Why Inbound Marketing is Important for Insurance Agents

inbound marketing for insurance agents

The cold world of insurance marketing

The world of insurance marketing is hyper saturated. Talking about the number of insurance companies itself will make our jaws drop, how about the number of insurance agents?

According to the research done by Statista, in 2014, there were already 1,007,600 people who work as either insurance agents, brokers, or employees.

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The competition is massive!

I’m not saying that working as an insurance agent has no future, but the competition is getting crazier each year.

Not only the number of competitors entering the market is increasing tremendously, but also because everyone is doing the same to generate more leads!

Everyone is doing the same!

When we are talking about promoting insurance products, what marketing strategies come to your mind?

Cold calling?
Asking referrals directly from relatives?
Newspaper ads?
Door-to-door promotion?
Spreading countless brochures?

Notice the pattern here? Yeah, all of them are outbound marketing.

If you have ever done or even are still doing the methods above, then you need to think of some new marketing methods to do.

The good news...

Worry not! There is always a solution to any problem that exists in the world.

Now let me ask you this. Why bother working your ass off to outbound market your product if you can attract those prospects to your domain?

Is there such a way???

Well duh! Inbound marketing for insurance agents will do the job!

Stand out of the crowd! Inbound marketing to the rescue

What on earth is inbound marketing?

There are thousands of discussions out there that have covered this topic.

I suggest you read the links below and come back to this article afterwards (the links below will open new tabs so that you won't lose this page's tab):

1. http://www.hubspot.com/inbound-marketing
2. https://www.marketo.com/inbound-marketing

To define inbound marketing in a simpler way:

INbound vs. OUTbound. Outbound is all about reaching out to the prospects. Good examples will be billboard ads, television ads, newspaper ads, cold calling, etc.

While INbound is the other way around, when we implement these methods correctly, prospects will come to you! This marketing method is highly correlated with website optimization especially blogging.

And here are som fun facts about inbound marketing for insurance agents

Insurance agencies who have a blog as a marketing channel gain 30% of their new clients from it.
LinkedIn has helped 61% of insurance agencies to capture new clients.
Twitter has helped 40% of insurance agencies to capture new clients.

Ok the stats above look good, but...

“I’m not a tech-savvy, building website is out of my world.”
“I’m not even a writer; I got a D in my writing class at school. How am I going to build the content of my site?”
“I have 0 knowledge and experience in online marketing.”

You can list 1001 reasons why you will NOT succeed in inbound marketing. But let me tell you this.. it's never too late to learn.

If you are not a technical-savvy, it sure will take a long time to learn website development, but at least you can improve your writing skills to start a blog. Right..?

"But... I still do not think that's possible!"

Well.. There are thousands of inbound marketing agencies out there who are ready to handle both your website development and inbound marketing plans.

Including us, GiantFocal, we offer website development services. Check out our services.

Blogging as the anchor of inbound marketing

The inbound marketing methodology is broad and too extensive to summarize it one article. But one important aspect to remember is: blogging is the anchor of inbound marketing.

You can actually outsource 100% of your inbound marketing activities, but we suggest you to at least write some blog posts for your blog. Why? We'll discuss..

Become the market expert by blogging

Bloggers are influencers. Why? They have followers! Whatever they post on their blog or social media accounts, there will be people who read them.

What happens when a person has many followers who read and trust with what they write? Getting recognized as an expert is one of the results.

Thousands of experts earned their "expert" recognition by starting a blog.

2 best examples would be:

Brian Dean - www.backlinko.com (SEO)
Melyssa Griffin - www.melyssagriffin.com (Blogging and business development)

I can go on till you lose interest in reading the rest of the article, but that's not the main point of this article.

"But I don’t even know how to develop a blog?!"

Chillax! I’m here to help you. Schedule a call with me, and we can discuss how you can grow your insurance business.

What to write?

Considering that you now have a blog running on your domain, if you don't then schedule a call by clicking the link above.

The next thing to discuss would be what content you have to write.

First thing you need to do is to know what your prospects are searching. But how to find those search terms?

There are online tools out there such as Google Keyword Planner, Moz, Semrush, etc. But let's ignore them all for now, and start with an essential tool that everyone already has. Our brain.

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Find what our prospects are searching.

Position yourself as a person who is insurance-free. What question may come up in your mind when you are trying to find insurance-related information on search engines?

Some questions that just popped up in my mind:

Why should I purchase an insurance subscription?
Why is insurance necessary?
Is insurance necessary for my children?
What is the best insurance company?

And some blog content ideas that you can write by examining the questions above:

Top X reasons why every business should purchase an insurance
Why insurance will ensure your future
Life is unexpected, guarantee your children’s future with insurance
Insurance A vs. Insurance B: The best comparison

The main purpose of a blog is to answer questions. When you can write the blog posts that fulfill your readers' expectations, then you can expect great things from it.

Conclusion

Think out of the box. That's the basic rule to succeed in the modern age. If you are still doing what others have been doing in decades, then you should ask yourself if the strategies you have been doing really work.

The outbound marketing is not as effective as it used to be in the past. Small businesses who focus on this type of marketing will most lose against bigger ones who have bigger budget to spend.

Working in the insurance industry was, is, and will never be easy. But if you are a step ahead of your competitors, you have the competitive advantage against them.

Inbound marketing is the new marketing. It will enable you to attract prospects and convert them into leads whom might even turn into customers. Not every business understands how powerful these methods are when applied correctly, but now you do! Start promoting your insurance agency or business with inbound marketing! And you can shout: