3 min read

Inbound Marketing And Insurance – A Perfect Match

Jan 28, 2015 6:30:00 AM

Inbound_and_InsuranceA few weeks back I was getting my hair done. Multi-tasking like it’s a fashion statement, I was working and talking on the phone almost the entire time. Without going on a tangent about how annoying this must have been for my stylist, I had a great conversation with John Booth at Quintain.

We talked about end-of-year reporting and analytics, logo gifts, shopping portals, inbound tactics, Hubspot strategies, email funnel messages, and growth projections for an expanding office location. When I got off the phone, a few people around me had very confused looks on their faces.

Finally my stylist half whispers to me, “I have no idea what you were just talking about. It was like a foreign language.” Not only did her statement make me laugh, it was also eye-opening.

Like so many other industries, marketers get caught up in our own language. Ironically, the marketing I do is for an insurance agency – talk about having your own language! – and while marketing has a reputation for being fun and exciting, insurance doesn’t. But that doesn’t mean it can’t have personality.

Content isn’t always about being sexy or viral. It’s about being educational. It helps develop relationships, and speaks to a company’s brand when a person isn’t there to do it.

How people buy products and services today is vastly different than even a few years ago. Social media and search engines like Google have changed they way we research and buy almost everything.Think about the last important purchase you made. It’s not a question of IF you spent time online doing research, the question is HOW MUCH?

This makes the case for moving to inbound marketing. Only a few years ago marketers used and people consumed media and advertising in a much different way. Now technology provides much more control over when – or even if – a marketers’ message reaches their audience. How often do you listen to subscription radio and fast-forward past TV commercials? Makes a great argument for inbound!

Inbound marketing refers to activities that bring visitors IN, rather than marketers having to go out to get prospects' attention. It earns the attention of customers, makes the company easy to be found, and draws customers to the website by producing interesting content.

In simpler terms, Inbound uses a strategic blend of blogs, social media, SEO, quality offers, and workflows to align content with customer interests, creating a natural draw in a place where they want to interact. And people looking for insurance are willing to read blogs, download relevant content and engage for more information, making inbound a perfect match. 

Of course, this doesn’t take the place of having a trusted advisor. Nor does it do the intricate work of designing a comprehensive risk management program for a sophisticated company. Inbound works much sooner or sometimes alongside the buying process, but not in place of it – unless you’re a cut rate insurance commodity slinger.

What’s equally delightful are the ability to cross promote different areas of expertise to existing clients and the powerful analytics that support the need for data.

To be perfectly truthful, we’re still in the process of completing many of the background activities and creating compelling content. But even without harnessing the full capabilities of the technology, we’ve seen an increase in our web traffic, social media reach and number of engagements. In addition, our brand is elevated by our display of thought leadership.

Pushing the "GO" button initially was done with a bit of trepidation. Inbound was new and uncharted. It represented a powerful shift in strategy and tactics. However, it seems far less scary now given all of the resources and data to support the change in philosophy. We highly recommend it!

 

This blog originally appeared on the Quintain Marketing blog

Gibson

Written by Gibson

Gibson is a team of risk management and employee benefits professionals with a passion for helping leaders look beyond what others see and get to the proactive side of insurance. As an employee-owned company, Gibson is driven by close relationships with their clients, employees, and the communities they serve. The first Gibson office opened in 1933 in Northern Indiana, and as the company’s reach grew, so did their team. Today, Gibson serves clients across the country from offices in Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Utah.