12 Effective Marketing Strategies for Insurance Companies

Great marketing is how every business grows. And finding efficient strategies to draw in potential clients to your insurance agency is even more important when your profits depend on a consistent supply of fresh leads. 

Without a marketing team, there would be no one to raise brand awareness and generate leads that ultimately result in sales and more revenue for your company. Many marketing leaders want to know how they can build a devoted customer base and increase their profitability. 

If you know you need to improve your insurance agency’s marketing strategy, but don’t know where to start, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll outline 12 highly effective marketing strategies for insurance agencies that you can start implementing as soon as today!

1. Write Your Goals

Selling your products and advertising your agency to your target audience are the two main goals of insurance marketing. 

This seems deceptively straightforward, but the truth is, there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all strategy in insurance marketing. Your marketing techniques must be tailored to your agency's objectives, which are highly reliant on your target market.

Writing down your agency’s goals is a great starting point for developing a comprehensive marketing plan. Establishing what exactly your company is working to achieve, and how your success can be tangibly measured, sets you up for long-term success. 

One way to bring clarity to your goals is by ensuring they are SMART, or:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Results-Focused
• Time-Bound

Do you need help researching your target market or solidifying your agency’s objectives? If you do, consider partnering with the marketing experts at Creatives On Call. If you come to us with the goal to raise brand awareness, for example, we can assist you in developing a plan to ensure you’re advertising to the appropriate audience depending on their demands, geographic area, age, or gender.  

2. Optimize Your Website

Are the insurance plans you offer region-specific? If you answered yes, this means that the geographic location of your agency matters, even if you don't have a physical office. 

So how do you successfully target and market to people in your area? The answer lies in local search engine optimization or SEO. 

Local SEO refers to how well a website ranks on Google in a local search. For example, say a potential customer is searching for “insurance agencies near me” or “Virginia Beach insurance agency.” If your local SEO is optimized well, you’ll rank higher on search engines and likely appear on the first page—which is essential for attracting potential customers to your site.

If you’re seeking to grow your business, you want to rank as highly as possible, as studies show that only 25% of users even scroll past the first page. But how do you do this? The professionals at Creatives On Call can help you by implementing the following local SEO strategies:

• Updating your address, service area, and other details in your Google Business Profile
• Incorporating location-specific keywords into your content marketing and website
• Ensuring your business is accurately listed in all online directories, including Yellow Pages, social media, and others

We can also help you increase your traffic by ensuring you have a website that works well and is easy to navigate. Possible new clients will simply stop looking for information about your insurance services if they have issues with your user interface (UI) or slow-loading webpages. Don’t allow your website to turn away potential buyers! 

3. Know Your Audience

Let's just say that when planning your next move, this technique is a crucial element that can't be overlooked. Without considering a target audience, it’s impossible to announce a successful entry into the insurance industry.

Your target market will influence many of your marketing ideas. It’s not possible to sell to everyone, so it’s critical to know who exactly you’re targeting as you create your marketing plan.

For example, you likely can’t create insurance marketing materials that appeal to both baby boomers and Gen Z at the same time. You need a marketing team that decides who your target audience is beforehand and tailors your advertisements to them. 

4. Create an Intuitive Customer Journey

Customer journey experience describes the steps clients take in dealing with your insurance agency. It covers everything from acquiring customers to the very last action, which is a purchase.

Your marketing plan should have one overarching goal: to get potential customers to buy insurance from you. Each and every piece of information your customers need to come to that decision needs to be available on your website, alongside multiple calls to action, clear contact details, and endorsements.

If you need help creating a functional website, you can consult with the web developers at Creatives on Call. Our team of creatives knows that great design is how you make a first impression on potential customers, and how you inspire them to make a purchase. Our highly experienced marketing and design professionals can set you apart from the crowd and turn great ideas into concrete revenue. 

5. Allocate Budget

When you use a budget, you can put a cap on how much money you can spend in a certain time frame. Keeping a detailed account of your spending through budgeting is essential to your success. 

A budget typically serves as a good indicator of an insurance agency's financial standing. It’s the entire amount of planned spending for a specific time period. 

If you fail to use a budget, you may find yourself running into huge losses while trying to invest in customers. In the same vein, you shouldn't devote your entire budget to marketing. A solid lead-generating approach should, however, use a fair amount of funds. After all, if your agency can't produce enough leads that could potentially become customers for your services, your business can't thrive.

6. Invest in Quality Content

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there’s an anticipated 5% growth in demand for insurance agency services from 2021 to 2031. This means there will be more customers looking for high-quality insurance services in the next 10 years. Investing in content marketing is an excellent way to ensure your company profits from this growth.

Some examples of content marketing include featured articles or blog entries that preemptively answer questions potential customers may have. Not much of a writer? When you partner with Creatives On Call for your content marketing needs, you don’t need to be. 

We have an expansive team of experienced writers who can quickly create blogs or articles that will help you obtain visibility online. Using well-researched SEO strategies, we’ll ensure your content ranks highly, and attracts as many potential buyers as possible. 

7. Do PPC Ads

The reality of marketing today is that you can’t rely solely on organic content. If you want to gain the visibility your insurance agency needs to thrive, you need to do pay-per click (PPC) advertising. In fact, research shows that 75% of people say PPC ads make it easier to find information. 

