Here’s How You Can Dominate Social Media Marketing As An Insurance Broker
To compete effectively in the ever-changing world of health insurance sales, it’s important people know about you – and how to find you. That’s where your online profile comes into play. Increasing your presence on social media helps enhance your online profile and increases awareness of you and what you do. That can lead to greater word of mouth and improve your chances of getting referrals. Here are a few tricks of the trade to either get you started or help augment your social media presence:
Multi-Platform is Important
Like with other advertising and promotional media, it’s important you use multiple social media channels in targeting potential customers – keeping in mind your target market, of course. Here are some key social channels to leverage along with tips for maximizing your reach:
With more than two billion monthly active users worldwide, and the ability to hyper segment a target audience, Facebook simply cannot be ignored. The highest traffic on Facebook occurs mid-week between 1:00 and 3:00 p.m., according to a November 2018 report by the digital marketing website Zephoria. Engagement on Thursday and Friday is 18% higher. From a business perspective, 42% of marketers say Facebook is critical or important to their business. Facebook ads are also cost effective if your marketing budget is small.
Pro Tip: You can run a promotional ad targeting business owners in your local market for under $100 at a time. Make sure your promo has a compelling call to action like an invite to a Health Insurance 101 happy hour or a complementary health insurance plan walk through for employees at their office.
With more than 467 million users, including 133 million U.S. users. Seventy-nine percent of business to business (B2B) marketers view LinkedIn as an effective source for generating leads. Although LinkedIn promotional ads receive less engagement than on Facebook, recent data shows that three million LinkedIn users share content organically on the site weekly.
Pro Tip: LinkedIn thrives on personalized experience type content. Share a compelling client success story as a case study. Describe how you were able to make an impact for your clients business or the personal health care situations of their employees. By humanizing the impact of your work as a broker you can set yourself up for social media success.
Thirty-six percent on online Americans aged 18 to 29 use Twitter – more than any other age group. (Twenty-three percent are 30 to 49, 21 percent are 50 to 64, and only 10 percent are 65 or older.) Eighty-one percent of millennials check Twitter at least once a day. Twenty-nine percent of online Americans with a college degree use Twitter. Thirty-nine percent of online Americans who earn $75,000 or more annually use Twitter. Twitter can be effective at reaching business owners and managers, if you’re focused on employee benefits and business insurance.
Pro Tip: Twitter can be a great source to generate intelligence data. You can promote a sponsored poll to business owners in you area about the most commonly misunderstood facet of health insurance or most important factor for purchasing insurance. When the poll is complete you can leverage this data in future presentations or pitches with a laser focus on your Geo location.
Remember That Content is King
Regardless of what social media platform you use, it’s important to follow one golden rule: what you share needs to be relevant to your followers and friends. Make yourself memorable; don’t be like everyone else online. If you want to use similar content across multiple social media sites, be sure you edit it, so it’s not a mirror image of what you’re posting somewhere else. If you post the exact same content on multiple profiles, you risk losing your followers. (If they’ve already read it, they won’t feel the need to continue to follow you . . . or they will follow you only via one medium.)
Your content needs to make you seem knowledgeable. After all, you want it to trigger a reaction in your readers, so they think positively about you when they have a need (or a friend or family member in need) of health insurance.
Highlight What Makes You Different
Stress your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and why you’re an expert who has more to offer (than another health broker). What sets you apart from others? Is it your market niche? Is it your training? Is it your focus or client volume in a specific industry? Be sure to highlight whatever makes you unique and reinforce that uniqueness over and over and over again on your social accounts.
Pro Tip: Create a unique hashtag(#) that you can incorporate across social channels to breed familiarity for users who engage with your content.
Leverage Client Testimonials
If you’re working hard to satisfy your clients, you’re likely to have at least one who would be willing to go on the record to endorse your work. You can use that testimonial in your social media content. Endorsements can go a long way in helping you attract new business because they build credibility and resonate with audiences on social media for the human relational effect. Think about the rise of influencer marketing in social media. What made these post unique and initially effective was the testimonial and credibility boosting of the product that was initially seen as authentic by the social media personality. Testimonials from your clients can function in the same way while still remaining authentic.
Take Time to Build Your Network
Social media can help you expand your network, which can lead to increased referrals and new business. When you connect online with new people, or maintain a connection with others you’ve known for a while, you can share their stories (and they may do the same for you). “Like” and comment on their updates. Follow and “like” their pages. Tag or @ mention relevant businesses in your area. All this makes you more noticeable and helps to establish your brand and increase your impressions on social media.
Measure the Right Results
Once you begin using social media, you’ll want to measure its effectiveness in deepening your relationships with customers and building your brand equity. Take time to evaluate the frequency of your contacts with customers as well as their lifetime value to you and your agency. Did your “churn” change after starting to use social media? (Did fewer customers leave you for another broker? Or, were you able to attract more new customers through your efforts?) Social media can give you an immediate platform to respond to customer issues.
Pro Tip: Don’t get caught up in vanity metrics (how many followers or likes you may have) but instead focus on engagement actions. Comments, shares and reactions are much more indicative of your social media health and performance than followers or page likes which can be automated and bought.
About the Author
Kalup Alexander is Digital Marketing Director for the Word& Brown Companies. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Media Communications and Marketing from Oregon State University and has been at Word & Brown since 2014.
Related: Marketing Yourself as a Health Insurance Professional
