Having an offsite blog in addition to your insurance website has many advantages. Not only can you increase traffic to your Virtual Insurance Office, but you also have the ability to draw in readers and create conversations through comments. Utilizing this tool will help you learn more about your customers and help them better understand all of the products you have to offer.

According to SocialMediaToday, receiving comments provides insight into the readers’ thought processes, which will help you better understand their needs as well as challenges. This advantage is why it is crucial for you to write value-driven content in order to better relate to your audience. In addition, the more honest and quality content your produce, the more trust and credibility you build with your customers.

Therefore, by increasing the number of comments on your blog, the more viewers will take notice. This is because you will be showing you have the ability to engage and have a conversation with your audience. The following are three tips on how you can increase your comments on your offsite blog:

Tip #1: Make it easy for the reader to comment

People who are new to blogging often forget to turn on their comment feature. Is the comment section large enough for the reader to find it? Do you require only minimum information from the viewer before they can comment, such as their name and e-mail address? If it’s technically difficult to leave a comment, readers will leave the page. Therefore, make it easy for them to start a conversation on your offsite blog!

Tip #2: Ask Questions!

Remind your readers that you want their comments and opinions by asking them a question at the end of the blog post. Ask them directly to share their response in the comment section. You can mention a direct call to action like “Let me hear your thoughts by writing in the comments below”. The more specific the request is, the more likely the reader is to leave a comment. So encourage your reader to take action by leaving a comment and participating in the conversation!

Tip #3: Always respond to people who comment

People don’t want to feel like they’re ignored. This is why taking the time to respond to readers who write a comment shows that you are paying attention to them. This creates an opportunity to further engage with that reader. When other readers see that you are interacting with the people commenting on your blog, they will feel more encouraged to join the conversation!

Once you learn to master the art of writing strong, unique content, you can watch the comments roll in! Always pay attention to how your audience reacts to certain posts or what they seem to enjoy about what you have to offer. By focusing on the audience, you will increase the success of your onsite and offsite blogs!

Bloggers Beware: Five Common Writing Errors to Look Out For

In today’s fast-paced world, online writers are expected to be able to pump out fresh and informative content on a regular basis. Furthermore, it is essential that this content is readable, shareable and correct. People who blog for their business carry a lot of responsibility since every piece of work they publish can reflect on the credibility of their company.

As all writers know – whether they publish online or in print – it’s all too easy for mistakes to slip through the cracks and make their way into a final copy. However, simply being aware of some of the most frequently made errors may be enough for bloggers who want to avoid making them in the future. The top five include:

• Mixing tenses
• Misplacing apostrophes in plural or possessive words
• Missing words, often prepositions like “to” or “in”
• Dangling participles or modifiers. For example, in the sentence “Researching insurance marketing, the team developed a great idea,” the first part of the sentence is “dangling” because it is not associated with the subject that the author intended.
• Lacking proper subject-verb agreement

These types of errors may not be as glaring as misspellings, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t apparent to attentive readers. Keeping these things in the back of your mind can help ensure that the content you post to your company blog is engaging and easy to read. Nothing can drive people away from your insurance website like content that requires re-reading in order to understand it!

Our last post presented some ideas on how to properly honor Earth Day whether it’s the tried and true planting of a tree or something more ambitious, like organizing a neighborhood clean-up. The insurance industry doesn’t have a strong connection with the environment, nor is it overly motivated to establish eco-conscious awareness, unless the awareness boosts the bottom line. If being green means earning more green, it’s on the table.

Insurance marketing takes many forms, and one way insurance providers are endearing themselves with eco-conscious consumers, is to offer “Green” related insurance policies and endorsements. Just buying a hybrid vehicle or building a LEED-certified home can provide a 5-10% saving on policies, more when they’re grouped together.

Some companies are even getting creative with their solutions, including Traveler’s Insurance. According to a CBS Moneywatch article by Ilyce Glink, How To Save Money On Insurance? Go Green For Earth Day,

“Travelers is introducing green endorsements that you can add to an existing homeowners insurance policy. How does it work? If your house burns down, the policy will pay to do a green rebuild, Meehan explained. While having that green rebuild endorsement will add a few percentage points to your policy, consumers feel it’s worth the money in case they have to rebuild.”

