Small to midsize i🦩nsurance agencies operate on an unꦉlevel playing field.

You’re up against huge multinational brands that dominate nearly all traditional marketing avenues. Not only are the big guys plastered on billboards and jꦕoking thro📖ugh every TV commercial break, they’re also all over the digital space, from social media to YouTube and more.

What’s frustrating is that you (as a smaller insurance agency or individual broker) almost always offer better service than your big competitors.ꦜ You build relationships and tailor your offerings to each policy holder’s needs and budget.

This is insurance done right — but it’s hard t𝓀o get your mℱessage out.

But there’s good news. Inbound marketing offers a chance to levelꦕ the playing field. Search engines can d✨emocratize the entire internet — and if the content you produce speaks to buyers, you can corner the market and reach your audience in a way that mailers and cold calling never will.

Insurance is something that touches everyone’s life — often in the most painful and vulnerable moments. When an insurance business operates with trust as its core principle, it has the capability of building its customer baseꦗ and carving out a niche that the huge brands can’t touch.

At IMPACT, this is what we h♌elp businesses do: expand their audience, capture new leads, and grow their revenu♉e with trust as their guiding principle. With the right inbound marketing strategies, small insurance providers can punch well above their weight.

Want to see how you can do it in the insura༺nce field? Below, I’ll spell out the critical first steps your insurance company can take to succee෴d with inbound marketing.

 I’ll cover:

• An inbound marketing overview for insurance agencies
• Inbound marketing basics: Start with what your customers want to know
• An effective email marketing strategy
• Why the website your buyers want is not as far away as you think

Ready? Let’s dive in.

Inbound marketing for insurance agencies

At its core, inbound marketing is really simple. It starts off with a basic premise: The internet has changed the way people buy.

Nowadays, when customers are thinking about making a purchase, they start by gathering information online. They dﷺo this by typing questions into a search engine and looking for information.

Th♍is is where you (and inbound marketing) come in.

When you learn to do inbound prope🦩rly, you can direct these searchers right to your company’s website.

To do this, your company must produce content that answers these buyers' questions. Th🧜is could be in the form of blog articles, ebooks, FAQ pages, videos, podcasts, or another medium.

The content you produce will show up in search results. When a visitor clicks through, they’re b𒅌rought to your site.

For example, if they search “Do I need nanny insurance?” in Googꦯle, your article could be the one that pops up to exp🎶lain what nanny insurance is, what it costs, and how they can determine whether or not they need it.

🔯When a company offers transparent, helpful content, these potential customers are drawn to it. After all, inbound marketing differs from traditional marketing because it avoids salesy, self-promotional content.

When site visitors find unbiased, valuable content, they begin to build a relationship with the company that published it. If they read a few articles on the same website, that company becomes a brand they 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:recognize and trust.

Taking the first steps to get started

♔To get starte🐼d with inbound marketing, all you have to do is answer your buyers’ questions with written and video content.

Here, IMPACT client , a 100-year-old local agency in Massachusetts, explains how they’ve used our 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:They Ask, You Answer inbound m✱arket꧙ing framework to drive traffic, leads, and sales.

With the right inbound strategy, insurance businesses like yours can drive traffic to their websites and build trust with prospects, who will then turn into leads and customers. And you can do this without havingಌ to rely on outbo🌠und marketing.

To do so, you’ll need to develop a content strategy to guide your inbound marketing efforts.

You already have what you need to get started: A clear knowledge of your insur♊ance agency, your industry, and your customers.

To start, just focus on the questio🏅ns your customers are asking.

Inbound marketing strategy: What do your customers want to know?

The key to doing inbound well, we believe, is to answer any quest🤪ion your b🔴uyer wants to ask.

So, 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:what do your customers want to know?

Start by putting youꦑrself in your customer’s shoes. Imagine it. You're sittin🌠g down in front of a computer, opening up a search engine, trying to learn more about insurance.

What do you search for?

The topics we call ‘The Big 5’

Customers everywhere, no matter what they’re in the market for, want to know the same basic things. We call these five topics 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:The Big 5 because they should be on the top of every ♒inb🅠ound marketer’s list.

Start by addressing these topics in blog posts. Use an 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:SEO (search engine opti♌mization) checklis🐎t to make sure your content can get found. Each week, keep expanding your content libr💃ary with more and more answers to buyer 𒉰questions — just like the ones below.

1. Buyers want to know about cost

On top of everyone’s mind is cost. Sure, it’s tough to say exactly what an ins🌃urance premium will cost, but customers just want a ballpark, so be prepared to have an answer to quest🃏ions like the following:

• About how much can I expect to pay in renter’s insurance?
• What is an average monthly premium for pet insurance?

Answering questions about cost openly and honestly will build trust with your audience. Insurance agencies operate at a trust deficit to begin with, so candid, nothing-to-hide content puts peopl♎e at ease.

When you talk openly ꦏabout price, it becomes clear that you're invested in educating your 🎐audience.

2. Buyers want to be able to compare their options

Customers want to put things side by side to know how they stack up, so you should be prepared to do this for them 🌳in content:

• Term vs. whole life insurance: What's the difference?
• How does Cigna compare to Anthem Blue Cross?

Providing these head-to-hea🍨ds can help demonstrate your expertise and make your potential customers feel informed tꦗo make the best choice possible.

