The Nuts and Bolts of Social Media Marketing for Insurance Agents
According to Deloitte, using social media helps insurance companies to build a more positive image of the firm amongst the target group. It also gives a real opportunity to lower the cost of processing new clients’ applications.
As reliable and stable business partners, insurance agencies initially hesitated to jump on the SoMe wagon and incorporate it into their insurance marketing strategies; they needed more time to assess the potential of connecting with prospective clients by using a set channel.
But all agencies constantly search for new ways to expand their activities and generate leads through social media. Now, even more, when it’s proven that social media is an excellent medium to build and maintain a brand image.
Shortcuts:
- Why should insurance agents leverage their personal profiles?
- The main obstacle in using social media marketing for insurance agents and how to remedy
- Which platforms to use in social media marketing for insurance agents?
- Connect instantly with warm inbound leads from Social Media
Why should insurance agents leverage their personal profiles?
First off, it is a brilliant tactic, as it plays with the staff’s individual strengths, using what they already know about the brand.
Secondly, a new generation of social media-immersed experts is both joining the workforce and becoming the target group needing (almost every type of) insurance.
We observe a shift towards a model where social media marketing for insurance agents becomes equally as crucial as activities on brand-owned channels.
Personal profiles bring leads of higher value
According to research, almost 60% of customers buy products from brands familiar to them, and 1/3 of clients have a brand on their mind while shopping.
But most importantly:
Leads developed through employees’ social media activities convert seven times more frequently than other leads.
Quote source: G2
The simple reason for this is trust.
Potential customers will trust personal recommendations and are more likely to become clients when someone they know recommends the brand.
An agency’s official social media profiles, even the most trustworthy companies in the insurance industry, will always be less personal. Their primary purpose is marketing.
At the same time, social media profiles of insurance agents can be used to join and build a community. They make potential customers feel safe knowing there is a human with a friendly face and helpful attitude on the other side of the screen.
Brand social media profiles are impersonal, in comparison.
Agents bring value to the discussion almost immediately. What takes days and several layers of approval to respond via the agency profile, the insurance agent’s profile can fix for the customer in a matter of minutes.
This activity is what Sarah Dickinson from Envato sums up in a simple yet powerful statement:
Reach your audience with the right message, in the right place, in the right time, on the things they care about.
Insurance agents can personally respond to comments and take part in discussions.
With the right tools, including social listening software and CRM-like messaging they are better at getting to customers with the right message at the right time than any corporate marketing representative ever will be.
From here, the connection between a representative of the agency and a client can go offline to build even more trust and help retain customers. Hence, more revenue for the insurance agency and a higher CLV (customer longtime value).
Personal profiles get better results in content marketing
A staggering drop in engagement rates on official company brand profiles could be observed for a while now. Even more, companies see that consistent investment of any budget in social ads results in the organic reach and engagement plummet.
Therefore, more and more marketing budgets get reassigned to ads, creating a vicious circle.
Companies adopt two strategies to remedy such situations.
Businesses either:
1. Invest even more money in social ads.
According to Statista, the total value of the social ads market is expected to increase to 358 billion U.S. dollars globally. (181.19 in 2021).
Or
2. Decide to decrease ad marketing costs and invest in relationship-building strategies.
Here is where the social media marketing for insurance agents comes in.
Utilizing employees’ personal profiles allows companies to spend the ads budget more precisely and thoughtfully.
Instead of burning dollars in a traditional ads marketing campaign, boosting posts that perform well on individual profiles is a much better tactic.
Since we already know that respective agents’ profiles get better engagement rates, with post boosting, instead of traditional advertising, the content gets in front of even more people who are likely to engage. In this helpful guide, you can find more information about boosting posts on Facebook.
The main obstacle in using social media marketing for insurance agents and how to remedy
Insurance agents are great at relationship building and reading the needs of prospective customers. Being constantly on the phone, answering emails, organizing a virtual meeting, or getting together with clients is a full-time job.
Not to mention the application processing, setting up the process to onboard a new client, and being at their side to help with anything they need.
Insurance agents already have many responsibilities. Well, we all do: 64% of marketers manage social media as one of their multiple daily tasks.
