Effective Social Media Marketing in the Insurance Industry.
First and foremost it is important to understand that much like traditional marketing social media marketing is sorely misunderstood. The general business populous that handles marketing for their organization still believes that putting an advertisement in a magazine, newspaper, dare I say yellow pages or on television, radio and so on constitutes an advertising campaign. When in all actuality no one single effort is a campaign. In fact, a campaign is a multi-dimensional approach to delivering a single message utilizing a variety of mediums targeting a specific demographic. Information is needed to identify the optimal combination of media and the inherent risk potential associated with any media effort. This information should never come from the person selling the advertising. Collecting and understanding this data rest solely on shoulders of the individual or team in charge of spending your marketing dollars. That’s what they were hired to do, Right.
That being said the burgeoning economy that is social media marketing, much like any new industry, yields the opportunity not only to gain ground or surpass your competitors but it all creates an opportunity for the unscrupulous to take advantage of un-savvy media buyers. You know who you are. As many companies that there are who are embracing (or at least trying to embrace) social media marketing there are more than five times as many who make no effort to participate in it, yet alone optimize this viable, valuable and ever evolving marketing platform. Of those who do engage the concept most of them are stuck in the quagmire that has haunted the marketing world since the cavemen developed signs. In this case the sign is Facebook. Companies put a page on Facebook and think that they have a social media campaign. And as indicated earlier a single sign does not constitute a campaign.
In conducting my research for this article I found a truly unique concept in social media marketing in a highly unlikely location, an Insurance and Financial Services company in Katy, Texas. This company has not only embraced the social media marketing world but they appear to be leading the charge. Having partnered with, and learned from, perhaps one of the top companies in the social media marketing world, they have successfully integrated a multi-dimensional and comprehensive social media marketing campaign that has effectively grown their business. Good for them. Right. Well in part, obviously, it is successful but it is also great for their clients. This company has turned the insurance industry on its collective ear. You see, now that they have a solid understanding of and documented success in social media marketing they have, uncharacteristically of the industry, not only asked a question that was never asked before, but they answered it too.
“What is your insurance company doing to help promote and grow your business?” What! Huh? That is the typical response when the question is asked. Go ahead. Ask yourself or the person sitting next to you….Go ahead, I’ll wait.
It is a perplexing question. I’ve never heard it asked before and never even considered the prospect of it before. Why? Well the answer is simple. Why would an insurance company provide anything other than insurance? That type of narrow-mindedness has eluded this trendsetting Texas based firm that continues to grow with offices in Colorado now too. They have a different perspective and philosophy and the ideology that is at the root of this is simple, if your business grows our business grows. So they’ve answered the question that they posed to themselves and developed a marketing department that works directly with their commercial clients to implement a social media marketing campaign to help their clients to grow their business. Free of charge. Yes, you’ve read that correctly, this is simply part of the relationship. If you are a client you get the benefit.
If you’re just getting an invoice it isn’t a relationship. Pick up the phone a give your agent a call and ask the question, “What are you doing to promote and help grow my business?” At least you’ll get a laugh from their response and that’s a benefit, right!