Ah February, the month of love! With Valentine’s Day around the corner, I thought it would be interesting to write up a post about love. As a blogger, you hope that all readers will fall in love with your blog and keep coming back for more. However, in order for this to happen it is important that you reciprocate the feeling! It is time to learn how to show your readers some love this V-day!

#1: Always give back. For all those loyal followers and readers, give something back. Perhaps you hold a contest or give away prizes. Whatever you do, a reward will be greatly appreciated and have readers coming back for more.

#2: Comment your way into their heart. If you have readers who write on their own blogs, be sure to read and comment on theirs, too. There is nothing better than two bloggers supporting each other back and forth.

#3: Do not be afraid to get personal. Posts that are geared towards your products and niches are great, but it never hurts to get a little personal. Post about an experience or even a general topic that has been on your mind. This way, you will come off as more human!

#4: Recognize your readers. If you have a few loyal readers who will comment every once in a while, give them a quick shout out! You can do this on Twitter or even Facebook. They are sure to appreciate the recognition!

#5: Ask a reader to guest post. Sure, it is your blog but it does not hurt to have another voice every once in a while! Find a loyal reader and ask if they are interested in writing a guest post. This will not only build on your relationship but show readers that the blog is about them just as much as it is about your company and services.

With these few techniques, you will be able to build stronger relationships with those who check out your blog on the daily- not to mention generate more comments! It is so important that you continue to work on your insurance marketing strategies. If not, your blog will fall behind and soon be forgotten- and no one likes to be forgotten on Valentine’s Day!

                          

As an insurance agent, it is a constant goal to attract and keep your customers. Having reliable products is one factor in being able to provide great services. However, one crucial component to reaching success may not be as obvious as you think. With social media on the rise, it is important to create quality content that not only engages customers, but encourages them to share.

According to Top Rank, a recent study by Exact Target found that 55% of Facebook users have “liked” a company and then later, decided they no longer wanted to see that company’s post. You don’t want this to happen on your social media outlets. Therefore, you must do everything you can to keep customers reading with relevant posts and provide content that can be easily shared. The following are tips on how to do so:

Tip #1 – Know Who You’re Talking To & Provide Relevant Information

A review of your social media accounts can help determine who your current followers are, what they tend to share information about, and the format in which they use to share socially. Once you see what your audience is sharing and “liking”, you can attract their attention by producing relevant content. In addition, by promoting your agency through contests, giving helpful information, and providing tips on safety, this will help increase your visibility.

Tip #2 – Think Outside The Marketing Box

In order to increase social shares, you need to place focus on your insurance social networking strategy. This can be done by updating your Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin around 1-3 times a day, but remembering to keep your content fresh and interesting. In addition, you can search for followers that you believe will be interested in your services. By building up your community, you can watch your agency grow in social success.

Tip #3 – Love Lists

Twitter lists are a great way to segment different types of followers, or recognize them as an expert in a particular field. By making the additional effort to organize your audience, share relevant content, and making information easy for others to share, you can see the benefits of your strategy in the numbers.

Once you develop an engaged audience, this will allow you to become a community leader on your social outlets. Consider social sharing a way to gain additional prospective clients, contributors, or employees that could inspire the growth of your business!

                          

Now that your business has developed an identity on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, you and your employees have probably created personal accounts in addition to your agency’s fan page. It’s good practice for you and your agents to have pages so you can connect with clients if necessary and it also shows that insurance agents, despite public perception, are down to earth and regular people just like the rest of us. However, having employees on social media platforms like Facebook can come with a risk. Like your agency’s fan page, employee pages should always adhere to a certain level of integrity and respect. Also, you should be able to balance on the threshold between professional and personal. What do we mean by this? Well, would you want one of your agents to have picture of him or her partying or making an irresponsible gesture? The list goes on and on about what is and what is not acceptable for professional accounts. Let’s take a look at what you should preach to your employees about social media etiquette:

1. Appearance: We recommend that your default photo be a picture of you. Having the company logo or something other than yourself will make the page initially appear robotic. Nothing is wrong with having the logo in the photos section, but the default photo should be one that has you in it. Also, any other additional photos of yourself should always be appropriate and not include anything like partying or obscene gestures or poses.

