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BUILDING A SOCIAL-BASED MARKETING STRATEGY FOR YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY

INSURANCE SOCIAL MEDIA

BEFORE WE BEGIN

INTRO


This whitepaper is meant for insurance company presidents, vice presidents of marketing, vice presidents of communications, and key personnel in charge of agency relations, technology, and social media. It is a catalyst for pioneering new approaches inside organizations where there is a general sense that the relationship between those who sell insurance and those who buy insurance… is changing.

The intended new approaches must accomplish this: discard piecemeal responses to social media and fragmented attempts to embrace today’s consumers on their digital journey, and instead develop a unified response in the form of a strategy with transformational actions and technology.

None of this is easy, but drastic changes in consumer behavior are dictating the need for an immediate response. Insurance companies that, a few years ago, were at the bleeding edge of social media adoption, are now diving deeper with new technology and driving increased engagement, increased brand recognition, increased sales results, and a multitude of other benefits.

Our intention is to help you position your company for the future, and to do so by guiding you through the needed steps of formulating a digital strategy.

At the end of each section there are action items and some space for you to brainstorm and write notes. Use this as a working document. Write your own notes, or assemble a staff meeting and let everyone contribute as you collaborate to build your strategy.

MOST IMPORTANTLY: DON’T WAIT.

WHO SHOULD READ THIS

WE’VE ORGANIZED THIS PAPER IN FOUR SECTIONS:

Insurance isn’t bought, it’s sold

First things first: InsPiRE™ your customers

Building your social-based marketing strategy

To sum it up

3www.insurancesocial.media

That’s a truism many in the industry repeat with a wry smile—but it’s a truism whose time has passed.

Why? Not because of changes in the insurance industry, which (cue another knowing smile) is slow to change. Rather, it’s because of changes in the consumers who need insurance to protect what is most important to them.

Gone are the days when organizations could push out their marketing messages and expect them to hit consumers squarely in the bank account. Those one-way television and radio commercials, print advertisements, and mailers don’t resonate with today’s consumer.

And that’s because today’s consumer drives the buying journey.

Today’s consumer likes to conduct research independently, to see what products and services are available to meet his or her unique needs, to explore different price points, and to select exactly the right product or service.

In fact, more than two-thirds of the buyer’s journey is conducted digitally—and prior to

a consumer reaching out to anyone who can handle the sale.

This digital research is far more than just Googling a corporate website and reading marketing material. (That would be similar to the one-way communications of yore!) Today’s consumer checks out online reviews—and not just from Yelp!, but from Google and even Facebook. (In fact, more than 48% of consumers refer to social media comments prior to making an insurance purchasing decision.)

And this digital research includes diving deep into an organization’s social media presence, where the consumer can learn about the products and services the company provides—but also how that company conducts business, the social causes that it chooses to support, and the people that make up its ranks.

The challenge facing insurance companies isn’t whether or not to use social media. The challenge is how to develop a social-based marketing strategy that utilizes carrier branded content, incorporates carrier and agent social media platforms, and establishes meaningful metrics that drive additional leads and sales.

“INSURANCE ISN’T BOUGHT; IT’S SOLD.”



Millennials make up the largest generational group in today’s society—and they are digital natives. More than that, they are adept at social media—it comes to them as second nature. So while a Boomer or a Gen-Xer might phone a store to inquire about business hours, or a restaurant to make reservations, a millennial might look up the company on Facebook or just skip over to their Open Table app to reserve a table.

Of course, millennials are far from the only group utilizing social media to make purchasing decisions! But as the number of digital natives continues to grow, and older generations continue to adapt to a digital consumer journey, organizations without digital marketing strategies in place will find themselves left behind—edging ever closer to extinction.

Remember, today’s consumer doesn’t want to be force-fed a sales pitch. Today’s consumers want to control their own purchasing process. They want to engage with organizations that support the same social causes they do.

They want a two-way conversation with the organizations they do business with. They want to know about the business the same way they know about their friends: What does the business stand for? What is its history? What are its goals moving forward? How does it help make the world a better place?

And if that information doesn’t sound like a sales pitch—you’re exactly right. And that’s the difference between social-based marketing and other types of marketing communications.

