The Secret to Successful Insurance Agency Marketing in 2023

There are currently more than 400,000 insurance agencies and brokerages in the US.

If you own an insurance agency, not every other brokerage is direct competition. But, the landscape is definitely becoming more competitive. Even though the number of brokerages isn’t increasing dramatically, consumers now have more choices than ever.

Instead of being confined to the agents and brokerages in their immediate area, a quick Google search can give consumers access to dozens of options.

But this isn’t all bad news for agents. With the right insurance agency marketing know-how, you can position yourself in front of new prospects. 

If you create a comprehensive insurance marketing strategy, you can reach new markets, generate high-quality leads, and steadily grow your sales numbers.

Have you already been trying various marketing methods with limited results? Wondering what’s the secret to successful insurance marketing?

Spoiler alert, there isn’t one secret, there are many. We’re about to share the most important ones with you.

Keep reading to find out the core components of a successful marketing strategy for your insurance agency.

Define Your Target Audience

Before you start mapping out your strategies or plowing money into marketing campaigns, you need to get clear on your target audience.

Who are the people you are going to be marketing to? How old are they, where do they live, and what problems do they have when it comes to insurance?

Until you can answer these questions, it’s pointless to buy online insurance ads or invest in content creation. The more you can zero in on your target audience, the easier it will be to:

• Target your insurance ads correctly (which can dramatically reduce wasted ad spend)
• Generate high-quality insurance agent leads
• Create content that serves and attracts the right people

We cover defining your target audience in detail in our training programs, but here is a quick breakdown of what to consider:

• Age
• Income levels
• Location
• Profession
• Marital status

If you sell various types of insurance, you might have more than one target market. For instance, you might sell life insurance to younger families, and final expense insurance to older demographics.

Make sure you clarify all of your target markets so you can cater to their unique buyer journeys and content needs.

Feeling a little stuck? You can also try defining who your target market isn’t. This can help you really zone in on your core market.

Create a Sales Funnel

Once you know who your marketing needs to target, the next step is to build out your sales funnel. Your sales funnel needs to shape and cater to the journey your prospects go through on the path to becoming a client.

Here’s a simplified example:

• Top of the funnel: prospect has questions about insurance and they find a blog post from you that answers their queries
• Middle of the funnel: prospect signs up for your newsletter in return for a free guide, ebook, etc
• Middle of the funnel: you nurture trust via an email drip campaign
• Bottom of the funnel: lead is ready to make changes to their policies, and you’re the obvious choice

If you create a well-designed sales funnel, your services will feel like the most natural choice by the time prospects reach the final stages of the buyer journey. They’ll feel like they already know you.

Even though they might not have interacted with you, you’ll feel less like a stranger than an insurance agency that they’ve never heard of before.

So how do you go about creating a comprehensive sales funnel? Here are some of the core strategies.

Build a Website You Can Drive Traffic to

If you won’t have a website in 2023, this is the equivalent of not having a business card back in the 90s.

But your website isn’t just a digital equivalent of a business card. It’s also your primary hub to which you can drive traffic during your insurance marketing endeavors.

If you don’t have a website, where are you going to direct leads who click on your ads or interact with your social pages?

Because your website is such a central part of the insurance marketing pie, you can’t just throw up a page and call it a day. You need to make sure your website is fully SEO optimized so it can rank in relevant searches. 

It also needs to be easy to navigate, and include everything clients need to know about your agency. Your unique selling proposition should be prominently displayed. Within minutes of landing on your page, leads must know why they should choose your agency over a competitor.

Create Killer Landing and Sales Pages

Besides these basics, your website should also be tailored to tie in seamlessly with your ad campaigns. One of the easiest ways to do this is by creating dedicated landing pages. 

Don’t point all your marketing efforts to your contact page or a general services page. If you sell multiple types of insurance, create dedicated landing pages that are tailored to each type. When you run ads for, say, annuities, point your ads to a sales page that deals specifically with annuities.

Leads will have a much higher chance of converting if your copy addresses their specific needs (in this case, a lack of annuity coverage).

How you design your sales pages is absolutely critical. This is your chance to pitch your services and convince leads to take the next step. Don’t clutter the page with useless copy, cut out fluff, and clearly communicate your value proposition.

Finally, make sure you incorporate a strong call to action (CTA).

Invest In Paid Online Ads

There are two primary ways to find clients online. You can organically attract leads through content marketing and social media. You can also invest in paid online ads.

Organic lead generation is a powerful strategy that can yield amazing results over time. But, it doesn’t bear fruit overnight.

While you wait for your organic marketing efforts to pay off, you still need leads to work. Paid online ads can help keep your pipeline full of promising leads, often at a relatively low cost.

But, you have to know how to structure and target your insurance ads correctly. The more accurately you can target your insurance ads, the harder you can make your ad budget work. 

Search engine and social media ads allow you to select targeting parameters like:

• Day
• Time
• Location
• Keyword (for search ads)
• Browser type
• Demographic factors like age, sex, income level, marital status, interests, etc.

Besides these basics, you can also implement behavioral targeting, search and site retargeting, contextual targeting, and predictive targeting.

Retargeting is an especially powerful technique. Not only is it easy to carry out, but allows you to focus more of your ad budget on leads that have already shown a strong interest in your offering. It also keeps leads in your funnel who might have accidentally floated away. 

