Marketing Tip of The Day

New Years day is always in the top 5 when it comes to "Web Traffic"! Translation: people are hung over so they sit and cruise the internet all day.


Tip of The Day: Post a really good blog entry or Facebook Wall Post today, there is a very high probability it will be viewed.

Suggested Topic: Why one of your services or products is needed in 2011! Plus how can they get it!

Captive Agents & Social Media

Obviously there are a lot of benefits for working for a captive agency. You get to sell their unique products; you get training and tons of internal support. In my opinion that sales model worked very well ten years ago. Now things are different, it’s all about speed, efficiency and innovation. I am pretty sure those three words scare your compliance department to death!

Yesterday I got exactly 4 different “mailers” from captive agents, trying to promote themselves. I looked at them for one second and threw them out. I bet each of those agents spent between $2500 and $5000 on those mailers. You have to wonder what kind of results they will receive. I can’t imagine very good.

It’s funny because the captive agency always trains its agents to build lists and touch has many people as they can. Yet now that there are amazing free virtual list building tools (social media) to do so, they don’t let you.

It’s all about free marketing via social media, “Viral Marketing”. It’s moving and evolving so fast that by the time your compliance department gives you some sort of format to follow, the next thing will already have evolved and passed.

Things are changing fast in the financial industry….. Do you have the speed to keep up?

Top Insurance Agency Fanpages

I was casually looking for Insurance agencies fanpages that really stood out. I found that the most successful pages didnt try to sell sell sell to their viewers. They actually tried to make their page a fun experience with contest's, humor and personality.

Remember the key to a good fanpage is getting people to want to return daily to it. Your goal is to get them to "like" the page so they become part of your distribution list.

Fargo Insurance (1250 + Fans) www.facebook.com/fargoinsurance

Otterstedt (1050 + Fans) www.facebook.com/OtterstedtInsurance

You can review the new Benefitstore Fanpage @ www.facebook.com/Benefitstore.net

Building Your Social Media Insurance Brand

You can build a solid brand for your insurance business by effectively executing a comprehensive social-media marketing strategy that includes utilizing Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogging. Opening up a two-way communication channel with customers is vital for building a brand for your business in Web 2.0. Recommendations from bloggers and influencers in your industry are also critical to securing your "brand equity" online.

The best way to begin building your brand is to communicate and engage with followers, rather than by trying to market to them. Build "social engagement" into your company's social-media strategy, as opposed to promotional tweets and Facebook posts, which can hurt your brand equity in the long run.

Here are my top tips for building brand equity in social-media sites for every business owner:

 Set up Google alerts for your insurance company.

 Create a Facebook fan page, Twitter page and LinkedIn profile page for your company.

 Secure a minimum of five recommendations on your LinkedIn profile.

 Build geographically targeted lists on Twitter that other community members will want to follow.

 Optimize all blog content for search-engine optimization visibility.

 Guest blog for brand diversification.

 Join relevant industry-related groups in key social-media platforms.

Your Facebook Fanpage Google Page Rank

One of the top reasons to have a Facebook Fan Page for your company is its just another way to post information on the internet about your company for free. One way to help your Fan Page get found on search engine results is its "Page Rank". The higher the rank, the more likely it will appear on page 1 or 2 of the search. A legimate good page rank is between 2 and 4.

Google holds Facebook in very high esteem, because of this it actually assigns each individual Facebook Fan Page its own page rank.

Check Out Your Page Rank At http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php

Facebook on 60 Minutes Lastnight

There was a great 30 minute interview with Mark Zuckerberg lastnight on 60 minutes.
You can watch it here http://www.cbs.com/primetime/60_minutes/

Facebook is now worth around 50 billion dollars, still think its a joke?

Add On-Line Insurance Shopping To Your FanPage

We recently created a new application for Insurance Agency Facebook Fanpages. It allows you to add a new title to your "toolbar". When an onlooker clicks on it, they are directed to your insurance store (From Benefitstore.net) where they can review all of your on-line quoting and enrollment products.

One of our members "Joe Walker" of Insurance Benefit Solutions has added this to his FanPage.

(Click) To View Joe's FanPage

Don't Laugh At Facebook!