WHY YOU NEED IT

WHY YOUR COMPANY NEEDS A SOCIAL-BASED MARKETING STRATEGY

RAPID CHANGE

WHO NEEDS IT?THE REWARDS

We’re all familiar with the advertising and communications efforts of big companies like Nationwide, with its famous spokesman; Farmers, with its funny television commercial campaigns; and New York Life’s research and resulting digital campaigns, like Be Good at Life. And yes, these organizations have hundreds of thousands of followers (Farmers actually has more than 2 million, but who’s counting?).

But don’t make the mistake of thinking social-based marketing is only for the big guys—or of believing that the social space is already crowded, and there’s no room for your company.

The fact is, if you develop the right social-based marketing strategy for your company, social-based

Your company’s goal is sales, of course—and social-based marketing can help you with that. But that’s not your only goal. You also want to minimize claims, manage risk, control loss, and retain customers.

No surprise here: social-based marketing can assist with all of that.

The types of content you share (which we’ll address in more detail later) can help you help your customers protect what they value most—and prevent claims.

But if claim mitigation and sales are all you think about when you think about marketing efforts… you’re not thinking big enough. And social-based marketing is all about that big picture.

In fact, approximately 90% of Americans say that they are more likely to trust a business that supports a social or environmental cause.

48.8% of Gen Xers and 24.5% of Baby Boomers follow brands on social media.



WHO NEEDS IT? CONT

marketing can be every bit as successful for you as it is for any other organization.

We have worked with carriers who rank in the top 100 for the nation, and in doing so, helped them increase their social media reach by 400%--while also trimming the time they spent assisting their agents with social-based marketing 45%. We have worked with small rural mutual insurance

companies who have grown their social following 111%, and increased their inbound sales calls 12%.

But we also know that change can be difficult, and carriers that do not currently have a social-based marketing strategy (or even a corporate Facebook page) can brush off the need in many different ways.

Actually, 60% of Generation X and 44% of Baby Boomers are on Facebook or other social media.

Surprise: people who live in rural areas use social media, too. Eighty-one percent of adults living in rural areas use Facebook, compared to only 77% of suburban adults using the social network.

Wow, really? Is there any organization out there that seriously believes it has enough customers? That never loses a customer to a competitor? That doesn’t want to increase revenue?

“WE HAVE ENOUGH CUSTOMERS.”

“WE’RE IN A SMALL RURAL AREA, SO THERE’S NO NEED FOR US TO BE ON SOCIAL MEDIA.”

“OUR CUSTOMERS ARE OLDER, SO WE DON’T REALLY NEED TO BE ON SOCIAL MEDIA.”

We understand that social-based marketing requires a commitment of resources: budgetary, time-wise, staffing. And we understand that it’s not easy to find the necessary resources and put them into place. But no organization should let fear of social-based marketing hold it back. That is where consumers are moving—and even if your organization tells itself that its customers aren’t really active on social media, that may be a snapshot from the past. Change is happening now--and being a good steward of your company’s future doesn’t mean scrambling to catch up.


WHY YOU NEED IT


ACTION ITEMS

1 List three potential claims that could be reduced by your social media content.

2 List three potential cross-sells/ upsells that might occur as the result of your social media content.

3

Write three sentences that could be part of a social media campaign explaining what your company stands for.


ACTION ITEMS


NOTES FOR ACTION ITEMS:


ACTION ITEMS




ACTION ITEMS


InsInsight about your company

Pi Personal Insight

RRelevance to your target consumer

E Emotion

FIRST THINGS FIRST: InsPiRE™ YOUR CUSTOMERS

We’re about ready to dive into the components of your company’s social-based marketing strategy, but before we do that, we need to talk about how you InsPIRE™ your customers.

InsPiRE™


InsPiRE™


INSIGHT ABOUT YOUR COMPANY

PERSONAL INSIGHT

Today’s consumers want to know the organizations they do business with—just like they know their friends. When you share highlights of your company’s history—photos of the first office or the first policy written, memories from employees who have been with the company a long time, how the company assisted customers recovering from a major event that stands out in everyone’s memory—you’re allowing prospects and customers to get to know you better.

When you talk about your products and services, you’re also letting prospects and customers get to know you better. But remember, this is not a sales pitch. If you are announcing a new product, explain why your company thought it was important to develop and offer it in the first place. If you are spotlighting a particular coverage, you may want to draw your social following’s attention to it by sharing facts that underscore the need for it (for instance: Flood is the most common natural disaster in the United States—do you have the flood insurance you need to protect your home?).

