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Let’s discuss your agency’s ability to have a social media strategy that brings success and a positive ROI. First we have to define what the agency calls ‘success’ in its social media marketing strategy. This is not always the easiest task because it isn’t simply black and white. Success is different for each and every agency because we all may have different ideas and benchmarks on which to gauge.

When I talk about social media and having success with it, I always feel that there are two separate roads to your agency success. The first is of course having a return on investment.  In the insurance world, we all look at ROI in many different facets, but in order to measure the ROI of your social media marketing, you need to have a defined process and procedure.

The importance of tracking is key because it will allow your marketing department to continue to follow through with what is working and change what isn’t. Tracking should be implemented at every agency because it’s the truth behind you’re marketing success. Let me take the time to explain three key questions that we ask every customer which plays a major role in our tracking:

1. The first question when someone calls in is, “How did you find the agency?”  For example, if they tell us they found us on the Internet. We will then proceed to ask them where on the Internet, and furthermore, what did they type into the Google search bar, if in fact they used Google. We need to ask these questions every single time because these ‘keywords’ are vital understanding your social media success.
2. Question number two that we ask on every single call is, “What is your cell phone number?” The reason we ask this is because the future of marketing is in the mobile arena. I feel mobile is an extremely powerful tool that we should be utilizing in order to retain business, as well as generate new business. There are certain components to your mobile marketing, the first of which is constructing a mobile marketing strategy. Once that’s completed, you need to make sure your agency’s website is mobile optimized, and then after that, create a mobile marketing App. Let’s not forget there are major differences between having your website mobile optimized and having a mobile marketing App.
3. The third question we ask on every call is “What is your email address?” We ask this because we believe this is still a big factor regarding digital marketing. It allows us to keep in contact with existing clients, as well as identify groups such as plumbers and electricians.

Once your agency is on the right path to track success of your marketing strategy, now you need to look at your agency’s brand. If somebody asks me a question about my agency’s brand, I answer them by saying, “We sell insurance.”  However selling insurance is just the surface of our brand.  You need to dig a little deeper to find out the agency’s true brand- their identity. The identity is what allows us to be different.  For example, here at Paradiso insurance, we stay focused on the agency’s identity by posting relatable content in the social media world that revolves around our agency’s identity. This concept isn’t difficult, but it’s a concept that needs to be thought out and executed properly.

If you follow Paradiso Insurance on Twitter, you’ll see very calculated posts such as “we have our own price gun here at Paradiso insurance- it is great coverage at a reasonable price with great service.”  Our focus on a post like that is to try to get people to understand that insurance is not a commodity and that price is but one factor to be considered when purchase insurance policies. At the time of a claim, price never comes up and we really need to educate our clients and our prospects on the importance of this.

Another example would be, “think local, be local, buy local.” This is a concept we focus on because we believe that small business is the backbone of America.  If you go to our Paradiso insurance fan page, you will see that we focus a lot on families, veterans, America and our community. You cannot post in the social media world and have an ROI without your agency’s identity. Create your agency’s posts on all social media avenues with the intention of pushing out your agency’s identity.

The reason I focus on the second concept is because it’s very difficult to measure the ROI of your agency’s brand/identity. Just because it’s difficult to measure does not mean it should take a back seat in your strategy. Our agency’s success has come from creating our identity and repeating it week in and week out so that prospects can understand who we are and what our agency stands for. Without that separation, we are no different from every other independent insurance agency on the block. So when you’re measuring your agency’s success, do not simply measure it for its ROI because there is so much more ROI in the future that is going to be coming from the marketing of your agency’s identity. Be original! Be different and separate yourself from everyone else because as a famous person once said, “there is only one of you, so be original and don’t be a copy.”