As a We Insure agency owner, you’re well aware of how important marketing is to the success of your insurance business. And digital marketing, in particular, plays a critical role in those efforts. One powerful thing you can do to enhance the effectiveness of your online marketing is to blog.
While the corporate office provides content to grow brand awareness, only you understand what topics will be of greatest interest to your local audience. For example, if you’re located on a coast, you can craft articles about second home insurance, boat and yacht policies or windstorm insurance. Or, if you’ve established a niche for your agency, such as business insurance for financial professionals — or coverage for high-net-worth individuals — you can create content that will be of value to your specific clientele.
Once you make the decision to blog, you have to figure out how to produce your content, and there are a couple of options. You can outsource writing to a freelancer, but be sure to stay highly involved in the content creation process. After all, you’re the best source of information regarding your business and your customers. Having a writer interview you for your own blog is a great way to make sure the right message is delivered.
On the other hand, you may have some in-house talent who’s willing and able to produce your blog. If you end up going in that direction, here are a few tips to help produce the best content possible.
Create a content calendar. While you don’t have to come up with blog ideas for the whole year, decide how often you can post and come up with enough topics for the next three months. Repeat that process every quarter. Think about what types of content will be timely given the housing market, summer vacations, holidays, hurricane or storm season, etc.
Work ahead. Constantly trying to produce content on deadline can be a losing proposition. Numerous priorities can come up in the course of business that force blogging to the back burner. Aim to bank at least one or two months of content in advance at all times. That way, whatever happens, you won’t miss scheduled posts.
Focus on answering client questions. Pay most of your attention to providing value for customers as opposed to hard selling your insurance lines. Answer common questions that customers regularly bring up with agents like: understanding coverage options, determining how much insurance they need, dealing with claims and understanding what life events might require policy changes.
Learn about search engine optimization (SEO). One of the main advantages of blogging is that it can help increase your visibility on search engines — specifically THE search engine, Google. Your content could be useful to customers but still not optimized to help you rank well for your search terms. There are specific ways to help achieve this, such as strategically placing keywords in titles, headings and at the beginning of blog posts. Do a little homework to find out what you can do to make your content a more effective SEO tool.
Use a proofreader. No matter how skilled the writer, it’s always important to have a different person check articles for grammatical errors or typos. Nothing will make you look unprofessional more quickly than sloppy copy. Keep in mind that you can often hire a freelance editor or proofreader at a much lower rate than writers generally charge. Think of a freelance editor or proofreader as an affordable insurance policy for your blog writing.
Consistency counts. Don’t be overly ambitious with your blogging aspirations. It’s perfectly fine to start slow and build over time. Even one post per month can help you get in the swing of things. Eventually you can increase the frequency to every other week, and even weekly, to improve your results.
Blogging can serve as a cornerstone for your marketing efforts. You can create social media teaser posts to promote your blog, use blog posts as the basis for YouTube videos, create infographics from posts and more. You can also boost posts on Facebook or use pay-per-click advertising to lead people back to your blog content. Your blog can become “pillar content” that unites all your marketing efforts. And remember, your blog posts don’t have to be long to be effective. There’s no reason to hesitate; use this powerful tool to help build your brand and boost your bottom line.
