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Content marketing is vital to every agency’s marketing strategy. As an agency owner you need to devote time,energy and money to developing various types of content, including white papers, Google + posts, tweets and blogs, which appeal to and engage with your agency’s audience. But my question to you is this: is your agency getting the most out of its content?
Not all content is created equal, so it’s up to you and you’re marketing team to determine what will deliver the biggest ROI to your agency. And, while each piece serves as a way to engage with a potential client, content ROI is maximized when it is used at the optimal stage of the buyer’s journey (not always easy to gauge). Yes, White papers, are a great example that can support sales in that they provide helpful and in-depth information on a product such as homeowners or auto policies or services that your agency offers to a prospect conducting initial research. Prospects are often gated and in a protective mode, requiring prospects enter their name and contact information in order to access the your agencies material is very important to your bottom line. This will help move prospective clients down the sales funnel and allows your agency’s marketing team to capture information they can ultimately pass on to their sales department within your agency.
How you and your agency distributes different forms of content depends on its type and intended audience. But,most importantly is that you take a strategic approach when building/writing your content and understand where each piece of your agency’s content fits within the strategy. At Paradiso Insurance, we let four principles guide for our agency’s strategy in 2015: Analytics, Consistency, Recycling and Timing.
Analytics, should be attached to EVERYTHING when it is possible.
As I mentioned, delivering useful content to potential leads/prospects is only step one while the analytics on how they (the prospect) interact with your agency’s content can be very powerful. Your agency’s audience behavior can be and should be transformed into data that is fed into CRM (Does your agency have a CRM marketing tool?) and marketing automation tool. By doing this it allows your agency to follow up with customers and prospects in a personalized manner. The key is personalization of your follow up content. In fact, your agency can use a combination of digital marketing and analytics from your website and social media posts, for example, to improve lead qualification and inform every facet of your agency’s marketing program. “If you can’t measure it you shouldn’t be doing it” is what I live by.
Agencies must deliver a consistent message to their audiences.
While content should be personalized and customized depending on the channel or social media arena your in , it is important that the core message remain unchanged. Clear goals are very important along with a central narrative and a distinct voice as your agency’s campaign is launched provide the foundation for a successful ongoing marketing efforts.
Agencies should recycle what they’ve created.
Content is expensive to create, sometimes very expensive depending on where and who creates your content; therefore, it is absurd to use it once.So lets think about repurposing your agency’s content. In many cases it can be the easiest way to increase the contents value and bring your agency an ROI (Return on Investment). A great example is if you have a great blog post with 3 tips on how to save money on your homeowners policy so you’re marketing team at your agency create 3 separate videos of each of the tips and puts 3 separate videos on Youtube. You just repurposed your agency’s content and you will get a bigger bang for you’re marketing buck this way.
Timing is Everything.
This will determine exactly what type of content you serve up to your prospects and when. You need to study and track your agency’s audience to figure out when and what does your audience want. You’re marketing team needs to understand where the customer is in the buying cycle and deliver appropriate content accordingly (this can be very difficult at times). The Team needs to understand the level of engagement and overall interaction with different pieces of content, therefore agencies can accurately qualify leads. Understanding what your audience wants is very important and is the first step, but when it comes to timing please be patient and realize you and your agency will make mistakes but it’s not the end of the world. Be patient and learn from your mistakes
