Advertising for any business is challenging, especially in today’s market. If you want to be aggressive you
have to be willing to pay a lot of money. Otherwise, you need to take a different strategy and focus on
making your marketing dollars work for you. It’s easier said than done and any insurance agent who has
invested in digital marketing will tell you that there are no guarantees, and you cannot be sure what will
work.
There are literally dozens of platforms and ways to market to people throughout the web. Local options
like fliers and billboards can also be effective, but digital channels are so vast that they can be more
challenging to advertise on. That’s because they require a unique combination of high-quality content
and a strong budget.
How People Get Their Insurance
One of the first things you have to do if you are building a marketing strategy is to look at where your
customers or potential customers are going in order to get health insurance. Are they going online? Are
they calling in? Do they search for a specific company, or do they search online for options? What do
they care about the most and what do they struggle with the most?
Knowing where people go to make decisions to buy from you or your competition is the key to being
successful in your marketing. For example, what if people are making the decision based on ads and you
are focused on organic, or the other way around? The lucky part is that almost all methods work
somewhat, but the best campaigns involve a variety of aggressive and passive marketing strategies.
Challenges Of Marketing
While it may sound easy, the fact is that marketing is the toughest aspect of running a business. If you
have no customers, you cannot make a business run. If you have customers but struggle in other areas,
you will not have great success, but you will have a place to start. Here are just some of the reasons why
marketing for insurance agents is so difficult:
Competition: The biggest reason why it’s so difficult for advisors to generate leads is because of
competition. When you have dozens of companies in the same area providing or selling
insurance, it’s easy to see why so people are going to be selective. They must compare options
and see what is going to be the best deal for them.
Cost: Another problem that will keep you from generating immediate traffic and leads is the
cost per lead. Companies are spending hundreds of dollars for new clients and that cost is only
going up right now. Keep in mind, even if you spend $1,000 on a campaign and it generates 10
leads, you still have to consider the cost of the content creation, the team doing the advertising
and more.
Customer journey: The value of knowing the journey each person takes to get health insurance
is important but it’s also difficult. People make this decision in so many ways and focus on how they can lower their costs more than all. That means you may get in the right area and be viewed by the right audience, but if you do not have the best deals, you may not get the call.
Employment: More people are working independently than they have in years. That’s because
that’s the area that offers more financial gain right now than regular employment. When you
are considering the different options people have, many are taking jobs because they offer
affordable benefits like health insurance. If that’s the case, it can impact your marketing efforts
as you are hitting a good audience, but they already get health insurance through their
employer.
Knowing who has health insurance and who does not come down to understanding the options you
have for marketing. If you want to be where people look for new plans, it’s going to cost a lot of money.
If you want to contact thousands of people, it will be more affordable but many of them may not need
your services. Consider making some plans and trying out different strategies as you get going.
Build A Strong Presence
A good place to start with your marketing efforts is with a strong online presence. Remember, if
someone wants to get health insurance and they need an advisor they are going to head to search
engines to find the closest and most reliable person or agency around. You can be listed organically
through a variety of options including local maps and directories. These options are great because they
not only list you as a local vendor, but they allow you to track what traffic you did get and what traffic
you came closer to getting.
If you are still not sure where else to market, consider trying to build a newsletter. The easiest way to
build one online may be through a contest on social media where you give something away in exchange
for contact information. This strategy is affordable and effective, but you have to be patient. People may
not take an action right now but seeing your business every month will get you in consideration when
they do need to purchase coverage.
Invest In Content
Whatever your budget is, a large portion of it needs to go into the content creation areas. This is
important because the fact is that it doesn’t matter how good your strategy is, if you are hitting the ideal
target audience with low-quality content, they are not going to take an action. You need to invest in the
best content you can get and focus on relative information, not just an advertisement about who you
are. Give the viewer something and inspire them to consider you.
Health insurance is one of the toughest things to sell someone on when you consider the fact that they
have so many options to find coverage. Your goal is to provide them with the best service possible and
before you can do that, you need to make sure that you are also working with them to show them why
you are the person for the job. Content is a way to build trust and advertising is a way to deliver that
message throughout the web.