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They say that “Marketing’s job is never done,” and no truer words have ever been spoken. When we look at some of the factors that influence marketing and start “marketing trends,” we have to recognize that marketing is constantly changing. For instance, think about SEO for just a moment… Google is constantly updating their search engine’s algorithms every 18 hours on how they rank websites and what influences search rankings for websites as a whole. That’s just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to digital marketing, and digital marketing is just one piece of your insurance agency’s marketing when you look at the big picture. Let’s go over what we found to be some of the top marketing trends to keep an eye open for as we are approaching 2017, because they could be vital to the success of your marketing as a whole.

Stronger Focus on the Customer Experience

It should be to no surprise by now that in 2017, marketing will have a much stronger focus on the customer experience. The days of saying “We have good service here at our insurance agency” are over. In a world where everyone has good service, no one is going to stand out in the crowd. That’s why providing an outstanding overall customer experience is vital to your ongoing relationships. Face it folks, we live in a business of renewals, and if you are not capitalizing on your insurance agency’s overall customer experience, you will lose business, which will hurt your revenues overall. To learn more about the customer experience, you can check out our articles, the Customer Service vs. Customer Experience, a Second Look at the Customer Experience, and Providing an Outstanding Customer Experience.

Increased and more Effective Tracking

Whether you’re tracking your performance on social media, your email marketing campaigns, or how healthy your website’s traffic is as a whole, data and analytics will be the fuel to increased engagement in the digital marketing arena. With social media, you can use each network’s individualized analytics to see what posts are performing the best and capitalize accordingly. If you want to get an even stronger edge though, be sure to check out our article on 4 Tips to Ramp up your Social Media.  When it comes to your email marketing campaigns, you need to track what campaigns are performing well on closing leads, as well as what emails are getting opened in the first place; if you’re not getting enough “opens” on your email marketing campaigns, you could always take a look at 12 Steps to Getting your Emails Opened. Finally, when it comes to tracking your website, there are several metrics you can look at in order to help ramp up your visitors and get healthier traffic overall. In this situation, Google Analytics is your friend, and if you’re looking for a place to get started, check out our article on Data Driven Improvement via Google Analytics.

Personalized… Everything

That’s right, your customers want your interactions to make them feel like you are speaking to them on a one-on-one basis, almost as if they’re your only customer. This can be accomplished through personalization, but personalization doesn’t necessarily happen overnight. This can include personalized email marketing campaigns, targeted social media content to specific demographics within your audience, and then some. Be sure to check out our article on the Journey to Personalization to see how your agency can personalize your content to make your audience feel like it speaks to them.

Video Content

Think about this for a moment. You sit down to Facebook, scroll past a few posts simply made of text alone, and take a break here and there to check out a picture, but then you still keep scrolling. But then, you stumble across a video that is focused on a subject you’re interested, and you stop for a while. You might stop and watch this video for a minute, or you might be stopped for five minutes; it really depends on the length of the video. The point is that video, in today’s world, is one of the strongest forms of engaging content online, and your agency should be using it. In 2017, your audience wants to see higher quality, well-put together videos, and more frequently. Your audience wants to be engaged, it’s just up to your agency to bridge the gap for them. To check out more on videos, you can take a look at the Power Behind Video Marketing.

Increased Social Media Marketing

Your audience is on social media every day, and multiple times a day, and that alone should be enough reason for you to be, too. When it comes to client and customer interactions and communications, you need to meet them halfway, and on the platforms of their choice. With the increased amount of time that users are spending on social media, it’s up to us to be delivering more rich, well put together content that is personalized to our audience’s liking. Some folks will say they simply don’t have time for that, which is why it’s so important to Hire a Full-time Marketer for your Agency. You can’t be focused on marketing around the clock because you have customers to take care of, staff to manage, and other responsibilities to tend to as an agency owner. If you haven’t quite gotten started yet on social media, be sure to check out Creating a Balanced Social Media Content Strategy.

Marketing Moments

There is a huge difference between “real-time” marketing and “right-time” marketing. It’s important that you capture “marketing moments” in your agency, meaning you market to your audience at just the right moment to help close a lead. If you’re just putting out marketing when you have the opportunity to, it might not get the best engagement. When we discuss marketing moments, what we mean is that you are communicating with your customers at just the right moment to help their relationship with your agency. For instance, if you see that a customer opened your email marketing campaign a second, or even third time (through the power of tracking your email marketing campaigns), then it’s time to pick up the phone and call them about what the email itself was discussing. That or, when it comes to your social media marketing strategies, you can capitalize on receiving more engagement from your audience by scheduling your posts to go out at specific times of the day for each individual network. Our team here at Paradiso Presents has put together a “cheat sheet” on when the best times to post are for each of our most commonly used networks, which you can see below.

Well folks, I hope this article has gotten you to stop and think about where your agency’s marketing is headed in 2017. You know what your customers, clients, and overall audience wants to see from you now, so it’s up to you to capitalize. To agents and brokers everywhere, I wish you the best of luck as we approach the New Year, and happy holidays overall!