2. Be careful with words: Anytime one of your agent’s post either a link or comments on a post, it should always be kept on the lighter side and should avoid contentious issues as well as libel. Additionally, keep your language clean! Never, under any circumstances, use any curse or swear words. Remember: you’re a professional!

3. Don’t Spam! Similar to your brand page, one thing to always consider is not post too often. If you post too much in a given day it’s considered “spamming” and existing and potential customers are not going to want to see you come up in their feed too much. When posting, keep it at a minimum and try to stay positive and informative so your friends are getting useful information.

Apart from your brand page, it’s important that you and your employees’ personal pages reflect not only who you are as people, but who you are as a company. Remember to keep it simple, tight, and appropriate, and you should be able to bring traffic to your insurance agency website.

                          

It’s a question that I am often asked by my clients who are looking to launch their digital marketing strategy: should they focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Pay-Per-Click (SEM, PPC)?

Too many people are under the impression that their online marketing presence should be guided by one strategy or the other.  I’m here to tell you that the most effective digital marketing strategies take a blended approach, using components of both tactics.

SEO and SEM strategies are complementary ways of achieving the same goal: prominent inclusion in search engine results that lead to traffic to your website.  However, while each is effective and critical tools in your digital marketing arsenal, they each have unique principles that can help you reach your objectives.  Let’s take a look.

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the tactic of using your site’s content, linking structure, blog posts, and social media exposure (amongst other things) to help you rank organically in search engine results. Search engines take all of these cues into consideration when deciding where to rank your site in their results for a particular keyword, like “auto insurance in Rhode Island”. SEO is the critical foundation to your website’s visibility in search engine results. The things that you do to optimize your online content and relationships will have a long-lasting effect on your rankings in search engines.  However, those effects, while critically important, might take a long time to take hold in the search results.  Google indexes your content at its own pace, and the general rule of thumb that search engine marketers go by is that it can take between six and nine months before you begin to realize the results of your on-site optimization.

On the other hand, SEM has more of an immediate impact. Once you build a campaign that targets your specific keyword set, and you set that campaign live, you are eligible to see an instant impact on your traffic and visibility in search engines.  While inclusion in organic search results are merit based, your SEM campaign can force Google (or any other search engine) to place you within the top results of some competitive keywords.  With that newfound visibility, your website is bound to see traffic increase.  That’s what the pay-per-click model does for marketers.   However, the effects of your SEM campaign are not as long lasting as your SEO strategy – that is, unless you have an unlimited marketing budget.  You see, your site is guaranteed inclusion in search engine results for only as long as your campaign is funded.  As soon as your campaign has generated enough clicks to exhaust your budget, your traffic will stop.  The great thing about SEM is that it is a guaranteed source of traffic – if people aren’t clicking on your ad and visiting your site, you don’t pay a cent!

Now that we’ve reviewed the different characteristics of SEO and SEM strategies, it is important to note how they work together.  In fact, our best e-agencies have told us that the best performing digital marketing strategy leverages both SEM and SEO in tandem.  This blended strategy has helped them appeal to a broad and comprehensive audience, and has resulted in their website being a more prominent piece of customer acquisition.

Here are three reasons why you should have SEO and SEM as part of your site’s digital marketing strategy:

1. Gain visibility on all keywords, even the most competitive terms.
   Your SEO campaign can help you gain inclusion in search results for a wide variety of keywords related to your business.  Chances are, though, that you can’t organically rank for your most important keywords – they’re just too competitive! You’re not alone.  Many of our friends in the insurance industry are running up against the same problem.  They can’t rank for highly desirable keywords like “auto insurance” because that search landscape is dominated by highly reputable and voluminous competitor sites in the industry, such as Allstate, Liberty Mutual, and Progressive.  However, when our clients target these competitive keywords in their paid search campaign, they’re guaranteed traffic on these critical sources of website traffic. Use SEM as a way to target even the most competitive keywords when your SEO campaign can’t!
2. Target a specific audience with a customized campaign.
   Want to get traffic from a very specific set of keywords, but don’t want to dedicate content on your site to optimization of those terms?  Look no further than SEM. With a targeted paid search campaign, you can drive traffic to your site on keywords that don’t necessarily dominate your site’s content. Use SEM to force traffic to your website through keywords that your site hasn’t yet developed content for.  This is a great testing opportunity for new areas of business.
3. Use SEM data to inform your SEO strategy.
   One of the biggest benefits of SEM is the sheer amount of data available to marketers in the paid search space. We can use keyword-level data to see which keywords are driving the most visits to your site, the keyword combinations that visitors are using to find your site, and even the keywords that have had the most success turning searches into traffic. While marketers use this information on a daily basis to optimize their SEM campaign’s performance, too many people fail to realize that this performance data can be used to inform your SEO tactics.  Have a keyword that has shown to drive the most interest in your site?  Why not target that term with enhanced content on your site?  Is there a term that has shown to convert visitors in customers at a greater rate?  Use that word prominently on your home page.