Why should your followers care about what you’re posting on social media?

In the old days of one-way advertising, this was a question that advertising professionals usually thought they had nailed. For most consumers, price was a major consideration. For others, the convenience of dealing with a local organization was most important. Perhaps the maturity of the organization would highlight its legitimacy, and make new customers more willing to switch over.

Those same issues could be useful in social-based marketing, but today’s consumer is looking for much more than that. Especially among millennials who, for instance, are notoriously uninterested in life insurance—how will you make them care about what life insurance can do for them? Or what about consumers who are totally price-focused, and get their auto insurance through one of the direct writers who advertises on TV—how will you make those people care about the better coverage and service that your company offers?

You need to provide the personal insight that will connect consumers with your product. Old stereotypes, tired pitches, and snappy jingles aren’t good enough anymore.


InsPiRE™


RELEVANCE TO YOUR TARGET CONSUMER

EMOTION

The content you share has to be authentic. Remember, in social-based marketing you are entering into a conversation. If you were chatting with your neighbor about what makes your company’s identity theft policy unique, you wouldn’t quote from the policy itself, right? Keep that in mind as you share real stories about customers you have assisted through a difficult claim, about your employees who love their work in underwriting or business development for reasons that resonate with your target consumer, and about the real life impact your products have.

In your social-based marketing, you’re going to want to share real emotions with your followers—and also elicit emotions from them.

In insurance marketing, fear-based tactics are fairly common—but that’s not the goal for your social-based marketing. After all, you wouldn’t want people to remember their fearfulness every time they see your name, simply because you reminded them that flood is the most common natural disaster, and it can happen anywhere, at any time of year.

You could use humor, though, to spotlight common issues where insurance could be helpful. You don’t have to look farther than those big guys we already talked about to see how they put humor to very good use in their marketing communications.

You could use affection, too. What if you posted a photo from your office celebration of Take Your Daughter to Work Day? You would be certain to get a warm response from your followers.

After a disaster, your authentic empathy can serve as an outreached hand to those who are suffering.

Remember, your social platforms may be corporate—but your organization is built by people, to serve people. Don’t hesitate to let your humanity shine through, and resonate with your followers.

And don’t hesitate to create content that stirs emotion in the local regions where your agents sell and impact their communities.


InsPiRE™


ACTION ITEMS

1 List three insights about your company that potential customers will find interesting.

2 List four personal insights that provide consumers with a direct connection to one or more of your products (this can be commercial, personal, life, or health).

3

Take one product you sell and write three sentences on the real life impact in has for those who buy it.

4

Identify one claim or catastrophic event in your company’s experience that stands out in your memory, and list two human emotions related to that. List one emotion you want to evoke when potential customers encounter your brand.


ACTION ITEMS




ACTION ITEMS


BUILDING YOUR SOCIAL-BASED MARKETING STRATEGY

What do you need to InsPiRE™ current and potential customers to engage with your brand on social media—and your sales representatives as a result of your social interaction? Let’s dive in to the components of a successful social-based marketing strategy.

AGENTS

INSURANCECARRIERS

CUSTOMERS & PROSPECTS

Carri

er P

refe

rred T

argeting

New

Bus

ines

s Sub

missions

Carrier Preferred Targeting

Independent Targeting

Brand Recognition

Loyalty

LoyaltyBrand Recogniton

SOCIAL-BASED MARKETING


SBM STRATEGY


You already know your brand story—although you may not use that term to describe it. It’s not merely the history of your company, and it’s certainly not a laundry list of the products you offer.

Your company’s brand story is a combination of many factors—some of them factual, others perceptual, some of them developed by your organization, others how people respond to your organization. In other words, your organization is not the sole author of its brand story! And that’s where social media can make a tremendous impact.

After all, an important part of any story is the narrative “voice”: is the teller of the story reliable, funny, or filled with a Holden-Caulfield-attitude?

Ask yourself what “voice” you want your organization to have. When you craft your social media content, that voice is a core component of what—and how—you communicate to your followers.

