Author: ACT News Team

ACT News wanted to know how independent agencies can differentiate themselves in a noisy world, so we turned to Dale Steinke, Director of Independent Agency Digital Marketing with Safeco Bricks & Clicks, to find out what it takes to develop a meaningful digital presence. 

ACT News: Dale, the world is a noisy place, and there are thousands of companies and people vying for consumers' attention every day. How is an agency to get noticed and—more than that—develop a following? 

Dale Steinke: The first thing is for your agency to have a high-quality online presence that emphasizes the value of who you are and what you do. It should talk not only about what you sell but also about your people and where you do business. It should look great on a desktop and on mobile devices. People today research before they buy. They shop from their smartphone or their computer before they make a purchasing move. They might not close business online, but they're unlikely to take you seriously if you're not online at all. They'll think either you're not serious about your customer relationships or you're not legitimate. 

ACT News: Yes, nowadays it seems like a business that doesn't have a good Web presence isn't interested enough in communicating to me to get my business. I don't have time to call and converse with every local agency. I want to learn a little before I call—see if they share my values or appeal to me. 

Dale: Exactly. That is why it is important on your agency website to not only emphasize your community involvement but to also provide the means for people to interact with them in the ways they prefer. Client portals where they can access their accounts and request changes are a pretty easy method since many agency management systems offer these. Click-to-chat is another useful feature. And make your agency's phone number easy to find.

Another thing to consider is how your agency is viewed outside your own website. For instance, Yelp, where people post reviews of their experiences with local businesses, is an important place to have a positive presence. People form opinions based on what they see there, and if there's negative stuff about your agency, that could harm your business. Likewise, positive reviews can drive traffic to your agency—most likely starting with your website, so make sure it gives a good first impression. Make sure it's easy to navigate and it looks good.

The better websites have richer content. They spotlight their specializations. They also have blogs and other information that answer the questions of prospective clients who are just beginning to research.

Once people land on your website, is there a call to action? "Call us for a quote." "Click here for a quote." Calls to action drive up conversion rates. For most agencies, encouraging people to call is probably the most effective since it gets the prospect speaking to a live person who can really listen to their needs and make the sale. A call center, or other off-hours phone coverage, can make you available 24/7.

Something else you'll start seeing more of is "intelligent agents" or bots. Think of an automated click-to-chat that answers typical questions. It searches for key words in the user's question and provides targeted answers that hopefully generate a deep enough conversation that it ultimately results in a connection between a live agent and the online user, resulting in a sale or the addressing of a service need.

If the Q&A is going on in the middle of the night and it gets too complicated or specialized, the automated algorithm could be programmed to say something like, "I need to get an agent to talk with you further on this issue. May we call you in the morning? Yes? Great, what time would you like a call?"

It's about giving people options.

Independent agents can and do win by providing ease, choice and advice. Your online presence should spotlight the knowledge of the agents in your firm and drive or draw clients and prospects to a personal interaction with them in the way they prefer.
 

ACT News: Can Twitter be a successful venue?
 
Dale: Twitter is good for monitoring events and pushing out new content or important alerts, but it can be difficult to generate meaningful conversation on Twitter. And it's hard to get a bunch of followers if all you are tweeting about is insurance.

There are a couple of agents who do use Twitter in a special way and have developed a lot of followers. One is @NibbyP, Nibby Priest, an agent from Henderson, Ky. He has almost 4,000 followers, but a lot of that is because he primarily tweets about his community. That generates a following of businesses and individuals who want to keep their finger on the pulse of that city. If you're going to try Twitter, I suggest doing something like that, where you make yourself a local specialist on something. That creates interest. Then, when people find out you also sell insurance, they may turn to you when they need coverage and will pay attention when you tweet about insurance.

A key to succeeding at social media in general is to make it a scheduled part of your business week. Put it on your calendar to post regularly. You can even schedule posts to publish days or weeks into the future so you don't have to have someone sitting there at the computer or phone at the exact time you want to release information. HootSuite and Facebook, among others, have this ability. They also have analytics that allow you to measure how well you are doing on social media—the number of views, likes, shares, etc.

In our Safeco Bricks & Clicks program, we have a proprietary tool called Social Media Score that looks at the quality of your agency's social media efforts. Do they post photos? Do they talk about their communities? If so, their grade goes up. Do they talk about selling insurance? If it's more than about 20%, their grade goes down. It's social media, not selling media. Hard selling messages don't build rapport and relationships.

We have another tool called SearchScore that assesses how easy it is for an agency to be found online, as well as how well agencies meet consumer expectations once users get there.

The report card gives the agency recommendations for improvement. We offer education as well, via webinars, workshops and online classes, to help our agency partners get where they need to be online. At Safeco, we're all about the independent agency channel. It's where we live and breathe, so we want our agency partners to grow their entire business. 


ACT News: What role does the agency owner or principal play? Is this all really in marketing's hands and everyone else is peripheral?

Dale: No. Research from the Customers for Life team at Safeco shows that the vast majority of the best-performing agencies have dedicated marketing resources of some kind. The principal needs to buy in on marketing the agency but might be better off delegating the work to someone else. That's why at our Bricks & Clicks workshops, we want the principal and the marketing person doing the work to attend. There are particular skills that marketing people have, so I believe agencies should be hiring with that in mind. Ask prospective employees about their digital skills, keeping in mind that younger people don't always list these things on their résumés because they are digital natives.

As an agency's marketing person or team begins to involve other agency members in the effort, it is wise to look for certain traits—are any of your employees influencers (people with large social networks). Are they active in community causes? People do business with people, not businesses, so it is important to spotlight those in your agency who are doing appealing things. Maybe they are involved in important community causes or local sports. Giving press to your agents' community activities and maybe even personal accomplishments—say, running a marathon—can be a catalyst for business for both your agency and the other organization. And it's another avenue of conversation that is relevant to the client outside of insurance.

 
ACT News: What about a concern about the very small family agency where hiring a dedicated marketing specialist is prohibitive?
 
Dale: I agree, but that doesn't mean you can't market. It just means you have to ask everyone to do their part. That can include encouraging employees to share what the agency is doing in support of the community through their own personal social media. To consumers, social responsibility is huge—nine out of 10 people will like your agency more, they'll trust you more and they'll be more loyal—so it's a good idea to show that stuff and to retweet and repost information on the community from your organizations. It builds affinity.

Even if you can't hire a full-time marketer, maybe a CSR or other employee can handle a few hours of marketing per week, or maybe a stay-at-home parent who has marketing experience who could help out part-time.

And remember, your customers can market for you. When you get a happy client, ask them to write an online review or provide a testimonial. Some agencies incentivize that by asking employees to request reviews, but they should make sure they ask the customer to mention them by name in the review. If that happens, the agency gives the employee a gift card or another little thank-you. The tone of the reviews changes when this happens from one of "they saved me money," to "Susan gave me great advice and choices. She made it easy…and I saved some money…." Now your employees are more invested in the agency and potential customers have a better sense of the value the agency provides.

It's one of your best marketing tactics—clients who like you enough to take the time to tell others. Encourage that!