At BenefitStore.net we talk to insurance agents all day long. The number one frustration we hear is the cost of buying or generating leads. Well 9 out of 10 of agents we talk to have not created a Facebook Fanpage. Most people laugh when I even mention it. Take a look at Geico’s Fanpage, they have over 86,000 fans. Now remember when they communicate to those fans it goes to those 86,000 people plus the friends of those 86,000 people. Assuming that the average fan has 50 friends that mean 4.3 million people! Facebook is free, everyone including my mother uses it. It’s time to get in the game before a new game begins and you never got a chance to play!

Thoughts on Facebook & Insurance

As many insurance agents know, their biggest competitors are actually the insurance companies themselves. This is why social networking gives you a BIG advantage over some of the “mega-competitors” that want to attack your client base.  GEICO can deliver a lizard.  Esurance, a robot.  Progressive has that little hottie, Flo.  But you can deliver YOU.  And people want to do business with PEOPLE.  People trust people, not institutions.  And that’s especially true NOW. 

So: give careful thought to pulling back the curtains on who YOU are in your Facebook profile.  And do the same with your postings.  Be a real person.  Make it possible for people to feel a CONNECTION with you.

Social Media Marketing allows you MUTIPLY the “round of golf” or dinners agents used to rely on to build relationships.  It doesn’t replace the depth of intimacy, but it can multiply it by hundreds or thousands and, when skillfully crafted, can deliver 60% of the “touch.”  Those are very good numbers.

This must be part of you overall marketing strategy.  Your clients are already there.  You should be, too.

Advantages of LinkedIn Groups

Groups have become a great way to network and find new insurance clients on LinkedIn. They’ve been around for awhile, but without any functionality they were a shell of a feature.  Updates that allowed members to communicate through discussion posts and news articles have changed their relevance.
There have also been some goodies added for Group owners.  You can now send a weekly announcement to the group.  You can configure automatic email responses to group inquiries to join, a welcome message to new members, and messages to those you decline or block from future requests to join. Groups are becoming a powerful tool in using LinkedIn effectively.   Here are 2 Key Benefits to LinkedIn Groups


1.  Groups expand your reach
You might have 1000 people in your direct network (first degree connections) but join the top 50 groups on LinkedIn and you’ll have a group reach of close to two million members.  I live in New York and the top 50 groups have over 40,000 members. You likely can’t join the top 50 groups on LinkedIn or in a state…there are requirement’s that you might not meet.  Doesn’t matter because you want to make sure you join the top 50 groups that are relevant to you and have potential clients as members.


2.  Groups allow you to communicate
If I want to talk with other insurance professionals I can post discussion questions or statement on my two insurance related groups.  If I want to market a specific product I can tap my Chamber of Commerce groups.  Each group is based on a common factor and that allows you to target your communication to an appropriate group.The news articles section allows you to share relevant information with fellow group members.  It’s a great way to provide value and to drive traffic.

Facebook Fan Page - Insurance Agency

A Facebook fan page gives your Insurance Agency the opportunity to interact, market and network with clients and potential clients. This is a free way to be in touch with your customers. You can simultaneously send messages to all your customers. You can target the customers based on their location, language, culture, gender and so on. You can tell them about any event that you or your company is making in a certain location, using the Events tab. The bottom line is that you become their friend. They will feel that they are important to you and any human kind appreciates that. The page is the perfect free tool to market your products and stay in front of your clients!

Current Member

Click) To View Joe Walkers Insurance Fan page

Top Products To Market On Facebook

Just some quick feedback from a few of our top Option 2 MyBenefitStore members. It seems the two top products to market to Facebook to generate leads and store traffic have been Pet Insurance and Wedding Insurance. There simple products, that are consumer friendly.

LinkedIn Thought Of The Day!

Keep an eye on status updates from others – it can be a good opportunity to get back in touch – especially if they’ve changed jobs or have set out on a new venture. Even small status changes can help give you something to start a conversation – the sort of smalltalk needed to keep dialogues and relationships going in between more meaty topics.

Buying Ads On Facebook

I think that Facebook has built one of the better ad targeting tools going. You can target ads to Facebook members on all kinds of criteria and run pretty low cost campaigns. The trick though is to run campaigns that are compelling and promote your FaceBook Fan Page instead of trying to sell something. Promote your white paper, events, and educational content – create awareness about your great content and your will get the chance to earn the trust it takes to actually sell something to someone. Here’s where you go to find more info about Facebook Ads. And, I wrote about using Facebook ads to create awareness here.