Fifty-four percent of people aged 18 to 29 bought insurance online in 2023. Therefore, digital marketing is critical to helping insurers grab the attention of increasingly digitally-focused consumers.
Insurance agencies still relying only on a brick-and-mortar presence must now include digital marketing strategies in their operations to meet the growing demand for online services — or risk falling behind. As consumers continue to seek insurance on the web, the competition for their attention in the digital space will only grow fiercer, and insurers will need to create a strong online offering and digital branding to stand out.
In this comprehensive guide to insurance marketing, learn:
- How technology is changing insurance marketing
- How to build a digital marketing foundation for your insurance business
- Content ideas for insurance marketers
- Tips, tricks, and strategies for digital insurance marketing
Understanding the digital insurance landscape
The shift from traditional to digital marketing has made an online presence a necessity for businesses across industries. Consumers now expect insurers to have a website, social media profiles, and ecommerce capacity. Instead of booking an appointment to meet with an agent, consumers are increasingly preferring the self-serve model, where they can browse, select, and purchase insurance products on their own. According to McKinsey, this is especially true of property and casualty insurance consumers, who are more open to digital channels than buyers of life insurance.
According to Deloitte, generative AI is also changing how insurers communicate with customers. Generative AI is empowering the consumer with more information about insurance, so insurers have to reassess their own messaging. The use of AI technology to better adapt to the changing needs of customers comes amid fierce competition between companies to sell insurance products.
Build your digital marketing foundation
The first step to transitioning to digital marketing for insurers is building a solid online presence. This acts as the basis for creating a digital brand that will appeal to online customers.
Develop a solid online presence
Establishing any business online begins with a professional, user-friendly website.
Potential clients’ first experience with your insurance business will be through your website, so it should lay out your services, product offerings, and the advantages of working with your firm. These should all conform to a uniform brand offering that makes a positive first impression.
As you build or revise your website, consider that most people will use a smartphone or tablet to view your pages. According to Statista, in the second quarter of 2024, 96.2% of people used a mobile phone to access the internet, while 62.8% used a laptop or desktop. Your design should, therefore, be mobile-friendly to ensure ease of navigation.
Craft your digital brand
Marketers often talk about branding as the personalization of a company’s identity, encompassing traits that set it apart from the competition. In the online space, branding means using a consistent voice across platforms to connect with audiences.
Your digital brand is a way for potential customers to identify you online. As a first step to building it, develop a mobile-friendly firm logo and use it across platforms: your social media, website, and even email marketing.
In your website pages, tell your company’s story, including its history, mission, and values. Outline what you offer that’s better than the competition: that’s your agency’s unique value proposition. It might be fast service, value-added insurance products, or knowledgeable agents.
Content marketing for insurance
Your online presence should consist not only of product offerings but educational content that can answer your potential clients’ questions. This helps to establish trust between you and the customer and sets you up as an authority in the area.
After all, insurance is a way to purchase protection in the event of a loss. A policy might never pay out, so people who sign up to pay premiums have to trust that you are offering real peace of mind.
Consider blog posts and articles that address consumer pain points like:
- The cost (and value) of insurance
- How to read your insurance policy
- What happens when it’s time to renew
- Frequently asked questions about insurance claims
Depending on the type of insurance you sell, you can address more specific questions like:
- Permanent vs. term life insurance: What’s the difference?
- Do you need flood insurance?
- When can I claim disability insurance?
As an insurance professional, you can begin brainstorming ideas for blog posts based on your experience. Reflect upon what questions you commonly get from clients. You can answer some of those questions in your content.
For a more advanced form of digital marketing, you can source insurance-related topics people commonly look for online and create content around them. Do this on a regular schedule, called a content calendar, and you can establish a following.
6 great ideas for insurance marketing
After you’ve established your digital marketing foundation, you can consider specific campaigns and techniques to promote your insurance business.
1. Email marketing techniques
Email marketing uses your existing email list to promote your insurance agency. You can use email to send promotional offerings, newsletters, and other correspondence.
To develop a successful email marketing campaign, you start by building up your email list. Create a signup form on your website or collect emails from clients. One effective way to collect emails is to offer a newsletter in exchange for the address.
Be sure to segment the list into potential clients, current clients, and repeat customers. You can use that segmentation to create targeted, personalized email campaigns that address the specific needs of each segment.
When the campaign is complete, measure its success based on metrics, such as an increase in conversions, new policy sales, or upgrades or additions to existing insurance packages.
Download our free ebook, 3 Reasons Insurance Agencies are Centralizing Their Email Marketing.
2. Referral programs
Another way to drive new business is through referral programs. Connect with partners to see if they could refer your services in exchange for a small fee or reciprocal referrals. Logical places to start include real estate agents for homeowners insurance and car dealerships for auto insurance.
Consider asking for an integration in the partner’s digital marketing campaigns. The agent or dealership might put your agency logo on their website or offer special discounts on a package sale.