3. Buyers want to know about problems and drawbacks

Insurance is all about peac☂e of mind when disaster strikes. Whether it’s a car a♛ccident, a burglary, or a surgery, customers count on insurance to provide stability and relief when life turns upside down.

People shopping ꦑfor insurance know this. They know they’re buying something they hope they never have to use — but they want to be sure they’re covered and supported when they do.

Imagine topics like these:

• What are the drawbacks of high deductible plans?
• What can happen if I don't have enough travel insurance?

4. Buyers want to see ‘best of’ lists

You can bet that many potential customers are starting their journey with a search engine and a quest🔯ion like this:

• Best insurance brokers near me
• Best flood insurance plans for my budget
• Best service ratings for car insurance

And so on.

As an insurance professional, you ha🍃ve the expertise to answer these questions and put your content at the top of search results.

After all, if a potential customer is asking any of 💝these questions, wouldn’t you want them to get the answer from you༒?

5. Buyers want to read reviews from previous customers

This one’s a bit tougher because there is some natural skepticism around reviews posted to a company’s site. Bu🔴t that doesn’t mean reviews aren’t valuable. Customer testimonials and o🧔ther social proof can help assuage fears and make the buying process more familiar.

Think of wa☂ys to incorporate this i✨nto your website.

Thinking beyond The Big 5

While The Big 5 is a wise place to start, the insurance industry comes with its own uniq🐎ue questions that buyers everywhere want to know.

These include a million “What is…” and “Do I…” type questions. As you plan your content strategy, pull some teamꦚ members together and brainstorm some questions your buyers might type into search engines, such as:

• What is a 100-year flood zone?
• What is an HSA?
• Do I need extra liability coverage for my auto policy?
• What is amortization?
• Do I save money on car insurance if I work from home?
• What is PMI, and do I need it?

You get the idea.

Gated content

Once you’ve built up a library of educational content, you can focus on creating high-value content that can help with lead generation. Perhaps it’s a guidebook to everything you need to know about ren﷽ter's iღnsurance or a checklist for getting your teen driver on♒ the road.

Site visitors could give you🐠 their contact information to download this type of free ebook. This way, you grow your audience and y💝our mailing list.

Inbound marketing strategy: Email marketing

Everyone needs insurance, which means that everyone (at least every adult)ꦐ is a potential customer. And the opportunities for cross-selling are tremen🌱dous.

That person buying insurance for their business might also need🤪 it for their motorcycle. O💫r their home. Or their upcoming trip to the Maldives.

As you build your database, engage with your audience through 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:email marketing. But when you do so, focus on being helpful, not salesy. Remember to think like 🎃a customer. Picture your own inbox; what kꦓind of emails do you want in there?

If your emails offer helpful, educational conten♔t, you will continue to build trust and ༒deepen your relationships with your audience.

Don’t succumb to fear-based content. People are already wary enough of ins𒁃urance. So, instead of “You don’t have enough property insurance and this will lead you to financial ruin!” offer a checklist or a guidebook to help people understand the coverage they need. You could cover topics such as:

• Everything you ever wanted to know about renter’s insurance (but were afraid to ask)
• Teen driver checklist: Determining the coverage that fits your needs and budget
• Term life insurance will give you peace of mind — and it’s way less expensive than you think: Here's how to get started

Any email campaigns you initiate should invite your customers into a c꧃onversation by providing relevant content. Help them feel well-infor🦹med and that they’re being treated fairly.

You can use marketing automation so𒀰ftware to send the right emails to the right pros༺pects at the right time.

The perfect website for inbound marketing

Often, businesses hoping to get started with inbound marketing are wary that they’ll need a new website. In almost all cases, this is not true. You do not need a new wꦜebsite to get started with inbound marketing — you don’t even need a great website.

Unfortunately, there are many website design agencies out there that will gladly take your money and sell you a full site r🐼edesign that you don’t really need, telling you that it’s critical t𓄧o your inbound marketing program.

Not so.

Even if your current website is a bit outdated, it probably has all of the necessar♏y functionality for i🉐nbound success:

1. Can you publish a blog article?
2. Can you interlink between blog articles or use a tag system to organize your content?
3. Can you use CTAs and landing pages to capture leads?

If your website can do these three things, yo𒐪u’re probably good to get st💫arted.

Just remember, your website is for your customers, not for you. Focus on their problems and challengeꦐs. Speak their language.

Visitors will consider your site to be a better website than your competition’s if y෴ou have the helpful content they need.

Your marketing strategy, evolved

If you’ve been doing cold calls, s♎ending out mailers, or paying for billboard space, you’ve probably grown frustrated with how inefficient these traditional outbound marketing techniques can be.

Inbound marketing offers a better way forward that can help you grow your audience, drive traffic, generate leads, and i꧂ncrease revenue for yo♛ur company — while clearly demonstrating the ROI of your marketing efforts.

It all starts with great content.

When you focus on helping your website visitors learn what they need to know, you can fill your 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:inbound sales funnel with better-qualified leads.

Pay attention to the questions your sales team hears from existing customers and new clients. These are the questions that prospective customers are typing into search engines right now. If you can be the business to answer all of their questions about their insurance needs, you can be their insurance pro🐭vider when they’re ready to buy.

And if you want help with this, 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:reach out to our team at IMPACT.

We live for this stuff.