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!