demystifying digital marketing for insurance agents

Demystifying Digital Marketing

Five Steps to Managing a Strategy for Agency Growth and Profit

PresentersKevin McDonald, Confluency SolutionsJohn Fear, Premier Business Consulting

What is digital marketing?

Any electronic medium used to promote sales, product or service information to clients or potential client or used to manage sales and brand data.

Not Everything is Digital But Digital

Touches EverythingIt is the way people communicate.

Print advertising to web: 67%

Direct mail to web: 59%

New Clients

Join Aggregator

Buy Agency

Account Development

Policy Development

How to Increase Revenue and Profit

Lead and Sales Management Affects Everything

Client Relationships

Client Relationships

Referrals and External Marketing

Leverage

Due Diligence, Fit, and Assimilation

How Do Digital Tactics Affect Each?

Joe Agent2000 clients

✦ 1,000 personal and 1,000 commercial

✦ PL revenue = $200,000

✦ CL revenue = $800,000

✦ 1400 policies - personal

✦ $800 average commission - commercial

✦ 92% retention

To Get Where You Want to Go

You have to know where you are.

What you said

Does your agency have a formal marketing plan?

Yes - 38%No - 62%

The 5 Steps1. Set a top level goal2. Identify gaps3. Develop tactics4. Set segment objectives5. Measure results monthly

Revenue has been flat the last several years but Joe wants to grow 5%.

Top Down

To stay flat, Joe has to replace...

• 80 personal lines clients and

• 80 commercial

Bottom Up Tests

Or Get...

• More policies per personal lines account

• More premium per commercial account

• Improve retention

...Or Do Some of Each

How will digital marketing help him do that?

Step Two

Identify the gaps between where you will end up and your top level objective; include retention rates and changes in commission and premiums imposed by your insurance carriers.

GM vs. FB – what’s the return on $242 or $3M for 30 seconds?

Tracking Source to Sale – what is the return on your investment?

Initial Investment – what is the cost of the lead opportunities?

Acquisition costs – reports, staff and operational resources

Lead Management

Calculating the “Cost”

Number of Leads – what is the Universe you’re trying to reach?

Response Rate – how are you optimizing the message?

Quote Rate – is the client’s response expectation being met?

Close Rate – are the skills of your staff applied to make the sale?

Policies Per Account – are you taking advantage of all opportunities?

Number of Leads – what is the Universe you’re trying to reach?

Response Rate – how are you optimizing the message?

Quote Rate – is the client’s response expectation being met?

Close Rate – are the skills of your staff applied to make the sale?

Policies Per Account – are you taking advantage of all opportunities?

Calculating the “Cost”

What you said

Does your agency have a customer development program?

None -----------38%Annual reviews---38%E-Newsletter ---- 12%Traditional cards --6% Other------------6%

Search Engines - SEO•Organic Results •Local Results•Paid Results (PPC)

Tactic What is It? RetentionPolicies or

Commission Per Account

New ClientsReferrals

New Clients(not

referrals)

PPC Auction where you bid on keywords ✔

SEOSearch engine

optimization - how to maximize traffic and conversions

✔

LocalLocal business

search results and optimization

✔

EmailSystematic use of

email to communicate with clients & prospects.

✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

SocialBrand management

through building and managing

online communities✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Digital Tactics and Growth Sources

Are you visible?

Do people ‘visit’ you?

Do you get a lead

Did you convert?

Demand for insurance exists, it is not created*

SEO, email, social, etc. SEO, channel content Lead quality, sales management

Cost

Email Marketing

Local Search SEO

Social Media

OrganicSEO PPC

5 Digital Tactics - Relative Cost

Cost of Visibility

InsurancePay-Per-Click

Most Competitive Keywords

Customer Acquisition Can Be $2,000

Find Competition - Low & Commission - High: Sweet Spot

Infographic: WordStream

http://www.wordstream.com/articles/most-expensive-keywords

http://www.wordstream.com/articles/most-expensive-keywords

Lead Time to Results

Email Marketing

Local Search SEO

Social Media

OrganicSEO PPC

5 Internet Tactics - Sales Lag

Before you see leads

Time

Set Up Content Engagement Leads Sales

Email Local Social Organic SEO PPC

5 Internet Tactics - Program Phases

Most agents are stuck here with social media marketing

Yellow Page Hangover

The days of buying ad space and going back to business-as-usual

for 12 months are over.