One of the main obstacles in using social media marketing for insurance agents is adding yet another time-consuming item to their already-full plate. The marketing team will face a bigger number of duties as well.
Proper tools and cooperation between the marketing team and insurance agents
Like phone, car, and laptop, social media management tool should become one of the main instruments for insurance agents to use daily.
Social media management becomes seamless with helpful features like post scheduling, conversation management, and approval workflows.
And the process? It is all about sharing the responsibility between the marketing team and insurance agents.
Creating and managing agents’ profiles
Agent profile setup
First off, the marketing team would be responsible for setting up consistent yet personalized profiles for the insurance agents.
In this way, any new agent joining the team would have an optimized profile consistent with the overall brand image.
For example, all agents’ profiles on Facebook should have the same branded cover photo, but the agents’ headshots are set as the profile pictures. This shows a real person behind the brand.
What other helpful information needs to be included in individual agents’ profiles?
- Bio, meaning a short description that builds trust and reassures potential clients that they are in good hands.
- Complete contact information with the agent’s mobile phone number and email address in the insurance agency’s domain name.
With such information, the client can always check the agent’s background and call to verify the legitimacy of the profile. Providing official details also sets a clear boundary between a personal and professional part of life. It supports the agent’s mental health and promotes work-life balance instead of hectic client contact.
Aside from the essential bio and contact information, it is wise to include a direct link to the agency offer, with referral tracking (UTM tags) assigned to a specific agent.
This way, the insurance agency will see traffic generated by each insurance agent and track conversions from social media via Google Analytics.
Scheduling the content
Secondly, marketing would take care of scheduling publications for multiple agents’ profiles. This way, agents don’t have to do it independently, and the social media team can be sure that everything looks just as they wish it would, brand-wise.
To make the process easier, marketing teams can use third-party social media scheduling tools.
Content insurance agents should share on social media
- Company updates,
- Company culture-oriented content,
- Establishing agents’ personal brands through sharing knowledge (see next point below for content ideas),
- Special offers and deals for their community,
- Events and meetup schedules.
Onboarding and training
Insurance agents would then get proper marketing training and access to the right tools in one platform, used across an entire agency.
All that is left to do is talk to people as any insurance agent normally would.
Such a process can be implemented relatively easily and quickly, making social media marketing for insurance agents as seamless as possible.
Social media marketing for insurance agents in support of content creation
With data and topics of conversation passed from an insurance agent, the company marketing team can prepare specifically targeted assets like:
- answers to frequently asked questions that the insurance agent can pass on to anyone who asks,
- interesting infographics and reports that will attract the interest of the agent’s personal network,
- blog articles covering the main topics of interest that explain them in detail before buying insurance,
- social media posts that will likely get better organic results and more shares from the followers,
- PDFs with all the information that agents can email to clients before deciding to select the right insurance agency,
- content to print out and hand in person to less social media savvy decision-makers.
Insurance agent’s responsibility in the process
The part left to the insurance agents is simple: engage in discussion, be helpful and handle comments, questions, and feedback. Why is that simple? Because this is what they do daily.
It is not about adding another thing to the list of responsibilities. Rather than simplifying what insurance agents do already: talk with people.
Some ideas to expand the reach? Join Facebook community groups, WhatsApp, or Telegram open and private chats, engage in comments sections on Instagram and LinkedIn, and share their expert knowledge. With one notable exception: a structure and process behind it.
All agent’s social media management activities should be done via a social media management tool such as NapoleonCat. In this way, social media teams can easily support agents in communication, and agents can have a clear view of all publications scheduled for their profile. Moreover, they can manage all conversations from a unified inbox without switching between profiles and platforms.
Speaking of platforms:
Which platforms to use in social media marketing for insurance agents?
According to SmartInsights, half of the world’s population uses social media (54%). With various social platforms to choose from, it can be easy to get excited about the abundance of opportunities in front of us. And to be paralyzed about the choice.
Let’s take a look at the most popular social media platforms in 2022:
Is it a good fit? Yes
Why?
Aside from being the largest social media network, Facebook is widely used by a demographic that easily fits into the agency’s target group. The decision-makers are in an age where insurance needs are at their peak, searching for everything from life and property insurance to pet medical insurance.
