A strong insurance lead generation program should include a series of educational webinars
A strong outbound insurance lead generation program can and should include a series of educational insurance webinars. Agencies, brokers, and wholesalers that have incorporated insurance webinars into their marketing initiatives have seen impressive results, registration often ranges from 50 to over 300 registrants, and an attendance rate of 60% or more can be achieved with educational content and interesting topics. Insurance webinars are effective for essentially any agency, broker, or wholesaler, but are most effective when targeting groups such as transportation, construction, benefits/health, etc.).
Webinars help showcase expertise, demonstrate thought leadership, and elevate the insurance sales conversation to partners and consultants. Where can agents and brokers find topics and speakers? Leverage in-house experts, external partners, carrier partners, consultants, CPA tax accountants, and industry consultants to create a highly-respected and well-attended webinar series. And to ensure optimal outcome, insurance organizations can leverage their in-house marketing team or outsource the initiative to a competent insurance marketing agency.
The marketing catalyst for the insurance webinar series is based on email marketing and social media marketing campaigns. Both can be very effective in getting registrants into an insurance webinar series. Insurance email marketing initiatives should be handled by digital marketing professionals, ensuring that agents and brokers adhere to CAN-SPAM and opt for email marketing best practices. Email marketing initiatives are only as good as the underlying email marketing list. Agents and brokers who do not have a comprehensive prospect and customer email list should work on creating one immediately, and if they are unsure how to go about it, they should seek qualified outside guidance on this important topic. A high-quality target list is not only the foundation for successful insurance digital marketing, it’s an important and valuable digital asset for every agency and broker!
Social media marketing is often an untapped resource for agencies, brokers, and wholesalers, as it is now common for 50% of signups to come from LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, assuming agents and brokers have a viable marketing initiative in social insurance networks. LinkedIn remains the most important social media platform for B2B-focused insurance brokers and agencies, while Facebook should be the go-to platform for B2C campaigns. That said, there are now plenty of good and cheap tools available to simultaneously post to all major social media platforms. For example, let’s say a broker wants to announce a new “ACA and Compliance Update Webinar.” This message could easily be posted to LinkedIn, LinkedIn groups, Facebook, and Twitter at the same time, and the posts could be tracked automatically. There are many cost effective cloud based solutions now available to do this.
Webinars combined with professional email marketing and social media marketing campaigns can provide an impressive educational foundation for agents and brokers looking to set themselves apart from the pack. Webinars can be targeted at prospects, customers, or both, to help agents and brokers establish and maintain their “digital” relationship. These live webinars can be recorded and used as video compliance to augment insurance websites, resource libraries, and YouTube channels to extend the reach of any agency, broker, or wholesaler.