Insurance Agency Digital Marketing Platforms or Insurance Agency Marketing Solutions
Recently, we've seen the advent of platform based or digital marketing technologies for insurance agencies. Insurance agencies have the option to purchase an integrated website and eMarketing platform in return for a long term commitment, which can run 2-5 years. These digital marketing platforms typically create a new website, blog and offer an eMarketing platform to communicate with prospects and clients. The advantage to this approach is that it allows insurance agencies which have an existing marketing staff with the time and skill to leverage this technology, to expand the web marketing reach of the agency. Or, after investing in one of these digital marketing platforms, an agency can opt to hire the staffing to create, run and monitor their ongoing insurance agency marketing campaigns, blogs and website SEO refinements.
The downside to the platform approach is the converse of the statement above, namely that the agency must execute all of the marketing on their own, utilizing in house personnel and in house skills. This is where the rubber meets the road, as most agencies have limited resources and budgets to attack their specific marketing initiatives. Some technology providers may infer that these systems almost run themselves. This is a great concept in theory, but pragmatically, they take time and expertise. After all, if an agency intends to assemble a prospect list of 5,000 targeted emails and then routinely send out these email campaigns, the agency better make sure they know what they're doing. For example, domain spoofing, email authentication, Bayesian poisoning and the FCC CAN-SPAM Act are just a few of the challenges insurance eMarketers will face.
This brings us to the second major option. Typically, for about the same investment, insurance agencies can outsource these marketing initiatives to a competent insurance marketing agency. Insurance marketing agencies often provide the platform or tools to accomplish these types of insurance agency web marketing initiatives including:
And, it is important to note a third option, a hybrid of sorts. Those insurance agents with sufficient budget and patience can opt for both a insurance agency digital marketing platform, and outsource their web marketing initiatives to a proficient insurance marketing agency. This can be highly effective for agencies which want an in house platform but lack all of the skills to effectively utilize the technology. In some ways this is similar to the approach of information technology giants such as IBM, which offers a comprehensive IT outsource service to many of their corporate clients.
In this era of specialized skills, outsourcing specific functions can be a preferable path to internal staffing when one considers the plethora of skills needed and the hiring costs associated with these skills. Agents seeking new methods to create robust insurance agency lead programs, insurance web marketing is certainly a key to the foundation for future growth. In house, outsourced or some combination of both, this is an area that insurance agencies both large and small will need to address in the coming New Year.
The downside to the platform approach is the converse of the statement above, namely that the agency must execute all of the marketing on their own, utilizing in house personnel and in house skills. This is where the rubber meets the road, as most agencies have limited resources and budgets to attack their specific marketing initiatives. Some technology providers may infer that these systems almost run themselves. This is a great concept in theory, but pragmatically, they take time and expertise. After all, if an agency intends to assemble a prospect list of 5,000 targeted emails and then routinely send out these email campaigns, the agency better make sure they know what they're doing. For example, domain spoofing, email authentication, Bayesian poisoning and the FCC CAN-SPAM Act are just a few of the challenges insurance eMarketers will face.
This brings us to the second major option. Typically, for about the same investment, insurance agencies can outsource these marketing initiatives to a competent insurance marketing agency. Insurance marketing agencies often provide the platform or tools to accomplish these types of insurance agency web marketing initiatives including:
- Insurance Agency eMarketing
- Insurance Agency SEO and SEM
- Insurance Agency Social Media Marketing
- Insurance Agency Web Seminar Marketing
- Insurance Agency Website Creation and Updates
And, it is important to note a third option, a hybrid of sorts. Those insurance agents with sufficient budget and patience can opt for both a insurance agency digital marketing platform, and outsource their web marketing initiatives to a proficient insurance marketing agency. This can be highly effective for agencies which want an in house platform but lack all of the skills to effectively utilize the technology. In some ways this is similar to the approach of information technology giants such as IBM, which offers a comprehensive IT outsource service to many of their corporate clients.
In this era of specialized skills, outsourcing specific functions can be a preferable path to internal staffing when one considers the plethora of skills needed and the hiring costs associated with these skills. Agents seeking new methods to create robust insurance agency lead programs, insurance web marketing is certainly a key to the foundation for future growth. In house, outsourced or some combination of both, this is an area that insurance agencies both large and small will need to address in the coming New Year.