What makes these programs all the more sensible is the fact that, in general, people who value a green lifestyle tend to be lower risk because of better eating habits and less risky behavior.

Outside of personal insurance lines, commercial insurance providers are also dangling carrots for businesses to go green. According to a March 2010 article in Sustainable Cities Collective, 22 companies currently offer 39 specific policies, endorsements, coverage extensions or services for green buildings and/or equipment. Not sure about your own insurers? Just ask and spread the word to clients via your insurance website, social media, newsletter, town crier, carrier pigeon, whatever gets the word out.

Not only will you be showing your green heart by stumping for mother earth, you may actually save someone a handful of green. Still not convinced? Consider this list of reasons from Patricia-Anne Tom of Sustainable Cities Collective, Insurance Agents: get Ready for Green Building Exposures, which states,

“Building owners often may choose to build green buildings because they can enhance the occupants’ health and well-being; have higher occupant productivity; increase sales and leasing potential; and provide a higher return on investment, with lower utility bills and reduced operating and maintenance costs. Additionally, green buildings enhance the community and local economy; provide public health benefits; and often help to protect threatened and endangered species, support sustainable resources and have an enhanced public perception.”

This certainly paints a rosy picture, but green policy options are by no means set in stone since claims precedence has not been determined across the board. That said, it makes sense for agencies, especially those is rural or eco-conscious communities, to educate themselves and their clients about the options available. It’s not going away so becoming the expert now will position you for future trends.

Lastly, since we began and ended the post with some simple ideas for honoring Earth Day, I encourage you to: buy a piece of hemp clothing, plant some tomato seeds, take a short shower, build a yurt, grow a beard, insulate your windows, buy something from a farm, avoid plastic bags for a month (or life), recycle old electronics at Best Buy, inflate your tires, re-use stuff, avoid pointless driving and if you can do nothing else, teach a child about the importance of Earth Day.

Marketing maven Hubspot, recently released a report called, The State of Inbound Marketing 2010, based on interviews with 231 professionals, “involved or familiar with their business’ marketing strategy.”

The three major takeaways from the research were:

• Inbound marketing, or helping customers find you by offering more than just marketing/sales pitches through traditional mediums, costs less than outbound marketing
• Social media and blogs are the fastest growing segment of marketing budgets/departments
• Businesses are creating real customers with social media and blogs

None of these findings should come as a shock when you see Twitter and Facebook logos popping up in the corner of Super Bowl TV ads, but is social media the end-all, be-all of insurance marketing? To answer the question, you must consider several factors.

Social media allows instant and constant communication, which puts agencies at the behest of clients and potential followers 24 hours a day. This is great for communication and humanization, but it’s easy to get sucked into conversations that build rapport with clients while robbing time spent selling insurance. The fix, an effective, lead generating and converting insurance website should ALWAYS come first.  When social media efforts start to bear fruit, people can make a seamless transition from potential lead to new customer via the website, and more important, it stays on autopilot even if you’re social media participation goes on hiatus.

Social media also provides access to voluminous amounts of information, much of it inane banter. Without a system for preserving the information that matters, data will be shared and lost before it can be used for any real purpose. Cloud computing and digital storage make over-stuffed, paper filing cabinets obsolete so finding a CRM program or system for tracking data gathered through social networking is another wise first step before sharing and engaging.

Lastly, insurance agencies should never jump on the high-speed social media trolley just because a marketing report or blog says too. The convincing should already be done and you should WANT to do it for your business’ sake. Once you’ve gotten to the point of embracing social media, you can start having productive fun and incorporating it into a grander insurance marketing strategy. Participating begrudgingly is the best way to crash the trolley before it even gets on the track.

For single agents, social media can be the most powerful tool in the belt since they only answer to themselves. For larger agencies, it’s a bit more complicated. The SEO-friendly, lead converting website and tracking system are musts, but having savvy employees who understand the benefits and risks of social networking and the potential consequences from abuse, are nearly as important.

Unless you despise all people, are woefully uninteresting, or have an office full of vindictive, angst-ridden employees, social media should make the cut in some way as part of insurance agency marketing efforts.