February 15, 2024 • 30 mins
Embark on a compelling exchange about digital marketing strategies in this recent episode of Up to Speed with Micah from High Volt Digital. Discover why a robust online presence is indispensable in today's digital era. Learn about the influential role that SEO plays in enhancing business visibility and why a well-optimized website with quick load times, appealing visuals, and engaging content helps in attracting potential customers.
This discussion explores effective client communication techniques, the significance of maintaining a consistent presence across all digital platforms, smart ways to manage online reviews and enhance your agency's reputation. The episode emphasizes the fundamental value of high-quality customer service and recommendations for keeping open channels for customer reviews and feedback.
In a fascinating twist, this episode brings to light the importance of a balanced blend of traditional and digital marketing. Understand how being featured in niche publications while maintaining a solid digital presence can amplify your return on investment. The dialogue further uncovers the role of artificial intelligence in marketing and the necessity of staying compliant with online regulations. Tune in to elevate your marketing strategies and propel your insurance agency's growth in a digital-first business world.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Up to Speed, where we are talking to real-life insurance
personalities, people in the industry that are doing things.
And today we are joined with my friend Micah from High Bolt Digital to talk
about our digital marketing presence.
We're going to dive in. We're going to talk websites. We're going to talk direct
marketing, social media, Google searches, magazine print.
(00:30):
Is that still a thing? We are also going to dive into the concept of AI and
learn a little bit about that today. We're going to hit on some of the Department
of Insurance regulations as far as our websites go.
And, yeah, I'm excited to jump in. So let's go.
Let's do it. Let's do it. All right. So how important is a website for your
business as an insurance agency?
(00:51):
Problem number one, tell me what we need to know. Very important.
And why? The end. Okay. The end. It's very important.
One of the things that I found in working with a lot of insurance agents and
agencies is that a lot of them tell me that they are referral-based businesses.
And I think, honestly, the insurance
world is filled with referral-based insurance agents and agencies.
(01:12):
The issue is that that doesn't really truly exist anymore. There's no such thing
as someone who is only referral-based.
And the reason is because in the time it's taken to introduce talking to me,
I could have Googled you, found your reviews,
found your social media platform, decided already, if I like you,
learn more about you, learn what you offer, before you even finished with this
(01:33):
conversation, before you even finished talking to me. It's so quick.
Two seconds. Seconds, right? I can learn everything I want to know about a business. And I will.
So the idea is you have all this information in your pocket,
you have all this information in your phone, and there's just no reason not
to Google someone. And so everybody does it.
When you give your landscaper's information to me, I do not call your landscaper.
I Google your landscaper. Then I decide if I'm going to call your landscaper.
(01:56):
So even if you're a referral based agency, you do have to have some sort of
presence because the referral is going to Google you. They're going to Google
you. They're going to look.
They're going to Google you. And even if you don't have a presence, you do have a presence.
Your lack of a presence is a presence. People will notice that you're not around
or that you don't have reviews. They're going to notice all these things.
They're going to judge you for it. So some might still call. Right.
(02:18):
You know, you had a really good relationship with them. They're a friend,
a family member, or you just had a great conversation.
They might still decide to call. But you have no idea how much you're losing
because you don't know which one's decided not to call you.
I love it. I love it. And just to back up a little bit, your primary,
you know, a lot of what your business is, is working with insurance agencies.
So, you know what works, what doesn't work and what your clients are doing and,
(02:40):
you know, what you've transitioned your clients into to have a little bit more online success.
I remember this story of this one insurance agency that had,
I think, a free Google website. So it didn't have their picture,
didn't have anything on it.
No reviews, no nothing else. and we switched their website over.
We didn't do any marketing for it. All they wanted was the website. That was it.
Switched their website over. They got 15 to 20 new clients within,
(03:04):
I think, a period of a month and a half.
Keep in mind that was with no marketing. That's people who were already being
referred to them that were finally calling them that had not called them before.
