How to Blog Your Way to New Insurance Leads

Some insurance agencies are already blogging and I give them a round of applause. If you are an independent insurance agent and you are not blogging, you better start. There are a few reasons why insurance agents and especially independent insurance agents should blog.

1.     Creating original content boost your SEO on search engines like Google

2.     Blogging gives you an outlet to share your insurance knowledge with your customer

3.     Blogging lets you share the success stories and tragedies of your customers in a real and intriguing way

So let’s go into these a little deeper. 

Fresh Original Content

 

Blogging is a way for you to create fresh original content. Like I said before blogging can help generate more leads by increasing your SEO. Although your website is amazing, you probably have not updated any of the content on it for a few years. Blogging is a way of letting Google know you are still relevant and your content is still up to date. Blogging also allows you to create original content that is all yours. 

Now if you are using another article and tweaking it to make it original, be sure to change 70% of the content. If you do this I would also suggest linking back to the original article, to give credit where it is due. If this is not reason enough to start blogging then I don’t know what else is, but I will continue to convince you further. 

Sharing Information 

 

If you are a good insurance agent, which if you are reading this you are, then you know more about insurance than any of your friends and family. You are an insurance guru, you understand the complex world of quotes, premiums, bundling, workers comp and certificates of insurance. If your customer leaves you for an online quote, you know they will be back because let’s face it they have no idea what the just bought. Most Americans don’t even know that the first page of their insurance policy is called a Declaration Page; let alone how to file a claim correctly.  

So Blog and start sharing the insurance knowledge you have. “Oh I don’t know anything to write about,” you say. I am calling BS. Every time a customer asks a question about their complex commercial policy, you could write about that. Every time you help a customer save money by having their teenager take driving school, you could write about that. What happens to insurance when a client gets married, buys a new car, buy a house, has a baby, builds a ad-on, cares for a ailing parent, gets in a car crash, has a tree fall on their house, has their dog bit a kid, I don’t know? But I bet you do so write about it! You can also go with the “be prepared” model and write about fire safety, boat safety, disaster planning, and anything else we can prevent.

Tell Your Successes 

 

Blogging is a great place to tell stories. If there is one thing I know all insurance agents have are stories. Stories of freak accidents, monumental storms, and my favorite are when people just mess up. The best part of telling a story in a blog is that it makes it less boring, which insurance can be sometimes. Tell about how you saved a local restaurant from going under after a kitchen fire because they had the right insurance. Write about the guy who thought he put on the parking break, or the mom who was rear ended while carpooling 4 kids. Tell a story and show your customers why you are an insurance agent. 

To Sum it up

 

Write an insurance blog. Make sure it is connected to your website. Don’t write it all by yourself, have each person in your office write a blog round robin style. Oh yeah and after you post it share it everywhere you can. Share your blog online, in your newsletter, and in an email to all of your customers.

So how does blogging get me new insurance leads? The answer is simple. Blogging and sharing information is one way to show the world that you are an expert in your field. I don’t know about you but I would rather pay an expert than just some big company and like I said before blogging can help your online presence. So start sharing the knowledge and show your true insurance loving self.

Don't Be a Scammer

No one likes a scammer. Be the one to rescue your prospects from them.  

Hey Hey Hey come over here we will give you a good price. 

Having scammers in your industry can be a benefit for your business. We would all like to think that people are honest and genuine, but when you have been burned in the past, who will you turn to?

Story Time

As some of you know I am currently moving. This means I am looking for a house to rent in a new town. I went to Craigslist and a few real estate websites to get a list of homes to visit. Well after looking at some homes from Craigslist my boyfriend and I really thought we found our perfect new home. We were so excited we told family and friends all about the rental. After a few sketchy conversations with the “home owner” through text and Skype we were bummed to find out this guy was a scammer. He was trying to get us to send money to him for keys. The guy didn’t even know are full names. We ended up reporting him to the local authorities as well as flagging him on Craigslist. 

What does this story have to do with your business? Well I will tell you. While we were in our new town to look for homes we met with one local real estate agent, Joe. Joe showed us a house and was kind and honest. After we came home and dealt with the loss of the rental we wanted due to the scammer. The first person I called was Joe. Not only do I feel like I cannot trust homes I see on Craigslist, but I want someone in my corner that has my true interest at heart. Even if there is a better deal out there at this point in time Joe has earned my business.  I sure hope he asks for a testimonial from us after we find a place to live, because I will willingly give one. 

So now you can look at it from your customer’s perspective. What if they got a bad insurance quote online and were not covered in a fender bender? What if they were ignored or even forgot about by their last insurance agent. What if the last time they bought an expensive product they found out later it did not work?

Be the hero in you industry. Even though there are other ways for people to go about getting the same product sometimes it means more to have a professional help them to make the right decisions in the process.

Who I Want To Work With and Why

I know exactly who I want to work with…and it may not be you. Why is this so important to know? Because it lets me find the right customers. You know the customers who love working with me as much as I love working with them. The customers who leave me glowing testimonials and who send me referrals. Those are the people I want to work with!