3. Search engine optimization (SEO) for insurance websites
Laying the groundwork for digital marketing allows you to take the next technical step, which is to use search engine (SEO) strategies, so people find your insurance agency when searching online. Your marketing materials should include keywords that your target audience will use.
Beyond “insurance,” think of common long phrases like, “How can I save money on car insurance,” or “Do I need to buy fire insurance for a condo?” Integrating these phrases into your content can increase the chances of your blogs and articles showing up on Google search engine results pages.
Try also to focus on local SEO, where you should show up as being in the neighborhood if someone nearby is looking to buy insurance. One place to start is to set up your Google Business Profile. Integrate your agency’s address and service areas into your online content so people can know where you are and how to reach out.
4. Social media strategies for insurance marketing
Aside from your website, it’s critical to have a presence on social media. Social media profiles give you an avenue to distribute your content marketing articles and create discussions online. You can also pair your social media posts with platform-specific advertising that can drive new clients to your agency. This helps you meet potential customers where they are.
Choose social media platforms that are right for your business. Consider sites where your target clients might be. Facebook might work well for consumer-focused insurance, while sellers of commercial policies might consider a business-to-business platform like LinkedIn.
5. Online reputation management
As you’ve invested significant time in building your digital foundation and marketing campaigns, it’s important to maintain your online reputation. This is a little like cleaning up graffiti outside your physical office or vacuuming the waiting room daily.
First and foremost, you should track your agency’s online reviews and mentions. You can manage customer feedback in several ways, such as publicly thanking clients who left good reviews and replying to negative reviews with an invitation to come back to the agency to repair the experience.
Don’t forget to be proactive about reputation management by placing testimonials and case studies on your website. This gives you the opportunity to showcase the successes your agency has been able to create for clients.
6. Digital advertising for insurance
As a corollary to your blogs and articles on your website and social media, you can pay for digital advertising. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is an ad strategy where you select a target demographic who sees your ads. If someone clicks on your ad, you pay a fee, but, in the process, you might also gain a new client. You can place ads on social media platforms or as part of Google’s network.
A subsequent strategy is to retarget people who have previously expressed interest in your insurance ads by visiting your website or responding to a PPC. You can use technology to show those web users a new set of ads to encourage them to come back and follow through by making an appointment.
Leverage data and analytics
As you conduct digital marketing campaigns, it’s essential to use data and analytics to measure effectiveness. This information offers a clear picture of what’s working and what isn’t. Based on that knowledge, you can allocate resources and adjust campaigns to build upon prior success.
Consider starting with an overview of your most important digital marketing metrics. These can include:
- Conversions (such as people filling out a contact form)
- Page views (such as the number of hits on a blog post)
- Social shares (such as the number of shares of a post)
- Clickthroughs (such as the number of times someone clicked on your website from a search engine results page)
A free tool like Google Analytics can give you access to most of the metrics that interest you. Your data can tell you which keywords get the best results and what platforms bring the most conversion. You can use this information to track marketing performance and make data-driven decisions about future marketing.
Data can help when you do A/B testing, which is running two versions of a campaign at once. It can tell you which campaign brings the greatest return.
Customer relationship management (CRM) in digital marketing
A customer relationship management (CRM) platform allows you to use what you already know about your customers and their personal needs and preferences. With a CRM, you’re never starting from square one with an existing customer: you know what they have purchased already and can assess their future needs.
Customer relationship management is vital to insurance businesses as it helps with client retention and the upgrading of insurance products. By using an integrated lead generation and CRM platform, you can create targeted and personalized marketing campaigns. You can use retargeting strategies to recapture customer attention and create more conversions.
People buy insurance that fits with their individual circumstances. They might be homeowners, car owners, or want to look after others with a life insurance policy. In every instance, their unique situation is directly relevant to their insurance choices. An intelligent CRM strategy helps your agency offer the right products to the right consumers. If this is a good match, you should experience an increase in policy sales.
Compliance and ethical considerations
Insurance agents are licensed professionals. Many state licensing boards have a code of ethics for agents that governs their work in the industry. Some states, like California, require ethics education during the license term for certain types of insurance agents.
All agents know that ethics are essential to the job. It’s important to remember that ethical practice extends to marketing activities, including digital marketing.
Whether or not state codes actually speak about marketing ethics, it’s good practice to follow certain guidelines. For example, your digital marketing efforts might give you access to client data. Safeguarding the privacy of that data should be a paramount concern for the insurance agent.
You can review state laws on data handling as they apply to businesses. Laws might place certain obligations on your business, like encrypting and deleting data when it is no longer necessary to store.
Upholding ethics can help gain trust between you and your clients, who can come to you with their insurance needs over the long term. Following ethics also usually means being in legal compliance and, therefore, avoiding costly breaches and fines.
Take the first steps in digital transformation
With the digital revolution and emerging AI technologies, customers have higher expectations of insurance agents. They want to consider and learn more about their insurance options online, including which companies are available to assist them with their insurance needs and their respective offerings. As insurance agencies adapt and establish an online presence, they can seek a better return on their digital marketing investments.