Mix 1 Mix 2 Mix 3

Time Money

Level of Digital Marketing Activity(Leads are Proportionate to Activity)

Local Search - WebsiteSEO - Website

EmailSocialPPC

(Text - SMS)(Purchase Leads)

7 Marketing Options

1. Do it yourself2. Pay for services3. Do nothing

Typical ROI

Email Marketing

Local Search SEO

Social Media

OrganicSEO

PPC

5 Internet Tactics - Relative ROI

Range

Range

Mysterious Referrals

Most agents: 70% of new business from referrals

Joe Agent

• 0% Growth = 160 new clients

• 112 from referral @ 70%

• 48 from somewhere else = 1 a week

• 5% Growth = 100 additional new clients

To grow 5%, Joe could acquire new clients

• 3 total new clients a week

• 2, if retention = 95% or policies per personal lines account = 2.0

• 1, if retention = 95% or commission per CL account = $1,000

What you said

Most important digital marketing tactic for 2012?

Email Marketing - 24%Local Search Optimization - 23% Organic SEO - 21%Social Media - 32%

Lead Generation TrendsMulti-Industry

Source: Marketing Sherpa 2011 Marketing Benchmark

Survey

Sales Conversions

• Different lead sources have different characteristics

• Results differ if you have good lead management

Source No Lead Management

With Lead Management Gain

Referral 33% 68% +35

Social Media 33%* 68%* +35

Email 34% 52% +18

SEO (organic) 16% 36% +20

Local Search 16%* 36%* +20

PPC 8% 22% +14

*There is not enough data for social or local search leads to develop separate conversion rates for them. But social leads are essentially referrals from a personal or community network, so for the moment, we are assuming the conversion rates for social are similar to traditional referrals. Google lumps website traffic from local search into either organic keyword data or with referral traffic so we could assume that conversion rates are similar to organic search traffic. However, several sources have claimed local search conversions are better than for natural search and some recent survey data seem to support this (see the slide on trust and relevance of search results).

Often Overlooked

The impact of lead management and sales skills

Sales Skills

In Sync? – does your staff understand what your growth objectives are?

Quoting vs. Sales – what is your staff ’s perspective on what the “goal” is?

Goals – what are the individual and agency production goals

Coaching – do you have a mechanism for giving sales process feedback ?

Compensation – is your agency’s compensation plan aligned with your goals?

Characteristics of Social and Search

Social is Referral on Is Steroids

37% of consumers trust what their

social network says about products and

services37.5% of consumers

start insurance research by

checking with family and friends

Source: 2010 AIS Media Survey

4 Types of Internet Search

• Organic (SEO) - keyword and link driven

• Local - exploding due to tablets, smart phones

• Paid - difficult for mainstream keywords

• Social - 67% increase since 2010*

*Source: Fifth Annual comScore Local Search Usage Study

Trust and Relevance

Source: comScore Local Search Usage Study

Social

• LinkedIn = Business

• Facebook = Personal

• Twitter = news, celebrity, other?

• Google+ = nerd, photography, other?

Maximize

• Budget

• Time

Leverage Your Website

• Across multiple channels

• email, social, mobile

• Time and money are finite resources

Ecosystem Print, Direct Mail

Insurance Research Starts Here

• Asking friends and family - 37.5%

• Search Engines - 32%

• Yellow Pages - 3%

• Everything else - 27%

Source: 2010 AIS Media Survey

Back to JoeHow will he close the gap and generate enough new revenue

to achieve 5% growth?

It’s a game of increments.

Email to ClientsRetention improves

by 1 point

Local Search Optimization

50 additional leads

Improved Lead Management

Conversion rates improve by 10

points

Email to ClientsReferrals increase

by 50

How and What - Increments by Segment

How - Increments by Segments

SEO50 additional leads Social Marketing

50 additional leads

Email to ClientsPL policies per

account to 1.5; CL average commission

to $850

Tactic Source Leads by LOBNumber of

LeadsConversion

RateNew

Commission% of Total

New

E-Newsletter +1% Retention NA NA NA NA-$10,000 NA

E-Newsletter New Policies Personal Lines 50 50% $6,250 3.4%

E-Newsletter New Policies Commercial Lines 50 50% $21,250 11.6%

Local Search New ClientsPersonal and Commercial

50 35% $9,900 5.4%

SEO New ClientsPersonal and Commercial

50 25% $7,150 3.9%

Social New ClientsPersonal and Commercial

50 50% $13,750 7.5%

Passive Referrals*

New ClientsPersonal and Commercial

320* 50% $88,000 48%

Unidentified Sources

New ClientsPersonal and Commercial

192* 35% $36,960 20.2%

Total New Commission

$183,260 100%

Revenue Retained

New Revenue

Total Projected

%Change

$930,000 $183,260 $1,113,260 +11.3%

Key Points

• Results are process driven

• Measure early returns by source

• Objective doesn’t require perfection

Key Points #2

• Referrals still important

• Lead management improves all

• New sources are high conversion

Digital Demystified: The channels are different but the fundamentals are the same.

Demystifying Digital Marketing Five Steps to Managing a Strategy for

Agency Growth and Profit

Thanks for attending!