Not having a website (or having a poorly designed one)
Your insurance business needs a dedicated website with relevant and unique content, visible to search engines so as to drive quality leads.
An insurance company without a website that relies solely on social media profiles (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) raises red flags for many consumers who tend to research online before making any buying decisions. Furthermore, if your business doesn't have a website, you lose out on valuable online traffic and potential leads. It's essential to have a website for brand building and sharing educational material about your offerings.
However, having a website with lots of digital content isn't enough. User experience and mobile responsiveness are two of the several factors that are used by Google in ranking your website on its SERP. Therefore, having a poorly maintained website with non-responsive pages is as good as not having a website.
3. Treating your customers as profit-making machines
Present day insurance shoppers have turned into avid online researchers who are much more conscious of the long-term results of their buying decisions. They would rather "Google" your products than call you up to learn about the available coverage options. Only after they have planned their intended purchase will they get in touch with your agents for a quote.
Most insurance agents often make the grave mistake of focusing all their energy on the "bottom of the funnel," constantly pushing their leads to convert. This breeds a sense of distrust in potential clients who are bound to be wary of your aggressive marketing tactics and move on to a more reliable competitor.
Instead of emphasizing the sales pitch, you need to educate your potential clients on how their planned policy would enrich them. The key is to focus on educating your customers rather than selling your plans. This genuine interest in your prospect's insurance-buying decisions can go a long way in building long-term relationships with your clients.
4. Poorly designed or misplaced call to actions
Even though you want to focus more on educating followers than selling to them, it's still a good idea to end your content with a call-to-action (CTA). Part of getting visitors to return to your site is to give them invitations, which can be for offers, contests, links to deeper information, visuals and more. It's crucial to use simple but definitive CTAs that provide some type of value.
A few things you can consider while finalizing your CTAs:
- Clear messaging - A direct message will help your prospective clients click and pursue further action, building a sense of trust and authenticity early on.
- Aesthetically balanced - A well-designed CTA will strike a perfect balance between the website's overall design and its visual appeal.
- Location or placement on the page - Your CTA should be easy to locate and strategically placed in line with the rest of the content on your website.
- Buyer's journey - Call to action buttons act as signposts that direct your visitors on their online journey. Making them personal (in-first person) and relevant will let your users know what to expect once they click them.
5. Not identifying quality leads
Online leads are the modern gold rush, as they help you nurture the prospects who show interest in your insurance agency. If you let your leads slip away or don't separate the warm from cold leads, you end up wasting valuable marketing resources that could have generated better results with a more concerted effort.
When monitoring and scoring leads, you need to ask the following questions:
- How many leads were captured?
- Were they followed by call or email?
- How many prospects taking the next step became a customer?
You need to be aware of the number and the quality of leads you gather at all times so that you can make adjustments to your campaigns as and when needed. Failure to separate your conversions from the sum total of all leads (this includes spam calls, personal calls, etc.) can cause you to overestimate the success of your campaigns, resulting in a wrong calculation of your final ROI.
P.S.: Never ignore phone leads. They are a vital element in your online marketing campaign and perhaps the quickest way to reach out to a potential lead on a one-to-one basis. Having a unique phone number assigned to each campaign will help you track the ones that are driving the maximum leads.
6. No or poor blog strategy
Blogs aren't just things you quickly rip out with minimal effort. If you do it that way, the blog series may get buried in search results. You need unique, interesting material that stimulates further curiosity.
A regularly updated blog on your site enriches your followers' knowledge with insights. Communicating insurance claims statistics along with policy knowledge in a storytelling manner may help attract followers. Allowing readers to post comments is crucial. You can promote your blog by cross-promoting other bloggers and requesting to be a guest-blogger on influential blogs. When other sites link to your blog, it helps build authority with Google while generating high-quality insurance leads from multiple sources.
7. Not following the competitors
As an insurance agency, you should know who your competitors are and what they are doing. It's advantageous to be aware of where you are lagging and what strategies you can replicate from them to stay ahead.
One of the biggest reasons for low or non-existent search rankings is a lack of unique content. You need to follow your competitors, so you don't post similar content. Knowing what they're doing allows you to outdo them with superior content. Similarly, it is crucial to analyze your competitors before launching any ad campaign, as it allows you to target only such audiences who are more likely to respond to your ads, thus optimizing your returns.
8. Not utilizing the power of email campaigns
Some people talk about email campaigns as if they're ancient history. Yet, those are the people missing out on what still drives massive online sales, which is email marketing. The most significant benefit of developing an email campaign is that it directly connects you with members of your target market. However, it's important to avoid using your email marketing platform for spamming.
You should always aim to engage your prospects over the long run instead of either coming on too strong or leaving them without a way to respond. Keep your email list updated at all times, and if possible, invest in a good email management platform to ensure effective distribution and easy analysis. You can also take help from insurance email marketing experts who will help you get the most out of your email marketing campaigns. Stratosphere has been recognized among California's Top Email Marketing Companies in 2021 by DesignRush, a B2B marketplace that connects brands to the best professional agencies, digital marketing firms, web design experts, and top technology companies.
9. Having no review strategy in place
One of the most crucial elements of your online marketing strategy should be to generate genuine online reviews from customers.
Online reviews are often counted as a great indicator of the social credibility of your business, with about 72% of customers being more likely to take action only after reading a positive review. When followers are not allowed to respond, they may drift to other online sites that welcome feedback.
Despite the intense pressure to get positive reviews, you cannot fall for the mistake of posting fake online reviews. Many consumers view sites with 100% positive reviews with suspicion. Providing honest reviews helps build trust in your brand while sending good trust signals to Google.
10. Failing to track and measure
Studying your analytics is a major key to improving your website experience. But so many metrics are available to analyze that you can get easily sidetracked with irrelevant data. You need to prioritize your metrics then review the data regularly. When you notice a trend of declining traffic, you can launch an ad campaign for targeted eyeballs. Heatmaps can help you determine which parts of a web page generate the most interest.
How Stratosphere Can Help
Insurance companies are complex organizations with multiple aspects that must be considered to ensure a successful marketing campaign. Having the right SEO strategy in place will make it easier for your insurance agency to avoid common online marketing mistakes. Though you might get acquainted with SEO practices and tools over time, mistakes are inevitable. Hiring an insurance SEO expert will save you both time and resources that can be utilized more productively to expand your business endeavors.
At Stratosphere, we understand the intricacies of the insurance world and can help you stand out with a unique brand image. We offer tailor-made solutions, including custom web design, content creation, social media marketing, SEO, reputation management and more to address your agency's unique marketing needs. Contact us today to get started!