PPC is a form of online advertising in which the advertiser is charged a fee each time one of their adverts is clicked. In essence, you’re paying for targeted online traffic. The idea is that this cost becomes negligible when PPC is working properly because the value of a click (and a potential sale) is worth much more than you’re charged. 

This philosophy holds true as long as your ads are targeting the right audiences; if not, then PPC costs can add up quickly. If you’re unsure how to correctly set up PPC ads, the marketing experts at Creatives On Call can help! Let our team do the work for you and ensure your insurance marketing strategies are as successful and cost-effective as possible. Our goal is to optimize your PPC campaigns on an ongoing basis so that you can increase your audience, brand awareness and recognition, market share, and revenue.  

The two most prominent types of PPC ads are featured on Google and Bing. PPC ads on these search engines are also known as paid search. You can also incorporate paid social ads on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram into your marketing strategy. 

8. Encourage Positive Reviews

When’s the last time you bought something from a business you’re unfamiliar with without checking their reviews? Our guess is, it’s probably been a while!

Almost every potential customer (89% of them to be exact) who is interested in your service will search for reviews. Your reviews can either turn off a potential buyer or help them trust you enough to make a purchase. 

Encourage your existing customers to submit positive reviews after purchasing insurance. If they’re happy with their insurance, this should be easy! You can offer incentives to customers who leave reviews, such as offering them a special discount. Surveys are also a simple way to gather positive reviews and feedback. Responses from your customers can be utilized as testimonials on your website or in other areas of promotion to further attract customers. 

As you get more positive reviews, you’ll establish yourself as a trustworthy insurance agency, attract more customers, and also improve your rank on search engines!

9. Build a Referral Network

Even in the age of PPC, digital advertising, and SEO, one of your most effective insurance marketing resources is still old school—your customer base.

Did you know that shoppers referred by friends are four times more likely to convert? Or that devoted customers are also four times more likely to recommend your insurance agency to a friend? The power of a good referral program can’t be overlooked. 

You can use incentives to motivate your clientele to refer other shoppers to your agency. A good incentive could be anything from money, a gift card, or a discount on your services. You can also choose to partner with real estate agents and mortgage lenders, as their clients will most likely need your products and services.

10. Video Marketing

If you’re not engaging in video marketing, you’re missing out on potential revenue.

Descriptive videos that examine the services your insurance agency offers can help promote customer understanding of policy coverages. If you educate your clients, they will purchase from you. You can communicate complex policy information to consumers who are looking for the option that best suits their needs through video. Having a video embedded in your website can also increase your ranking by up to 53%! 

If you want to start gaining the benefits of video marketing, consider partnering with Creatives On Call. We have a wide variety of talented videographers who know how to establish an emotional connection with both present and potential customers through video marketing, convey a cohesive brand message, and inspire viewers to trust you for their insurance needs!

11. Improve Your Email Strategy

You've likely experimented with email marketing for your insurance agency in the past, or at the very least thought about it. No matter where you are in the process of developing an email marketing strategy, now is the perfect time to start expanding your outreach. 

The good news is that setting up email marketing is a fairly simple process with significant potential benefits for customer growth and retention! ​​On average, email marketing delivers a $36 return on investment (ROI) for every $1 spent.  

One of the most important starting points for success with email marketing is to create your email list or determine whom you want to send emails to. Like we said before, knowing your audience is critical!

Since not all recipients of emails actually open them, building a large email list is essential for this form of marketing to be successful. Each time you send out an email, you want to ideally send it out to a larger group of people.

You should constantly look for ways to expand your email list with new prospects and current clients. Ask for their permission to add them to your list whenever you connect with a new lead so you can provide them with useful information and insurance advice. If you’re still on the fence about email marketing, look at these stats:

• Forty percent of B2B marketers claim that email newsletters are the most important tactic in their content marketing strategy.
• Marketing emails influence the buying decision of 59% of customers.

An experienced marketer at Creatives On Call can help you build out your email list, know your audience, choose the right email marketing software, and stay consistent in your messaging. 

12. Keep Track

Using the best marketing techniques is pointless if you can't be sure they're working! A way to avoid this dilemma is to start tracking each aspect of your insurance agency. This will help you determine how successful your marketing strategies really are, and alert you if something needs to be changed. 

You can use customer relationship management (CRM), data visualization, or marketing automation technology to document important stats and data. These technologies allow you to manage all your agency's relationships and interactions with current and prospective customers. A CRM system, specifically, assists businesses to stay connected to customers, streamline processes, and increase profitability.

If you find that one of your marketing tactics isn't working, try another one until you find one that appeals to your target market. 

Conclusion 

Though it’s certainly complex, creating an effective insurance marketing strategy doesn’t have to be hard. There are so many tools at your disposal that you can use to attract your target market and motivate them to buy!

If you’re in need of more insurance marketing ideas, or simply want to rely on the best talent for your insurance marketing efforts, consider collaborating with Creatives On Call. Our team of marketers, web developers, graphic designers, videographers, and more will operate as a single seamless team, working to ensure that your marketing approach achieves your goals and that you’re targeting the right audience. 

With us, insurance marketing can be simple. You can sit back, relax, and let our expert team increase your client load and improve your revenue. Contact Creatives On Call today to begin transforming your business!