These are just three reasons for you use SEO and SEM in a blended strategy.  Doing so will give you a well-rounded digital marketing presence, and likely drive enhanced search engine traffic as a result. Stay tuned to this space for more reasons why you should focus on a blended approach to digital marketing.

                          

You’ve probably heard time and time again that it’s important to get other websites to link back to your website. When you hear this, you smile and nod…but you have no clue why any of it matters. Don’t worry! The whole concept of link building is actually really easy to understand; when other people link to your website, it’s telling search engines that you matter. When pages with a little more authority (media, government, education or just all around popular sites) link back to you, that’s even better. It’s kind of the difference between a random 5-year old child telling you that a specific restaurant is great and an influential celebrity saying the same thing. They both said the restaurant was great, but who do you think more people are going to listen to?

The most important thing to remember when piecing together your link building strategy is that authenticity goes a long way. Many people try to get tons of links in a short amount of time using black hat techniques and this is very much frowned upon. You have to remind yourself that like most things in life, good links are worth waiting for. You need to produce quality content, build meaningful relationships and the great links will slowly start populating and boosting your search engine rankings. We already do a lot of this leg work for your business here at Astonish Results, but sometimes there are great opportunities for link building in your office and community that we’re not always going to be aware of. Here are 3 tips for easy, fun link building:

1. Come up with something fun that people want to link to. Get creative! Have a photo contest and encourage folks to submit their best photos of the areas you write insurance in. You could use the angle that there are so many beautiful things in your area worth protecting and insuring. Film some fun videos and post them on your own YouTube channel. Set aside a time each week to have a creative meeting at your office. You would be amazed at the great ideas you can come up with in a group brainstorm and it’s a nice break to just let loose and have fun.

2. Volunteer to be a guest speaker at a local college or university. Aside from influencing the future insurance buyers of America, you’ll probably have the opportunity to earn a few good links. The most important link you’re looking for will come from the college itself; that .edu URL puts some major authority behind your website link. You could also consider sponsoring a scholarship for the college or local university/high school students in general. Along with presenting yourself in a positive light, it’s likely that information about your scholarship (and links to your website) will be posted on other education websites as a reference for students.

3. If you are interviewed for a story that will be released in a non-Internet form of media (like a print publication or television), don’t be shy about asking for a link! Most newspapers, magazines and TV stations also have websites, so although their website isn’t the primary way they will be distributing your story, there’s a good chance it will be going up there, too.  Don’t let a reporter walk away without your website’s URL.

Link building is just a small part of insurance marketing, but can be very valuable if you do it correctly. Always keep your eyes and ears open for a great link building opportunity!

                          

Mention YouTube, and some people picture cats playing the piano, or FedEx drivers throwing fragile electronics over fences. But YouTube is a gem for marketers in virtually all industries. The video sharing site turned six last year, and on its birthday we learned that YouTube is now the second most popular search engine behind Google. It’s larger than Facebook and Twitter, and averages three billion views per day.