What are your company’s values? Have you been serving the community for decades? Are you driven to help businesspeople succeed? Do you have pet charities? If so, why does your company support those particular organizations? (If these questions

have a familiar ring to them, it’s for good reason: much of what you determined or discovered through InsPiRE™ is part of your brand story.) Who are your perfect customers? Are they high net worth individuals, large corporations, family farms, or a particular industry? Why do you focus on those types of people, and what have you accomplished for them in the past? Insurance is sales-driven, so it’s easy to brush aside questions like these as unimportant. After all, does it really matter which words you choose for a Facebook post about commercial property coverage or auto insurance?

Short answer: absolutely.

Your social media needs to sound authentic to your followers. It needs to be true to your brand story. If you’re targeting high net worth individuals, but your digital content has a five-and-dime feel, there’s a disconnect between what you’re saying and how you say it. It’s inauthentic—and today’s consumer won’t buy what you’re trying to sell.

Above all, remember that your social media needs to do much more than strive to sell, sell, sell. It is social media, after all, and consumers expect more from your social platforms than post after post about claims and premiums.

Spotlight your employees—it will deepen your brand story. Share why your company supports particular organizations or takes part in events like Read Across America Day.

DID YOU KNOW THAT NEARLY TWO-THIRDS OF MILLENNIALS PREFER TO DO BUSINESS WITH ORGANIZATIONS THAT SUPPORT SOCIAL CAUSES? AND 90% OF AMERICANS FIND BRANDS THAT SUPPORT SOCIAL CAUSES MORE TRUSTWORTHY?

YOUR BRAND STORY


SBM STRATEGY


Most professionals understand that consumers love social media—and that it’s to a business’s benefit to develop an engaging social media presence.

But they struggle with the question of social media success. What does it look like? What will it do for them? How will they know when they’ve achieved it?

It’s important for your organization to establish goals for your social media platforms. Do you want to grow to a certain number of followers? What is the percentage of engagement for your branded content and the content of your agents? Do you want to increase retention by a certain percentage? Do you want to grow sales for a certain product by a certain amount? Do you want your reach to be equivalent to a certain percentage of your policy-holders?

Or think really big picture: do you want a certain percentage of your agents on social media?

A glimpse into some of the metrics InsuranceSocial.Media provides our users should help you understand the metrics our carrier partners and their subscribing agents need.

Our ISM Success Score helps you and your agents understand if you are achieving success with your social media marketing--and how you can get even better results. It takes into consideration things like Facebook page mentions, likes, engagement, and the number of new likes the last 28 days. We look at how various metrics are trending, if lifetime thresholds have been passed, and what actions are being performed that will impact leads, engagement, and--ultimately--sales.

Your metrics should cover both statistical-based thresholds and trends, as well as the performance of actions using tools that are known to increase social media marketing success. That’s why InsuranceSocial.Media provides our users tools that will drive leads, and using those tools improves their success score. It is also important to track content performance by policy type.

There is already a spectrum of social channels out there—and that number will continue to grow.

Facebook is the granddaddy—and the biggest of them all. Twitter is great for jumping into conversations—and for sharing quick quips. Instagram is ideal for the visually oriented. The question you have to decide is which one—or which several—of these platforms are a great fit for your company?

For most newcomers to social-based marketing, Facebook is a great starting point. You—or people on your staff—may already have firsthand experience with a personal Facebook account, and may have seen content from other brands shared on the platform. It’s straightforward to use, and in addition to its enormous user base, it is often utilized as a search engine: 2 billion searches are conducted on Facebook daily. You can’t be among the search results if you aren’t on the platform!

We’ll admit it: we have a soft spot for Twitter. Judicious use of hashtags (think #DistractedDriving or #WorkerSafety) can make it a relatively simple and quick process to build a following on this platform, which is also the go-to for information about breaking news. If your company serves an area that often has to deal with weather-based events, for instance, or wildfire or flood, Twitter could be a great platform for you to share damage-prevention and disaster-recovery tips with your growing following.

Some insurance companies have had great success with Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. New channels such as Raftr are raising significant money and interest, and may become major players in the near future.

Which platforms are right for your company? That’s a question only you can answer.

BENCHMARKS FOR SUCCESS SOCIAL CHANNELS


SBM STRATEGY


BACKGROUND INFO Career, job path, family makeup

INCLUDE IN YOUR PERSONAS:

DEMOGRAPHIC INFO Gender, age, location, income

QUALITATIVE INFO Personality, communications preferences

CONCERNS AND GOALS What worries this person, and what are this person’s goals?