 

Taking the time to really find your idea customer is hard. You need to get paid so every customer is looking good when they are handing you a check. For me I have found it makes more sense to find the right people to work with instead of just anyone who will pay me. If you have been thinking about contacting me about my services maybe it would be a good idea to see if you meet my ideal customer criteria. 

1. You want to implement marketing tactics, but you just have no time to do it.  - I love these customers. They know what they want and how they want to get it. They just need someone who understands their vision to make their marketing goals reality. 
2.  You must be passionate about your business. - I want to work with people who love what they do. Chances are if they love what they do I can help them share their skill and knowledge with their customers. 
3. You have to be a Risk Taker.  - Being innovative and trying new things with marketing is always a risk. I enjoy working with people who know every new marketing campaign is a risk and does not always work out the way we plan. 
4.  You have to be a team player.  - I can create marketing campaigns and landing pages up the wazoo, but if you do not work with me to create something that is truly useful for your business then we are both wasting our time. 

If you meet all of these criteria, then call me all ready and let’s talk. If you did not meet all of my ideal customer criteria then we still might be able to work things out. 

Again if you need help with Agency Revolution, Firefly, Office Autopilot, Ontraport or Social Media Marketing and you meet my Ideal Customer Criteria, CALL ME at 401-400-2467 or contact me online. ! 

I cannot be the only one who has set up criteria for their ideal clientele. Share the wealth; let me hear some of your criteria.  

The Office Autopilot Conference Lowdown 2012

So it took me a whole day to get my butt from Eastern Idaho to Santa Barbara and boy was it worth it! The Office Autopilot conference was full of inspirational speakers, success stories and interviews with the staff, who are the people who are behind the computers making Office Autopilot truly work for your business. Well just in case you could not make it to the conference I want to share with you some of the BIG CHANGES coming to Office Autopilot. 

Did I say BIG CHANGES; well I did so let’s talk about the first BIG CHANGE. Office Autopilot has changed its company name…..are you excited yet…its new name is…Ontraport! They said the reason behind the name change was based on the fact they did not feel like getting sued by Microsoft Office. Makes sense to me. 

Now I want to tell you about the most exciting updates to the back end of Ontraport (formally known as Office Autopilot). They have updated the interface. I know you are like whoop-De-do, new interface. This you should be really excited about. Ontraport has been listening to your suggestions and now has made creating campaigns, forms, rules easier than ever. Think of making rules and their outcomes in the same place or being able to change the customers information page as easy as clicking a dragging the content box. They said we should be seeing glimpse of the new interface within the next couple of months. I hope to be one of the first to start working on it. 

Other fun stuff I learned while I was at the conference. Ontraport is growing, and I mean growing fast! They have hired 12 new employees in the last 3 months. They were #102 in Inc. 5000 and where ranked 9^th in best software, they were awarded Red Herring Top 100 award in recognition of the leading private companies in North America, and was named one of Achievers 50 Most Engaged Workplaces. So yeah if you were not fully behind these guys then it is time to jump on board. 

Everything else I learned at the conference I will keep to myself or use with my clients. 

The Art of War

The Art of War for Women

 

Sun Tzu Ancient Strategies and Wisdom for Winning at Work

Chin-nigh chu

Turning “Liabilities” into Assets

“The first and most important bit of terrain to take into account exists inside your head. If you do not take time to truly think about your strengths and weaknesses, you cannot begin to deal effectively with the external terrain you face. 

How well you deal with your colleagues, bosses, employees, and clients- and your career in general- depends on how well you utilize your resources: both your positive and negative attributes….

It is the same with your personal characteristics. No attribute is purely positive or negative. It all depends on what you do with the hand you have been dealt.

Everyone’s life is filled with a certain number of liabilities. Yet these so-called disadvantages can be turned into secret weapons for winning. 

1.     Know who you are. It is possible to compete in a man’s world and still enjoy being a woman. You can enjoy having a male coworker open your doors without feeling that your power has been diminished. Or perhaps you feel more comfortable opening it for him. It’s our choice, and you should not feel you need to act one way or another because of what you believe is expected- or not expected- of you. By being competitive yet elegant, effective yet gentle, you will confuse, fascinate, and surprise your male coworkers and bosses. 

Whatever your personal qualities are- aggressive or genteel; elegant or sporty; collaborative or competitive – don’t be afraid to use them.”

I read this book two years ago and it empowered me in work and my daily life. I chose this passage to share because as I was looking through the book it caught my eye. Highlighting the good and bad attributes about your personality can make you a stronger player in everything you do. This was a good reminder for me as I head into this week, full steam ahead, to make new exciting things happen for my business. For myself my age is a bad thing because many older clients think that I am not knowledgeable enough in my field, but on the other had I get more work for social media because I am younger and have grown up communicating online and through new social mediums.  

How does this passage of the book inspire you? What liability’s do you have that you would like to turn into assets.