If you sell insurance that caters to a specific industry, you can also look into vertical search advertising.

Make the Most of Your Leads With Email Marketing

Email marketing is a pivotal way to stay connected with leads, build a relationship, and foster trust. It also has a fantastic ROI. According to analysis, email marketing has an average ROI of $36 for every $1 spent. 

Email marketing is an entire topic on its own, but here are a few hot tips to get you started.

Firstly, don’t spam. Don’t be overly self-promotional. Don’t let every email you send be a hard sell. 

Instead, focus on providing value for your clients. Send information that can benefit them. Build trust and position yourself as an authority.

Second, look into automation. Marketing can eat up a lot of hours, and you don’t want to be manually sending out emails when you could be closing with clients.

Focus on your core capability (selling) by setting up drip campaigns ahead of time. Once they are in place, emails will automatically flow out.

Finally, A/B test your emails for maximum conversion. Experimenting with things like headlines, CTAs, CTA colors, etc.

Drive Trust and Thought Leadership Through Content Creation

Paid marketing methods are great for quick lead generation, but they don’t build on themselves. As soon as you don’t buy ads, your lead flow will stop.

If you want to invest your marketing dollars in strategies with long-term rewards and compounded growth, content marketing is king.

The secret to successful content marketing is to provide prospects with valuable information that addresses their questions and pain points. 

Insurance is required for a variety of things, and it can also be a confusing space to navigate as a consumer. Insurance shoppers have to balance budget requirements with coverage and make sure they understand the policy’s fine print.

As an insurance agency, your job is to help them sort through the mountain of policy options and make a smart buying decision. With content marketing, you can start to do this before even meeting with a client.

Content marketing also gives prospects a chance to get to know you and understand the difference between your brand and other agencies.

Here are some of the different types of content you can produce.

Website Content

Website content is key if you want to generate organic traffic and build domain authority.

Start by creating a blog post publishing schedule. To make sure your content shows up in searches, use keyword research tools to identify what keywords to target.

Craft compelling titles, optimize your posts, and focus on quality content generation. Remember, this is your chance to build trust and authority. If website visitors get the feeling that you don’t really know what you’re talking about, they’re going to doubt your ability to help them. 

Therefore, make sure you hire a skilled copywriter or professional agency that can help you produce accurate, optimized, well-researched content.

Besides blog content, you can also look into producing things like infographics and ebooks. Infographics are easily shareable, and ebooks can be powerful lead magnets.

Finally, don’t forget about video. According to statistics, video watch time has increased 249% in 5 years, and 86% of marketers use video to reach their audiences. 

Video can be more costly and time-consuming to produce than blog posts, but it can offer powerful benefits. Video gives prospects a glimpse of the faces behind your agency’s brand. Instead of being just a name and a logo, they can see your agency is made up of real people.

This can be a huge driver of trust. Video can also be a more engaging format than blog posts.

Guest Posts

If you want to gain exposure, consider guest posts. If you can write a guest post for a popular site like Forbes, this can help establish your authority. It can also be a valuable source of backlinks for your website.

Social Media Content

Not sure if it’s worth devoting time to social media?

A lot of insurance agents and other professionals get caught in the trap of assuming that their industry is too “serious” for social media. It doesn’t matter if you’re marketing annuities, final expense, or Medicare, social media is the perfect place to reach potential clients. 

The non-stuffy format of social media is ideal for demonstrating to consumers that you are a down-to-earth agency, committed to serving your customers. Not one that hides behind jargon and fine print.

According to study results, 94% of Gen Zs and 89% of millennials rely on social media reviews when choosing an agent.

Social media can be an amazing tool for brand exposure and building trust. Not only can it be a source of lead generation, but it can also yield very high-quality leads.

If a prospect has been following and engaging with your agency’s posts on social media, they may be more likely to convert lower down the funnel than leads who clicked on an ad.

Stuck for social media marketing ideas?

Social media is a perfect place to showcase success stories. You can introduce your team, share tips for customers, dispel insurance myths, and even participate in trends.

Supplement Your Lead Flow With Bought Leads

Great insurance agency marketing isn’t something you can accomplish in an afternoon. Often, it takes months, if not years, to fine-tune your strategies and perfectly target your ads.

In the meantime, what do you do? 

If business is slow, you might be stuck in an age-old vicious circle. You’ve got to make sales before you can increase your marketing spend. But to make more sales you need to increase your marketing spend.

Purchasing insurance agent leads can help you break out of this scenario. If you partner with the right lead provider, you can rest easy knowing you can receive highly targeted leads at the drop of a hat. 

Here at TR King, we offer agents an on-demand lead program called LeadStream. With LeadStream, you can activate live leads within minutes. You can pause your stream of leads in a few clicks. 

If you create a LeadStream account, you also get automatic access to free tools and software for agents. If you are recruiting, you can even use these no-cost tools as incentives for your downlines. 

Do You Need to Supplement Your Insurance Agency Marketing Strategies?

With the right insurance agency marketing strategies, you can build a sustained flow of leads. But good marketing takes time.

Do you need access to a reliable, on-demand source of insurance leads while you wait for your marketing endeavors to pay off?

Check out LeadStream Lead Portal Here.