HOW YOUR COMPANY FITSWhat can you do to ease that person’s concerns, to help that person achieve his goals?

In a broad sense, you already know who you’re marketing to. You know the types of agents you want to write for you, you know the types of consumers who are a perfect fit for your products.

But until you go through the process of creating personas for these different types of individuals, you won’t really know how best to communicate with them on social media—or anywhere else. You can use the demographic data your company has already been collecting to start your personas; in-person interviews with individuals among your target group will be tremendously helpful, too.

Don’t forget to give each persona a name. That will help this generalized portrait to feel more real.

For example, let’s take a persona we’ll call Dan. He is a stay-at-home dad who has to drive the kids to school, sports, and other activities. He is 31 years old, middle-income, and lives in Texas. He loves sports talk radio, football, and following his teams. Your company could create content to help the stay-at-home Dads in the world with tips and tricks to prevent the kids from getting rowdy in the car, and that messaging could incorporate football terms and metaphors.

PERSONAS

Define how you can empower your sales force to take advantage of the social-based marketing opportunity. You need to offer workshops or seminars, led by your communications department or outside experts.

You need to invite agents to enroll in a webinar to build an understanding of social media basics.You should subsidize a social media management service, like InsuranceSocial.Media, to help your agents reach their marketing goals.

Your regional sales mangers or territory managers should be educated in the value of social media and understand your goals and objectives for success.

Everyone associated with sales in your organization, including all your agents, should be armed with the tools and metrics for success. Your company should bring in outside technology to achieve this and to automate the distribution of your branded content to your agents’ social media platform. Software such as InsuranceSocial.Media can help you accomplish this.

EMPOWER YOUR AGENTS


SBM STRATEGY


YOUR BRANDED COMPANY CONTENT TARGETED FOR YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS

This content should effectively communicate the value of your brand to your policyholders. If you don’t communicate specific values or benefits to your policyholders, your brand and messaging will be lost in meaningless chatter.

Your branded content must adopt a personality, communicate a sense of accessibility, and reveal your company’s expertise. If you are a specialty carrier, this is easier than if you write broad coverages across multiple lines—but either way, your content must convey the benefits and values associated with your brand.

You can also use this content to position your brand against your competitors, and to express your brand promise. With regards to positioning, you need to define who you are—and then own it. Are you the leader, a challenger, a specialist? Your content should also convey your brand promise: what consumers can expect from your brand. Positioning and promise work together to create the necessary understanding of why someone would want to do business with you.

Your branded social media content, targeted for your social media platforms, should serve the dual

purpose of engaging and informing potential and existing policyholders, and engaging and informing potential and existing agents. YOUR BRANDED COMPANY CONTENT TARGETED FOR YOUR AGENTS’ SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS

Insurance agents love to share the social media content created by the carriers they write for. It gives their clients a sense of confidence, knowing that their insurance agent is connected to reliable, trustworthy organizations. It provides a slightly different perspective than the one they offer in the social media content they create themselves. And best of all, it’s a very efficient way to update their social media posts! All they need to do is click “Share” or “Re-tweet,” and instantly your post appears on their platform, for all their followers to see.

Of course, your agents will be all the more eager to share your content if they feel it’s valuable for their followers. So how can you create content with your agents in mind?

Social media best practices are the key here. Offer the same great, consumer-friendly content you create for your own social media platforms—especially those safety, risk management, and loss control tips.

Include an attractive image with your logo on it. Even better, develop a visual “personality” for your graphics (think of Travelers’ red-and-white social media images).

Remember that your post can be a standalone image, an image with a textual post, or a textual post that includes a link. That link can take people to your blog site, where they can get more in-depth information about the topic, or to a reliable third-party resource (like the National Safety Council or the Insurance Information Institute).

THREE DISTINCT CONTENT GROUPS


SBM STRATEGY


THREE DISTINCT CONTENT GROUPS CONT

While sharing your engaging, informative social media content is efficient for agents, it’s also true that insurance agents are very busy on the job, selling policies and servicing clients. They can only share your content if they take the time to log in, go to your page, and click Share! That’s why InsuranceSocial.Media automatically includes your carrier posts in the schedule of content we create for your insurance agents. Once your posts are in the library, they are distributed among your agents’ social media platforms so that your organization and your agents both benefit from them sharing your content—without taking time away from their primary job: sales.