These statistics prove that YouTube is overflowing with opportunity for insurance agency marketing. But how do you start? Here are some tips for turning your YouTube presence into dollars:

• Build your profile. Just like on other social networking sites, YouTube encourages you to fill out a profile. Make sure you include links to your website, Facebook, and Twitter, and write a search-engine friendly description of your agency.
• Post videos! This is the most obvious way to utilize YouTube, but be careful. People don’t want to watch commercials for your products. Instead, record videos that answer questions your viewers may have. For example, you could record a series of videos that explain different types of business insurance. Keep them short and sweet – try not to run longer than two or three minutes!
• Use it as a community. YouTube allows you to like, favorite, share, and comment on videos easily. Network with people on YouTube just as you would on Facebook or Twitter! Comment on relevant videos and share videos that you find interesting.
• Cross-promote. Don’t expect people to find your video just because it’s on your YouTube channel. When you record something, share it on your Facebook page, your Twitter profile, and everywhere else you can think of. Include the link to your YouTube channel on your business cards, website, and in your email signature. As long as you provide quality, informative content that isn’t overly promotional, people will watch!
• Interact regularly. Yes, your video is there to stay once it’s uploaded; unlike on Facebook or Twitter, it won’t get “pushed down” the News Feed. But as we’ve said, YouTube isn’t just about uploading and watching videos. Remember to log on regularly to comment, like, and share!

YouTube is an excellent resource for insurance marketing. With the right mix of relevant uploads and interactions, you’ll be well on your way to building a great YouTube presence!

                          

Patriots Crazies

If you are heading to Foxboro for playoff football or to any of the remaining cities still in the hunt for the Super Bowl, you need to be prepared!

If you are one of the crazies that tailgates in an RV, modified school bus, or other crazy vehicle- make sure you know exactly how many people can safely ride in your tailgating-mobile. Some vehicles, such as school busses require a Commercial Driver’s License. Make sure you are driving to the game with the right license. You will also want to check the vehicle’s safety equipment. Check the seat belts, air brake system, airbags system and tires, to make sure the vehicle is in good working condition. The last thing you want to do is to get into an accident due to a non-working safety feature!

If you are a fan who likes to tow your tailgating equipment, make sure you know what you are doing! Towing can be a great way to transport items, but it can also be a dangerous if you don’t do it correctly. Make sure your cargo is balanced and secured. Also check the tire’s load rating for the amount of weight the tires can carry safely, and maintain the correct tire pressure.  Some states require special permits for towing. Check with your local DMV to find out the regulations and laws in your state.

Once you are at the game, you never know what could go wrong. You should always take a first aid kit, garbage bags, change of clothes, fire extinguisher, water and ice packs in case of an emergency. These should be in your tailgating vehicle for each and every game you attend.

Make sure when it’s time to go home, the driver has not been drinking. If you have had too much to drink at the game, don’t try to drive home. Be safe and call a friend or a taxi for a ride. Not that it happens much at Gillette Stadium, but sometimes people actually do drink too much while caught up in all the excitement!

Finally, make sure your vehicle is properly insured. If you have ever tried to get out of Foxboro after a game, you know what a stressful and potentially dangerous situation it is. If your tailgating vehicle is not properly insured, you are asking for trouble if you get into an accident. Stay safe, have fun, and make it home without a hitch.

                          

Happy New Year to all! Have you been keeping up with your New Year resolutions? While some of you are planning to lose weight and be more active, others have vowed to work on their insurance marketing efforts. In order to step up your game, you must continue to blog on your site, bookmark your posts, and keep up with your social media strategy. We understand that it may be hard to keep up with these efforts, but trust us- the end result is worth it!

In order to keep up with these efforts, I have put together a list of strategies and tips in order to make the most of your efforts.

Blogging:

-If possible, make sure you have a blog post up every single week. If you can get two or three up, even better!

-Make sure you include keywords in your content with the correct link attached. Choose keywords with high search volume and low competition.

-For the New Year, test out a few different blogging strategies. Try posting in a list form one day and then paragraph form the next- see which blog receives better feedback and has more shares! Pinpoint the best strategy for 2012.

-Do not be afraid to add some humor or pop culture references to your posts. The more interesting, the more shareable, the more memorable!

-In order to have your blog be seen by others, bookmark! Choose bookmarking sites such as Delicious, StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit in order to share your posts with the public. It doesn’t hurt to share on your social media accounts, too!

Social Media:

-Set aside 10 minutes every day to look through local business pages on Facebook and accounts on Twitter. Follow those who you hope to connect with!

