I have read many articles lately on marketing and how social media is the only way to go.  While that’s true, I think email is just as effective as it always was.  In fact, the use of social media is actually helping email marketing become stronger. I ran across an article by Hubspot that talks about segmentation of your list to help with your marketing campaigns.  http://ow.ly/b2xdO

As we move forward with marketing using social media, email, and other tools it is important to have a good strategy.  You hear that word a lot these days, but it’s true.  Without a good strategy, you’re just shooting in the dark.  Social media helps you define those on your list and then target them with specific products that will interest them.  That lessens the chance that they will opt out, and also strengthen your sales because you’re sending only information or products of interest.

Another new word I keep hearing is “engage”.  When you send out an email campaign, follow up on those clicks!  If they take the time to click, they’re interested.  Use the phone!  It’s not a dead marketing tool either.  Engage with those who are interested in your product or services.  Talk to them!  Even if they’re not ready to buy yet, they clicked so they have some kind of interest.

I know many of you think that this changing market is just too difficult, too hard to figure out.  Don’t get discouraged!  It’s really not that different, and it is that much better!  Use social media to enhance your marketing, not replace it.  Use social media to add people to your lists, not replace the lists you already have.  Use social media to help you engage with new clients/customers.  It’s sometimes easier to “talk” to someone on the internet than on the phone or in person.  Use that to your advantage!

Social media is a necessity for today’s marketer.   We believe that as an Insurance Brokerage General Agency it is our job to help you compete in today’s market by helping you understand how to use social media in your business.  Our goal is to help you grow your own business.

Starting the first part of June, Harbor Insurance Marketing will be offering social media coaching and consultation for a small fee.  We will also be adding a service of social media management for a select number of our top selling for a small fee.   We will be launching our new website later this week that will explain what our services will be, what our fees will be, and how it all works. 

To coincide with our new services we have some new products we think you’ll be interested in to help you launch your own campaigns so you can see how easy it is use social media.  As we work together with excellent products, solid strategies, and even better engagement of potential clients, we can not only survive this new marketing environment, but we can excel in it!  

As always, we are here to help you in any way we can.  Let us hear from you!  And stay tuned for the launch of our new services website later this week! 

Jim

Can you believe we’re almost to the halfway point in the second quarter of the year?  You’ve been working diligently on those social media accounts, getting them set up, learning about them, trying to get this whole thing figured out.  How is it working?  And are you integrating your social media accounts into your business?  It seems like an overwhelming prospect for many of us.

As we take on this new marketing experience I am reminded that all things must work together for good; for the good of your business.  If you are spending a huge amount of time on learning Pinterest, for instance, and it will ultimately gain you nothing for your business, you’re wasting your time.  How can you know what social media accounts you need in order to sell insurance?  How are supposed to know if this is all working?

The larger companies can afford to hire a social media director, perhaps even more than one.  What about the average independent agent though?  Can you afford to hire someone on your staff to do social media for you?  Do you have the budget for hiring a company to work on your SEO?  Just because you find out you need to do it, figuring out “how to do it” can be overwhelming.  Time is money, and the time spent on learning the in’s and out’s of social media, social media integration, website design, creating a mobile website - it can end up taking more of your time than actually working at what you do for a living.

Collaboration, networking, connecting – these are all buzz words that keep coming up in conversations.  It’s about sharing information, relating to one another, jumping in there and actually conversing in a virtual world.  Once you start connecting in the virtual world, the goal is to then pick up the phone and actually talk to the person. 

There are three things that are “must do’s” in marketing today:

1.  You must be capable.  The world today expects you to be an expert in your field of business before they will do business with you.  Social Media plays a huge role in this.  If they can look you up online and see good content coming from your blog, coming from your posts, coming from your company, then they know you’re capable of meeting their needs.

2. You must be credible.  Your prospective clients want to be able to look you up online and see that you are who you say you are.  Identity theft is so prevalent today that people are skeptical of doing business online.  They want to know they will be dealing with a credible business and the more places they find you, the more credible you are.

3. You must be connectable.  People need to be able to contact you! It amazes me at how many businesses send out marketing pieces with no contact information.  If people can’t contact you they’re not going to do business with you.

Harbor Insurance Marketing is one Brokerage General Agency that is working hard to help our agents have a strong online presence that will portray you as capable – credible – and connectable.  Our new services will be available to our agents in the few couple of weeks so stay tuned!

So how many of you are still struggling with social media? Have you figured out what it is that is causing you to struggle? Is it because you don't have the time to learn, or don't have the time to keep up with it, or both? Perhaps you just don't want to take the time to learn? You keep reading on a daily basis that social media is here to stay but you don't see how there are enough hours in the day for adding it to your schedule. As you look down the road five years, what will happen to your business if you don’t get on board with social media?

I have compared social media today to what email was a few years ago. But learning social media isn’t anything like learning email. Social media seems to change on a daily basis and just when you think you’ve got a handle on it, another “media” pops up and you’re behind again. How can you possibly keep up with it all and keep up with your actual business?

As I read articles and job listings from LinkedIn and other sources, it appears that many of the larger companies are adding Social Media positions to their company. They are hiring people to sit and do social media for them on a daily basis. Some companies have hired five or more people just to keep up. How can the Independent Marketer keep up with that? Going along with that, I also read that you should "outsource" what you don't like to do so you can spend time doing the thing you like.

As a Brokerage General Agency, Harbor Insurance Marketing is always looking for new ways to help our agents be more successful in their own business. It is our business to understand the challenges you have in your business so we can work with you to find solutions. As our team is working to learn social media and the challenges and new opportunities it brings, we want to understand how it affects you.

