As a growing insurance brokerage, acquiring new commercial insurance clients may be your top priority. B2B marketing can seem more difficult than B2C marketing, especially within a regulated industry such as insurance. If adding more commercial insurance clients to your portfolio is one of your marketing goals, we’re here to help. Here’s how you can acquire more commercial insurance clients for your insurance brokerage.
Develop An Insurance Marketing Plan
If you don’t already have a marketing plan, it’s time to create one. Throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks isn’t the most effective plan. As you develop your marketing plan, you should consider:
- What products do you want to target and when? If you offer employee health insurance, you may want to increase your advertising efforts just before open enrollment season.
- What channels do you want to use for your targeting, and when.
- Buyer Persona – It’s not enough to know that you are targeting a business. Think about who is the decision maker at your targeted business. It could be HR or a benefits coordinator. Tailor your targeting and messaging to meet their needs and concerns.
You don’t have to stick to your plan 100%. In fact, you should adjust your strategies if the market or demand changes, or if you add new services to your product offerings. But having a marketing plan can help you determine what’s working and easily pivot if something isn’t working.
Build Brand Awareness
The first step of your marketing plan should be to build brand awareness. Both digital and online customers will expect you to have an online presence. The user experience of your website could make or break the deal.
Website
Your website should be easy to navigate, visually pleasing, and contain the necessary information about your business, your services, your brokers, and how to take the next steps.
Optimize Your Website for Google and other search engines. Use the right keywords including product and service names in your content. Blog regularly. This can help improve your SEO. It’s also an opportunity to showcase your thought leadership on insurance topics and let prospective B2B customers know how knowledgeable you are. Need website inspiration? Check out our list of the top insurance websites in 2024.
Social Media Profiles
A social media presence is just as important as having a website. Creating pages for your business and professional profiles for your brokers should be a top priority. As A B2B company, LinkedIn is a must. Your company should have a page and your brokers should have their own profiles. For Facebook, a business page should be enough.
Create a social media calendar and post regularly. Share your blogs and any videos or graphics that your business creates, as well as useful industry information from third parties.
Google and Bing Profiles
Let your customers know where to find you. Create profiles on Google Business Profile and Bing Profiles. These profiles make it easy for potential customers to find your office, but they also show up in search results, which can help you stand out on the results page. Include your hours, products, and other important information.
You should get listed on Yelp and any other local listing sites and directories.
Once you have a digital presence it’s time to start marketing.
Market Your Insurance Business
Print Marketing
In the digital age, direct mail marketing should not be overlooked. According to Forbes, direct mail marketing is making a comeback. Reach decision-makers at their place of business before they start their journey of searching for an insurer. Postcards are an easy, budget-friendly direct mail option. It’s enough to introduce prospects to your business and include a call to action. To track effectiveness, consider directing traffic to a landing page created just for this mailing.
Attend In-Person Events
Make connections by hosting, presenting at, or simply attending in-person events. Consider hosting a seminar or speaking at a class related to insurance or one of your service offerings.
Network with other professionals and meet prospective customers by attending insurance seminars, networking-events, and conventions. You can also make contacts by being active in the community. Volunteer with local non-profits or attend community events. Encourage your brokers to network as well.
Build Relationships
While networking, build relationships with other professionals that could also become referral relationships. Make valuable connections with accountants, financial advisors or planners, mortgage brokers, lawyers, and real estate agents.
Advertise On the Big Screen
If it fits your budget, consider a small ad on a local or public television channel. If you like the idea of advertising on the big screen, but TV is not in your budget, consider advertising at your local movie theater. Your ads can be shown while people wait to see the next big blockbuster.
Search and Display Advertising
Online ads are cost-effective and offer highly measurable ROI. With Google being the top search engine, Google Ads should be your top choice, followed by Bing. With the right keywords and ad copy, your search ads will show up when someone searches for one of your products or services.
Use Google search and video ads so your products can show along relevant content, such as articles and videos.
Social Media Advertising
If your customer base is other businesses, consider LinkedIn ads. Facebook can also be a good option, but LinkedIn is better suited for targeting business customers. On LinkedIn, you can create and target ads for human resource managers, and other specific roles. You can also target people in specific industries or groups.
Webinars
Webinars are like in-person seminars, but with more research. With a webinar, you’re not tied to a specific geographic location or timeslot. Users can register and watch the playback when it’s convenient for them. Use this as an opportunity to educate prospects about your business and collect information on prospects.
Podcasts
If your webinars are going very well and you’re always finding yourself talking longer than the allotted amount of time, consider a podcast. Talk more extensively about your services, the insurance industry, or other related topics on a regular basis.
Digital Downloads
Gather leads by offering a digital brochure or white paper in exchange for an email address. The website visitor gets some useful information, and you have an email address that you can use later to reach them with some additional informational or email marketing campaigns.
Nurture Your Leads
Don’t be one of those companies that obtains leads and does nothing with them. Work email marketing into your insurance digital marketing plan. Keep your webinar attendees and white paper downloaders engaged with a periodic relevant email. Keep them apprised of other related and upcoming content, whether it’s yours or an important news article related to the industry. Many good marketing automation platforms also work well as a customer relationship management (CRM) tool.
Email marketing can also be an important tool to cross-sell existing customers.
Choose The Right Insurance Marketing Partner
Finding the right channels to gain new customers, targeting the right people, and nurturing your customers and leads are key to growing your commercial insurance client base. Having the right strategic marketing partner is also key. Insurance Inbound is a digital marketing agency focused on helping insurance agencies and brokers grow. Learn about our digital marketing for insurance services or request a consultation to learn how we can help you.