In fact, Facebook groups provide a large audience who look for direct recommendations. It is worth for any industry agent to join groups on this platform and engage in meaningful and helpful conversations.
See our article on Facebook Marketing for Insurance Agents.
Is it a good fit? Yes
Why?
With Instagram, building a position as a subject matter expert is very easy. Instagram users are looking for content that, besides being visually appealing, provides actual value in the topic of interest.
The Gram will especially fit with younger insurance agents, who have already built connections and are naturally heavy users of the platform. The option of live streams and the popularity of DMs (direct messaging) make Instagram one of the most engaging platforms.
Instagram is always with the user, right in their pocket in the form of a mobile application. It is effortless to reach the potential client directly, at any time, with the right message. Do you remember Sarah Dickinson’s quote above? Instagram, as a platform, fits perfectly into this strategy.
Check out our guide on Instagram for Insurance Agents.
Is it a good fit? Yes
Why?
Even if we see Twitter at the bottom of the world’s top most used social media platforms in the above graphic, it still carries the potential for the insurance industry. The conversation style of Twitter is fast and to the point.
Someone asks a question and gets an immediate answer they need right now, not in a day or two. Social listening on Twitter can help insurance agents close sales faster than, for example, on Facebook. Decision-making time is short here, and it is good to diversify between platforms for such reason.
Is it a good fit? Yes
Why?
Like Instagram, building an insurance agent’s personal brand on LinkedIn is easy. However, the platform will be most suitable for more experienced agents who are true industry experts.
Linkedin, as a platform, offers excellent search tools and profile-type options that enable more advanced search for decision-makers. Sales Navigator is perfect for finding and connecting with people responsible for company growth and risk assessment. While Facebook is more for personal insurance, Linkedin is ideal for large, commercial deals.
TikTok
Is it a good fit? No
Why?
In 2021 TikTok grew over 140% YoY (year over year), according to SmartInsights. And although the user base expands quickly, it is used by a younger demographic: teens and young adults, whose interests don’t overlap with what insurance agents have to offer.
The content type on TikTok is video only. To be successful here, agents would have to add video creation to their to-do list. And we can agree that it’s about simplifying, not about adding more tasks.
Connect instantly with warm inbound leads from Social Media
When agents are engaging with their audience on social media, incoming leads have been warmed up. A piece of content might hit them at the exact right moment and they are more likely to sign up at that moment.
Instead of sending those warm, inbound leads to a contact form - it’s important to contact them as soon as possible, every minute counts.
That’s where CrankWheel’s inbound lead solution, Instant Demos comes to play. When agents have linked it to the CTA’s of their websites, SM profiles, or pieces of content - interested insurance buyers can start to fill out a contact form.
The difference from other call-to-action forms is that the agent gets an alert when the prospect is still filling out the form.
The agent can see who is filling out the form, from which piece of content spurred interest and might even get some basic information on the prospect. The agent can call the lead while it’s still filling out the form and start a screen-sharing session going over possible plans.
You can try CrankWheel for free and without any commitment. Or see how Instant Demos works by clicking the Get A Demo button at the top of this page.
In summary
Should insurance agencies expand their social media marketing and utilize insurance agents’ personal profiles to reach new clients?
Yes, they should. But smartly.
The proper process is crucial, and we hope in this article you have found inspiration and valuable tips to replicate such a tactic in your insurance agency.
Social media marketing for insurance agents benefits all parties involved:
- Customers get the best, personalized insurance options for their stage of life. They also feel safe in having direct contact with the person (insurance agent) who will answer and help in an emergency.
- Companies gain more exposure and engagement and need less time processing new clients’ applications. A proper cooperation process between marketing and sales gives more clarity about business performance, and social media management tools help simplify the entire process company-wide. It is less likely that clients will churn, and this means more revenue.
- Insurance agents build their personal brands as industry experts and get more insight about their clients to offer personalized deals. Happy clients refer more potential clients, and sales commissions go up.
Win, win, win.
Author’s bio
Kasia Slonawska is a passionate content marketer and growth hacker at NapoleonCat, a Facebook comment moderation tool. With three years of experience in the social media niche and an educational background in writing, she’s eager to share tips that help businesses grow on – and through – social media.