AGENT CONTENT FOR THEIR SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS

Your agents need to post content that establishes them as respected, trustworthy, and knowledgeable sales representatives. A variety of content will be required to accomplish that, and it must be fresh and authentic—in the voice that best represents that agent. Product tips and guides help to establish an agent’s knowledge, while testimonials and other kinds of posts can establish trustworthiness.

It’s important for agent content to be consistent—and frequent. And it must engage consumers on their digital journey by incorporating a variety of content types with keywords and images designed around various insurance products, industries, and consumer profiles.

Insurance companies must assist and educate their agents with effective agent content for social-based marketing.


SBM STRATEGY


COMMUNITYYour company’s social-based marketing goal is to build a community on your social platforms—a community of prospects and customers. And your company is also part of a community—wherever your home office is based.

But there are likely many other communities your company is a part of. Are you a member of an organization like LIMRA or NAMIC? That’s a community, too. Do you organize an annual fundraiser to benefit a particular national or local charity? You are part of that charity’s community. And your company is a community in its own right, too!

So how does this impact your social-based marketing?

Create posts spotlighting your local community—perhaps the change of season or an annual event that your company sponsors or participates in. Create posts drawing attention to your company’s community and corporate culture. What about the annual picnic, a team-building day, or Take Your Dog to Work Day?

And if your company supports one or several charities, you’ll want to spotlight how you support those charities—but you’ll also want to share content from those charities.

Your goal is not to come across as a sales machine, but as an organization that is a community, that is part of communities, and that values community. TIPSWhat do the followers of insurance company social media accounts expect? They expect insurance organizations to do what they do best: help the consumer protect what’s most important.

That’s why the core of your company’s social media content must be consumer-friendly tips to help them mitigate loss, manage risk, and stay safe. But remember, this is social media, and consumer engagement is the name of the game! So how can you continue to pump out engaging content that your followers will want to

read—and even better, will want to share with their own communities? Take into account special designations and commemorations.

February is American Heart Month, a great time of year for a health insurance company to share heart-healthy tips about diet, exercise, and regular check-ups.

September is National Preparedness Month. Just about any type of insurance company can take advantage of this commemoration to provide helpful tips to their followers. Do you write homeowners insurance in California? Share tips about anchoring bookshelves to keep families safe during the next quake. Mobile home insurance in Tornado Alley? Workers comp for restaurants? Farm insurance in a flood plain? All great hooks for National Preparedness Month posts.

PERSONAL INSIGHTWe can’t emphasize it enough: social media is a two-way conversation—and it’s a conversation between people (even if some of those people are managing a corporate brand).

What types of content will help you communicate your organization’s humanity, and desire for relationship, to your prospects and leads?

Will you have a weekly spotlight on an employee at the home office, or on one of the agencies that writes for you? For #FlashbackFriday posts, will you ask employees to share their most memorable moments serving your customers? Or what if you have an ongoing campaign that spotlights why your employees got into the insurance industry in the first place?

You and your team have a lot of knowledge and expertise working with customers. What have you learned and experienced that you can share, benefiting a wider circle of customers and prospects?

CONTENT TYPES


SBM STRATEGY


Only certain locations are at risk of hurricane or tornado. Not every state in the union needs to worry about people falling on icy sidewalks. You may have insurance products that you write only in certain states.

On your social media platforms, anyone can see your posts at any time. So a follower who lives in an urban area may see a post about “veering for deer,” when that issue has never occurred to that person on the crowded freeways. Or a follower who lives in the desert might see a post about cleaning dead leaves and debris from rain gutters before the rainy season strikes, when that is not an issue they face.

Sometimes an individual post is exactly what you need. A single post can warn about the expected landfall of a hurricane, celebrate a national holiday, or share a link to a page filled with swimming pool safety tips. But other topics merit more comprehensive coverage, which is where a campaign will serve you well. A campaign is a series of posts designed to create an in-depth view of a subject; it’s an opportunity to get creative with your text and images.

Is your company celebrating a landmark anniversary? A campaign of posts of historic photos throughout the year is a great way to invite people to celebrate with you. Or maybe a campaign of summer safety posts could kick off on the first day of summer, in June, and culminate with a Happy (and Safe!) Fourth of July post.

