Content marketing can be a great free or low-cost way for insurance agents to grow their businesses. Content marketing involves creating content like blog posts, case studies, webinars, etc., which your audience genuinely wants to consume, such as to help them solve a work challenge they’re facing. In contrast, marketing activities like creating a Google Ads campaign or sending out a press release about a new offering would tend to fall outside the more organic, less-brand-focused communication that takes place within the content marketing realm.
While content marketing typically does not show immediate results, your efforts can stack upon one another. One blog post might not change your Google rankings the next day, but creating 10 well-written articles over a few months that link to one another and get other sites to link to them can make a significant difference. Eventually, content marketing can help insurance agents improve SEO, gain email subscribers, increase their social media followings, and most importantly, increase sales.
Moreover, content marketing is so important for insurance agents because it creates a more authentic connection with leads and customers.
“After consuming content marketing, more than half of people (53%) are more likely to revisit a company’s website and 50% are more likely to research the company’s products,” finds Clutch, a B2B ratings and reviews platform. The company also finds that 82% “have purchased a company’s products or services as a result of consuming content marketing, indicating its value for businesses.”
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In this guide, we’ll explore more why and how content marketing is important for business growth, including looking at how it helps build brand awareness, increase lead generation, and adds overall value to stakeholders.
Content Marketing for Brand Awareness
Before a customer makes a purchase as serious as business insurance, they often want to conduct their own research and get a lay of the land. With content marketing, potential customers can become aware of your business and put you in the running as they consider their options.
“If people know your brand, they can become familiar and comfortable with it. Then, when faced with a decision to buy from you or your competitor, they are more likely to buy from you,” explains Taboola, an advertising company.
Content marketing can be a great way for businesses to organically boost brand awareness, whether you’re using content marketing to appeal to local businesses or trying to reach customers across the country online. Advertising has its place, but it can be a costly way to increase brand awareness. Trying to get in front of potential customers could also backfire if they see your brand as pushy. Instead, content marketing can help others learn about your brand on their own accord.
In fact, creating brand awareness was the most common goal that B2B marketers achieved with content marketing over a 12-month period, according to a 2020 survey by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and MarketingProfs, commissioned by ON24.
Some of the ways content marketing for insurance businesses can increase brand awareness include:
Getting discovered through search engines:
As you publish content marketing materials like blog posts, you can incorporate keywords to help a relevant audience discover you online. Use a tool like Ubersuggest to find relevant keywords for your business.
Providing website visitors with additional context:
If someone comes across your website, you want to make sure they have a good understanding of your brand. Perhaps a visitor looking at your homepage doesn’t fully get whether you’re the right type of insurance agent for them. But after seeing, say, a listing for your upcoming webinar on how first-time business owners can grow sales, they may understand that your niche applies to them.
Expanding an insurer’s social media presence:
One of the great benefits of content marketing is that once you create a piece of content, you can reuse it in multiple ways. For example, if you create a blog post, you can use snippets from that as different social media posts. That way, you can create social media content that is less promotional and more helpful to prospects. That could lead to more people sharing and generally engaging with your content, thereby helping you grow brand awareness beyond your immediate followers.
Content Marketing for Lead Generation
One of the most important aspects of how content marketing can be a driver for business growth is by contributing to insurance lead generation. And these leads can often be high-quality organic ones. For example, if a prospect finds one of your blog articles by searching for a related topic online and then contacts you, they already know about your brand and have expressed interest by the time you first speak. That can be much stronger than, say, only sending out cold email pitches to those who are unfamiliar with your services.
Three out of four B2B marketers generated demand/leads from content marketing finds the CMI study. Some of the ways content marketing can help insurance businesses in this regard include:
Increasing website traffic:
As you improve SEO and get more people to share your content, you can increase traffic to your website. That creates more opportunities for prospects to not only become aware of your brand but contact you to start sales discussions.
Prompting visitors to fill out contact forms:
Many content marketing materials can be used to directly generate leads’ contact information. For example, a blog post might have a field at the end for visitors to enter their email addresses to sign up for your newsletter. Thus, you can turn an unknown visitor into a lead that you have contact details for and can engage with through your email marketing. Or, you might publish an informative whitepaper that you allow prospects to download only after inputting their contact details into a form and agreeing to be contacted in the future.
Sparking conversations:
Content marketing can help with insurance lead generation by helping to start conversations, similar to word-of-mouth marketing. For example, a current customer might forward one of your blog posts to another entrepreneur who could benefit from your insights. Leading them to talk about your services. The entrepreneur might be inspired to then contact you to see whether your insurance offerings could help their business.
Or, in an offline setting, you might print content marketing materials for, say, a handout at a conference. As you meet attendees at the event, discussing the content might be a more natural, approachable way to gain new leads, rather than directly pitching your services right away.
Adding Value With Content Marketing
Overall, content marketing is important for business because, when done well, it adds value to your stakeholders. Prospects that read and learn from your materials can form a deep connection to your brand, helping to build trust in a way that more promotional marketing actives might not. Current customers can also become more loyal, as they appreciate the value that you add, such as by helping them solve business challenges rather than just pitching ways to upgrade their insurance policies.
Even your employees, colleagues, partners, etc., can benefit from your content marketing. Your content can help them perform their jobs better or simply be of interest to them, such as if they’re trying to learn about a new finance or marketing topic. And they can seek out this content on their own, rather than being bombarded with ads about it.
“Content marketing doesn’t interrupt the user from their activity — it’s a welcome extension of it,” explains Terakeet, an SEO company.
As different stakeholders consume your content, they can become more engaged with what your brand has to offer, beyond what you sell. And they can come to see you as a thought leader who they can turn to discuss important business topics. Altogether, that can lead to more referrals, positive reviews, and stronger relationships that help you grow your insurance business.