-Be a real person. It is important that you do not only spit out links all day. Throw up a few personal tweets and status updates to engage your followers

-Tweet and post at least 3-5 times a day. One post will not cut it- you will be lost in your followers’ twitterfeeds/newsfeeds!

-Motivational quotes, fun facts, and other random posts are always appreciated by your followers and tend to be the most retweeted/liked!

-Have you been shy on your social account? Reach out to your fans and followers this year!

Start 2012 off the right way! By sticking to your resolution, you will not only feel accomplished, but are sure to see results. Good luck!

                          

As an insurance agency in a digital world, there has now become an increasing need to understand your customers. However, this applies not only to face to face meetings, but through social media outlets as well. Therefore, in order to relate to your customers, you need to know how to communicate with them on a variety of levels.

According to SocialMediaToday, you should never be too busy to spend time getting to know each of your customers. A couple years ago, socializing with customers was taboo to some. However, now a days, one of the few ways to understand your customers is socializing with them, specifically through social media. A key factor in learning to do this is through having social media literacy.

By interacting with your clients in their own language, this will make them happy and feel like they have a personal relationship to your business. In addition, to continue to strengthen your social networking strategy, the following are 4 steps you can take to boost your social media literacy:

1. Understand that relationships with customers, staff, suppliers, distributors, and other business contacts extend beyond the walls of your commercial real estate. Whether you agree with the idea of social media or not, millions of people around the globe use social networks every day. If you own a business, social media literacy is a must.
2. Engage with customers on social media. Accept customers as friends and connections. Set privacy options to limit what you share with customers if you feel uncomfortable.
3. Have a Facebook page for your business. Invite customers to “like” your page and offer an incentive to do so. Include content-rich articles in your posts for your audience to learn more about your industry. Offer coupons and bonuses to Facebook fans. Create an online culture that will help customers love you, your products, services, and business.
4. Develop a social media policy with your staff. Engage staff in conversations about social media. Rather than imposing rules on them about what they can and cannot post, instead engage them in conversations about what makes sense for them, for you, and for the business.

With a new year comes new learning experiences and changes. Therefore, take action with your insurance social networking strategy and build on your social media literacy. Once you grasp this concept, you can leverage that knowledge to build your business to bring it down a successful path!

                          

It goes without being said that social media is anything but traditional for insurance marketing strategies. Whether you’re posting on Facebook or tweeting, your mindset should also be anything but traditional. Instead of just thinking outside of the box, use it as a soapbox. Stand above the rest and shout your message to a mass audience. Demand attention! Realistically, you want to reach as many people as you possibly can, in the shortest period of time with the best results – astonishing results!
How can you do this? You can take your social media content to the next level in three simple ways:
Get creative with what you already have.
You don’t have to go completely back to the drawing board, but take a different approach to what you’re already doing. For example, if you’ve already posted photos of the office, switch them up for the season. Showcase what’s going on! Or, use tools to enhance and add graphics to previously posted photos, this is eye catching for seasonal events and holidays.
Another way to use what you already have, is to piggy back off of a previously successful concept. For instance, if you had great traction with a call to action post or contest, entice people for the next one, by mentioning how successful the previous one was. “Since you all enjoyed last week’s tasteful debate, we’re interested to hear how to feel about…”

Be positive! Positive energy is infectious; it’s something worth spreading!
Positive and motivational statements can be used for all of your insurance marketing strategies, but are they known as some of the most shareable content posted on social media.  Be sure to give credit to the author of the quote. Aside from a reference point, the use of the specific author could become a conversation starter on your pages as well!

Be unpredictable! Consistency lays a foundation for a solid follower and fan base, but you have to keep your audience’s attention!
It’s great that your fans have something to look forward to, whether it be your weekly call to action post, or your motivating Monday quote, but it is just as important to be spontaneous, as it is to be consistent! Enlighten your audience with random facts and tid bits of knowledge they may not know. Or begin a conversation about a tasteful topic that people may not expect to hear about from an insurance company! Prove to people of all ages that you are “in the know”! Turn a few heads with a simple Facebook post or tweet!

Social media is an amazing non-traditional marketing tool to reach clients and prospective customers. Once you’ve become comfortable with the basics, stand on that soap box of yours and let people know you’re there. Be anything but traditional, you may even surprise yourself!