Perhaps you want to take advantage of a hashtag to create your own campaign. Think things like #WorkerSafetyWednesdsay or #SpotlightSaturday. Or maybe #FlashbackFriday to share highlights of your company’s history.

How do you plan to make your content relevant to your followers, to your prospects and customers?

Who among us doesn’t enjoy having our efforts recognized and rewarded?

As you develop your social-based marketing strategy, you need to consider how you will recognize and reward your sales reps and agents who are also participating in social-based marketing.

Perhaps your company has a co-op program that could reimburse agents for part of their expense in social-based marketing. (For instance, InsuranceSocial.Media is co-op eligible with most of our carrier partners.)

If you hold an annual company-wide awards program, you may want to add a new category to honor agents or reps participating in social-based marketing. Perhaps you can recognize the three most active social-based marketers, the three agents whose social followings grew the most over the past year, or the three agents whose social content got the greatest reach over the past year. Or you could develop a blanket reward system— for instance, you will donate a certain dollar amount to the pet charity of any agent or rep who is participating in social-based marketing.

RELEVANCE

RECOGNITION AND REWARD


SBM STRATEGY


Remember that social media is always evolving—your social-based marketing strategy should, too.

You should also encourage your agents and reps to grow and evolve in their social-based marketing skills.

What educational resources can you provide them, so they can continue to learn about new platforms and techniques?

What tools can you provide or subsidize to help them become more effective social-based marketers?

How can you assess their success—and your own?

How can they assess their own success?

InsuranceSocial.Media has developed a body of useful tools and suggestions for its subscribers, accessible any time they log in to our platform. Our follower drive emails, for instance, have been incredibly effective in helping our Standard and Concierge Plan subscribers grow their followings—and our automated testimonial generation tool is the only one of its kind that allows insurance agents to quickly and simply request and post testimonials from satisfied customers.

Targeted marketing allows your company to select who exactly will see your posts, where, and when. So if you only write auto insurance in three states, you can ensure that only people who reside in those states will see your post about auto insurance—and only for the next two weeks.

Or if you are interested in reaching high-income individuals with information about your life

insurance policies, you can select the income level of the people your post will be available to. Targeting livery companies in Chicago metro? Filter for location and job title or employer name. Social-Based Marketing makes it simple for your company to take advantage of the granular targeting available with paid social media. InsuranceSocial.Media provides agents and carriers with the ability to perform target marketing--a few clicks and you can select the product line, the population, geographical location, and timing for your ad—and it will post automatically.

There are other, less intuitive ways for you to perform targeted marketing. The point is that no matter which tools or systems you choose--you need to be doing it.

EDUCATION AND ASSESSMENT

SELL MORE OF WHAT YOU WANT TO SELL


SBM STRATEGY


ACTION ITEMS

1 Define your brand promise and the value of your brand to policyholders.

2 Define your brand positioning.

3

Identify three benchmarks for your social media success, and then define the metrics you will use to measure your progress.

4

Pick the social media channels that are the best fit for your social-based marketing goals.

5

Develop personas for your various policy types.


ACTION ITEMS


6 Define the steps you will take to empower your agents.

7 Define and develop your branded company content for your social media channels.

8

Define and develop your branded company content for your agents’ social media channels.

9

List the steps you will take to assist your agents with developing content for their social media platforms, and the steps you will take to assist them in using your branded company content targeted for their use.

10

Identify tools and technology that will assist you and your agents with social-based marketing.

ACTION ITEMS (CONT)


ACTION ITEMS




ACTION ITEMS


So you’ve gotten this far. Congratulations!

If you’ve completed the action items along the way, you have the foundation for a social-based marketing strategy.

You may think social media has a casual vibe—after all, it’s where Millennials share funny photos and grandparents stay in touch with the extended family. But for corporations and other organizations, it’s serious business.

It’s how you can jump into your prospects’ and customers’ digital journey, as they are nearing the point of purchase. They can encounter your organization on social media and get to know you, your brand story, your products and services—all on their own terms.

So what are you waiting for? It’s time to get to work developing your company’s social-based marketing strategy.

HAPPY SOCIAL-BASED MARKETING!

TO SUM UP


FINAL WORD

insurance social media blog - building a social-based marketing strategy...

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