d igital marketing presented by: kimberly shattuck, cisr, cpiw, cpia regional sales manager amtrust...
TRANSCRIPT
DIGITAL MARKETINGPresented by: Kimberly Shattuck, CISR, CPIW, CPIA
Regional Sales Manager
AmTrust North America
770.337.0589 [email protected]
Presented for IIA SC 10/2013
DIGITAL MARKETING TOOLS = BRAND AWARENESS
Brand awareness is created when:
your clients see value added services for their insurance dollars.
hear captivating insurance stories.
are an engaged community.
OTHER USES FOR DIGITALMARKETING
Digital is the new competitive edge and way to build your influence in a social world.
Digital marketing is a awesome sales prospecting tool.
You can take a physical customer to a virtual one.
WHAT DOES YOUR TOOL BOX LOOK LIKE?
Old School New School
5 MUST HAVES FOR DIGITAL MARKETING
1. Facebook
2. LinkedIn
3. Twitter (multiple Twitter accounts)
4. Blog
5. Instagram
HOW TO BE A LEADER IN YOUR BUSINESS?
When you were a kid did you ever play the game follow the leader? In this game, the leader would do something and then you would have to mimic them, or do it too.
Although you may not realize it, as adults, and especially as entrepreneurs, we are still playing this game. If you are an entrepreneur, which leaders in your field do you follow? Which ones do you mimic?
BE THE DIGITAL MARKETING LEADER
Mimicking other leaders in your industry is a great way to learn and can help you to grow. However, when do you STOP following and START leading?
Are you ready to call yourself a leader?
LINKED IN
BUILD A SUCCESSFUL LINKEDIN PROFILE PAGE FOR YOURSELF & YOUR COMPANY
HOW TO CREATE ENDLESS STREAM OF CUSTOMER LEADS
Building a brand online – LinkedIn
289 million members, average income of its users $100,000
Do the math: If you have a product that is sold for $27 and it’s bought by a mere 1% of the users on LinkedIn you have made a connection with, that would look like $54,000,000 in your pocket.
WHAT IS LINKEDIN USED FOR? 3 TIPS TO START CONNECTING
1. Clients you have worked with before have profiles, ask them for a recommendation using the "Recommendation" feature. (And if not, send an invitation to join!) Recommendations are one way to boost your credibility with others considering your products or services.
2. Groups are a great way to connect with like-minded people and influential names. Participating in groups within the insurance industry is a great way of being seen as an expert.
3. Include the custom, memorable, and easy-to-type URL of your profile on your business card and email signature.
USING LINKEDIN FOR PAINLESS B2B SALES PROSPECTING
1. The Largest Business Social Medial Profile! You must have a successful LinkedIn profile as an individual and insurance agency before you begin sales prospecting.
2. Technology, the economy and culture are combining to create a perfect storm. Today’s salesperson not only wants but needs to know that every time they get on a call or attend a meeting with a prospect, that prospect is already in buy mode and wants to buy what the seller is selling.
PAINLESS PROSPECTING - TWITTER Use a Twitter Search to help you monitor folks using keywords or making
statements that might indicate that person is a candidate for your services.
For example, search “Moving to Charleston”. It’s ok to simply follow folks that use that phrase. Don’t talk @ them yet or even expect them to follow you back, many won’t, but by following them, they’ll get an email notifying them, which will make them aware of you and your offering.
Following others is the best way to build your audience.
To have a well-balanced professional account, around 80 percent of your content should be relevant to your audience. The other 20 percent should reflect you and your interests in a non-threatening way and let your followers know that you’re personable.
Be out there, be helpful and folks will take you up on the offer now and then. Do it enough, and you can build a nice little stream of prospects that without requiring a lot of work on your part.
USING TWEETDECK AS A MEANS TO SCAN FOR RELEVANT CONTENT
Tweetdeck is a free app that allows you to post to both Facebook and Twitter at the same time and to schedule posts for other times during the day, week or month.
However, it’s also much more than that. With Tweetdeck, you can also establish searches that may help better connect you with your audience.
For example, you might establish a search for #WorkComp and monitor it for potential prospects to engage with.
TWITTER – INTERNET TRENCH Creating community is about starting a buzz
(conversations).
For example, when you move into a new neighborhood, it’s about getting out in the evenings, walking the dog, shaking hands, complimenting people on their gardens, introducing your kids, etc.
