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Maximizing your agency’s ROI — Return on internet

Is your insurance agency investing in web initiatives? If so, you are in the minority. While many independent insurance agents have a virtual presence on their insurance carrier sites, most independent insurance agencies still do not have their own web presence.

That’s a big mistake. To be sure, it’s not enough to ride on the coattails of the insurance carriers and only have a presence on their corporate sites. Doing so puts agents at a marketing disadvantage relative to other agencies that build their own sites and leverage the power of the web to attract new clients and keep existing clients.

Creating a Web site
Having your own Web site can have a dramatically positive effect on your agency’s performance. That’s because a Web site operates 24 hours a day on an agency’s behalf, acting as a virtual sales force that never tires.

Prospects are actively shopping online for insurance all the time, with most of that activity occurring after agencies are closed. By implementing a Web site, agencies can collect lead information at night and follow-up with a phone call in the morning.

Some agencies think it is enough to have a presence on the carrier’s corporate site. The problem is an agency’s web presence typically is buried deep within the insurance company site. It is not easy to find, and it does not show up when prospective customers search for common insurance shopping phrases in popular search engines. If the agency switches carriers, it would suddenly lose its web presence.

Why not get the best of both worlds — the marketing power of the corporate site promotion and the power of your own outreach?

Having a secondary web presence gives an agency more fishhooks in the water, so to speak. The company also will have more flexibility. A Web site can be as big and as robust as the agency wants it to be, and can be updated on a moment’s notice. There are no constraints. The agency will have the ability to control its own destiny, adding to and modifying its site based on feedback and results.

Companies contemplating building a Web site for their insurance agency should consider the following tips:

• Look for Insurance Agency Experience.There are many options when it comes to choosing a company to develop and build a Web site for an insurance agency. Make sure to call several companies and compare not only their rates, but also their portfolios. If they have experience designing sites for other insurance agencies, that’s a big plus. A good approach is to find an insurance agency site you like and then contact the web design firm that built that particular site.
• Consider Using a Templated Insurance Site. Web site templates provide a short-cut to building a site. Templated insurance agency Web sites can be found by searching for “insurance Web site design” in any search engine. All the agency needs to do is change the logo and modify the text to describe its services. An agency can literally create its own site in minutes from templates specifically designed to sell insurance. The only disadvantage is that the site may have a cookie-cutter look that is similar to hundreds of other agency sites.

Promoting the site
There’s no point in having a Web site if no one sees it. Once an agency builds a site, it needs to actively promote it to get a return on its investment.

The following are a few simple ways to drive traffic to the site.

• Content Is King. Good content is what attracts people to a Web site. If the site has useful information about buying insurance and about making claims online, that sends a message to prospective customers that the company knows what it is doing and is available to help. It is also smart to have testimonial from satisfied clients. Good content also will help optimize a site — contribute to a higher ranking on the search engines so it is easier for prospects to find it.
• Search Engine Optimization.By building web pages in a fashion that is attractive to search engines — providing meaningful and meaty content, structuring it in an effective manner and promoting it on other Web sites, for example — a site will appear higher up on search engines. Agencies will want to optimize their site for specific key words, such as “insurance agents in your town.” There are many search engine optimization consultants who can help a company do this for a modest fee.
• Pay-Per-Click Ad Buys.Pay-per-click advertising allows a company to promote its Web site to prospects who search on specific key words that are relevant to its business. Google and other popular search engines will allow companies to buy advertising in which the company only pays if a prospect clicks on the ad and visits its site. By making your phrases very specific, e.g. “health insurance brokers in Peoria,” an agency can get excellent leads at surprisingly attractive prices.

Don’t make the mistake of bidding for highly competitive, expensive phrases such as “car insurance.”

• Spread the Word. Every touchpoint with a customer or prospect is an opportunity to promote the agency Web site. Yellow page ads should feature the agency’s web address in the ad. The web address also should be on business cards and all collateral. An agency may even want to put a big sign with the web address in its window.
• Continue to Invest in the Site. Don’t let the site lay fallow for too long. Continue to enhance it over time. That might mean adding things such as audio testimonials or articles on wellness if the agency focuses on health insurance. A company might also consider launching an e-newsletter that keeps customers and prospects up to date on the latest news at its agency and in the community.

The next growth stage
The net result of embracing the web is that it will help agents generate new business and improve service levels to existing clients. Having an online presence on the carrier site and having your own customer-facing Web site that markets your agency’s services around the clock creates an unbeatable combination.

The bottomline?

The web can help agents gain more customers and grow their business. If you aren’t embracing the web, you’re losing precious ground to the competition faster than you might imagine.

Michael Alter is president of SurePayroll, a payroll outsourcing firm that processes and remits payroll taxes for more than 4,000 independent insurance agencies nationwide. Web site: www.surepayroll.com.