We have been posting articles that we think are helpful to our agents for all areas of marketing and social media, but we would love to hear from you so we can understand the challenges you are having in your agency. Once we understand the specific areas you need assistance with, we can better help you find the right solutions.

We have our challenges too.  Our hope was to just post a short form for you to complete and submit to us via email but it appears what we thought would work, doesn’t.  We aren’t going to give up though.  When someone asks “is it possible to do______(fill in the blank)” my wife’s favorite answer is “Yes!  I may not know how to do it yet, but there’s a way to do everything”. 

Our needs are a little different from the needs of our agents.  We want to hear from YOU.  Leave us a comment on this post as to what your biggest challenges are in today's marketing and we'll get started on the answers that can help you in your business!  What’s in it for us?  We’re only as successful as our agents.

Thanks and Have a great week!

Jim

www.harborins.com

April is just about over and May begins tomorrow.  In Indianapolis, that means racing season is upon us.  The Indianapolis 500 is just a part of the month of May and there seems to be an excitement in the air surrounding the whole city all month. 

The month of May always makes me want to think like an Indy car driver.  Not that I know exactly how they think, but I can imagine the preparation that goes into qualifying for the Indianapolis 500.  The testing, the practice, the tweaking of the engine to get the car perfect takes hours of time.  The mechanics work hard so that driver is comfortable in the car and feels good driving it at speeds that defy normalcy.

So what if you took the same frame of mind for your business?  What if you put the same preparation, the same effort, the same painstaking time to talk to your clients?  What if you did some performance testing with your clients and then tweaked the way you do business accordingly?  I would bet the results would amaze you! 

Just as a lot goes into qualifying to get into the Indy 500, it takes a lot to qualify your business with your existing clients as well as perspective customers.  We should always be looking at ways to simplify, tweak, and perform better in everything we do, especially our own businesses.  How many times have you gone to a restaurant that you’ve been to a thousand times and found the service to be lacking?  You go back a few more times and if it continues to decline, you decide to find another restaurant.    

Your clients will do the same thing.  Don’t think that your clients will be loyal to you just because they have been with you for years.  We sometimes take our clients/customers for granted and think they’ll be loyal to us just because they don’t want to bother with finding another agent.  Nothing could be further from the truth!

If you want your business to “qualify for the race” you should be working hard for that renewal.  Let your clients know you value them.  Let your clients know that they matter to you!  What would it take for you to look through your upcoming renewals and contact the client to see if they need to add a rider?  What about setting a time to go over their coverage to make sure it’s enough for what they have going on in their life right now?  Renewals shouldn’t be an automatic without some customer service!  Maybe you send them a Starbuck’s gift card to say “Thank You” for being your client for so long and invite them to meet you there.  (If it’s legal to do so in your state)

You can incorporate Social Media for these efforts as well.  I keep reading where running a contest is a great way to get your business noticed.  Run a promotion for all of the people who have been your clients for over 20 years, over 10 years, over 5 years.  Be creative.  Offer a promo for your clients bringing a friend in to meet you.  It’s almost graduation for most colleges.  What about those graduates?  Most of them will be moving into an apartment.  Their insurance needs will be changing.  If they find a job that offers health and life insurance, will it be enough for their needs? 

You can’t win the race unless you first qualify.  Don’t take your existing clients for granted!  You may not win the Indianapolis 500, but you can certainly qualify for your own race with your business!  Let us know how it works for you!

www.harborins.com

Our goal as a Brokerage General Agency is to help our agents market their own company for success.  Today’s marketing campaigns must include social media.  We all know that.  But social media is changing so fast it seems like every day there is something new to learn, something that was ok yesterday but no longer the thing to do today.  And then there’s the whole SEO (search engine optimization) thing.  Who can possibly keep up?  The larger companies have someone to do this for them as a full time employee.  Some companies even have more than one person doing it!  How can a small business that has 1 or 2 people in the office possibly stay in the game?

I think we can all agree that you need an on-line presence for today’s market, starting with your website.  If you don’t have a website for your business you need one.  If you have no idea where to start, call us.  We can help.  No one will take you seriously if they can’t go on-line and find your website.  It’s not imperative that you show up on the first page of Google Search, but you need to be able to give a perspective client a URL that they can go to.  Otherwise you just don’t seem like a legitimate business.

Having said that, here are four tips for those who have no idea where or how to start:

1. Join LinkedIn and get your profile set up.  Take your time on this!  It’s THE place people will go to check you out before they ever do business with you.  This is a professional site where most businesses go to find job applicants and where companies post their job listings.  Be professional with your profile!
2. Add your photo to your profile.  People are visual, especially the younger generation who need your products.  They want a face with a name. 
3. Do a people search for people you might know who are on LinkedIn and send a request to connect.  It’s fine to connect with people who do what you do, but be sure to target your connect to people who are potential customers!  You want your connections on LinkedIn to get to know through content you share, but you also want them to do business with you.  Stay focused on why you’re doing this. 
4. Get a Twitter account.  It’s free.  It’s easy.  You can connect your LinkedIn and Twitter accounts so that when you “tweet” it will also post to your LinkedIn account. 

When you have a website, a LinkedIn account, and a Twitter account you have started your on-line presence.  We’ll offer more tips as we go along, but for now this is a good start.  If you have trouble or questions, let us know.  We’re going to take it one step at a time.  For those of you already using these accounts, feel free to offer comments and lessons learned from your own experience.  Your postings help your SEO rankings so feel free to jump in and offer helpful advice.  We love to hearing from you!  www.harborins.com