Creating an online community works the same way. Create a personal brand, get out there and join every single online conversation already in play around the world about your topic. Every. Single. One.
Every subject, no matter how small, has an Internet trench. You need to find it (Googling is a way to start).
BLOGGING IS A GREAT TOOL TO PROSPECT Sure it takes a good bit of time and you do have to reach out
and drive traffic to your blog via places like Twitter, cross posting on relevant aggregating sites for your industry.
But probably the single best reason to start blogging from a prospecting perspective is that Google loves blogs. They are keyword rich, constantly updated content that (if done well) usually result in a good number of in-bound links… all things Google likes.
And that is where the painless piece comes in… a good blog has a far better chance of showing up in a keyword search on Google. So, if we searched “Moving to Atlanta” we may get bunch of broker listings and only a few insurance agencies showed up.
Just make sure you’re blogging strategically and thinking about things like URL naming conventions, keywords, etc. These Google searches can be prospects that would otherwise never find you.
FACEBOOK PROSPECTING Riffing off the blogging approach, let’s talk a bit about how to
use Facebook.
Fan pages are for 5,000 friends or more. If that’s not you, I recommend a regular profile page. Why? Because you get really good stuff like their stream, and things like their birthday. If you are their friend, then you get to see that stuff. And if you’re an insurance agent, seeing the birthdays of all of your prospects/clients is a great way to make sure you touch each and every one of them at least once a year with a personal message.
But many of the you may worry about combining friends/clients in a single Facebook account. I recommend a Facebook Page for your agency. A blog is a great tool for making this approach work. You see, Facebook will let you cross post your blog entries to your Facebook profile. So each time you write a post, it automatically pushes to your Facebook. It’s very obvious in the update that you haven’t typed anything, it’s just feeding. Many people read the blog from Facebook.
FACEBOOK PROSPECTING The point is, every couple of days, all of your friends
are quietly reminded that you are in the insurance industry, and while they may not be in a place to buy insurance now or ever, they might know someone that is.
It allows you to remind all your friends (who very well could be your clients one day or referral business to you) that you’re in insurance.
It’s like the web 2.0 version of the yard sign. And if you’re worried about them seeing that crazy picture of you in Vegas… well just set your privacy features and use lists. Really pretty easy to create that Chinese wall in your life.
INSTAGRAM – SKYROCKED
The use of Instagram by companies has skyrocketed. With millions of users, it has become the perfect opportunity for brands to get quick messages and photos to their target audiences.
Connect with your customers and prospects, it should be on your list of platforms to use.
Customers want a personal experience with a brand that is engaging and accessible. Instagram allows the brand to do this in real time while giving users a different experience than customers using other platforms.
5 WAYS TO USE INSTAGRAM
#1 Use Instagram Profiles to Reach a Wider Audience
#2 Create Engagement With Contests
Ask users to use a particular hashtag for the contest by tagging their pictures. It’s easy to search through pictures, ask other people to vote for their favorite pictures and pick a winner.
#3 Reward Followers With Promo Codes
5 WAYS TO USE INSTAGRAM
#4 Feature Your Customers Customers are your greatest advocates and are a great way
to tell your company’s story from the perspective of someone outside the company. With hundreds or thousands of reviews available online about your company, products or services, it’s only fair to include some reviews of your own, right from your customers.
#5: Get More Interest in Your Events The goal of any event or trade show is to attract people
to teach them about your product and service and hopefully turn them into customers. Instagram can help with that goal to give event attendees a visual and location for your event. Most conferences have a hashtag that attendees can follow on Twitter and Instagram that can be used to show others everything that’s going on, whether it’s visual or in 140 characters.
WHAT’S THE POINT?
By being out there, sharing great stuff, you’re communicating, connecting and all that…but you’re also prospecting.
People are seeing your stuff and more importantly forming opinions about the type of person you are and that is the first step to doing business with anyone: you have to get them to like you and then trust you.
It’s a fun way to get folks to like you and trust you by doing stuff that frankly, you’re already doing.
By using all these great digital tools you can cast that net wider and farther than you ever could before.
QUESTIONS?
Kimberly Shattuck, CISR, CPIW, CPIA
Regional Sales Manager, AmTrust North America
770.337.0589 cell
LinkedIn (Kimberly Stusak Shattuck)
Twitter @LadyShattuck
Facebook (Kimberly Stusak Shattuck)
Pinterest (Kimberly Shattuck) – check out social media page