Yeah. So I can't guarantee that for everybody. Of course, I don't think that
that's always going to be a universal because it's about referrals.
And that's not even doing anything, pushing it forward with any marketing.
I mean, that's just a quick sit. That's it. Like switcheroo.
(03:24):
So here's something I always like to know is like what type of stuff makes a successful website?
I mean, as an insurance agency, obviously you want to have the who,
what, when, where, why, you know, who you are, what you are,
what you do, where you're licensed.
But like what other kind of stuff is important?
Well, first of all, it has to be good on mobile. Most people are using their
phones and it has to be good on desktop as well. It has to be a site that looks nice on both.
(03:47):
Images, a human component is usually really useful, a picture of a person.
A lot of sites, again, they don't or maybe they have a very old one.
So a picture of a photo of your team, the individual lines of business,
as well as information about them.
Because again, if I go to an insurance agent's site and I don't see what I'm
looking for, even if they offer it, if I don't see it right away,
I might just assume they don't. They don't offer it. I leave.
(04:09):
Oh, let's see. There's, you know, just having a fast website that loads quickly,
good visual imagery, good content
throughout, and something that really speaks to them as a reader too.
Again, most people know what, for example, car insurance is.
So just like a thing that says, what is car insurance?
That's not going to sell them. They're not going to feel engaged with you.
You don't stand out in any specific way. You need to talk to them.
(04:30):
One of the things we talked about before we started recording today was just
how I am a person that has no attention span whatsoever.
So in the first three to five seconds, if I'm not like wowed or moved, I'm out. Right.
So, you know, I think having those key moments up front, quick and easy for
people to really see and identify with your brand quickly is I mean,
you do need to have the content and the words, you know, much bigger on other pages.
(04:53):
But on that front home page, really drawing people in and getting them right
then and there is. Yeah. Who you are, what you do.
I'm a big fan of, it's called header videos. So something that moves,
so like immediately engages the eyes, right?
If not header videos, then let's just say an imagery that's very colorful,
very saturated, something that really captures them, not something kind of grayed out and...
(05:15):
Sad. And yeah, I agree. And then you want exactly what you offer,
who you are immediately. We're talking the homepage.
Honestly, what you're saying, I would extend to the content on other pages as well.
There is this kind of, there's this war in the marketing world.
Do you have something really short or do you have something really long?
Yeah. And the truth is that you have both.
In the beginning, you capture their attention, tell them to call you,
(05:36):
get them interested right away.
And the people who aren't going to keep reading, they won't because you've got
a phone number, you've got a contact info, you've got what you do.
They've already gotten and what they need.
Then you can have longer content after that. The longer content is what shows
them, look, you are an expert. You know what you're talking about.
You didn't just throw this site together.
For people who do have questions, typically you try to answer those questions
in longer content. There are going to be people who keep reading.
(05:56):
Some people are short and sweet. Some people really like take the time.
Well, and also those words on the site are going to lead me into my next topic,
which is the SEO and the search optimization that when people do do Google you,
those words are the words that are going to pop and show up.
So how important are those keywords?
And like, let's just even back up because I am a salesperson.
(06:17):
I am not a internet, you know, I kind of fancy myself as smart in many areas.
This space is not one, right? I like something that looks good and could get me where I need to go.
But as far as what works as a marketing tool with Google and all these other
search engines, like what is the SEO?
What is how does it work like give
it to us so people do actually think that seo is is really complicated seo is
(06:43):
difficult to do but it's actually kind of easy to understand seo is essentially
does your site and everything around your site answer what someone wants and have trust,
to some excuse me do they give someone what they want and do they build trust
in such a way that that it tells both search engines and real people that you're
(07:04):
someone that they can trust with their business.
So if I'm doing SEO, what I need is I need information on the site that shows
that I'm an expert, both to the reader and to search engines, right?
That's where short and sweet doesn't quite cut it, right? You can't just do
like one sentence that says what you are, because even though that's short and
sweet, search engines have no idea you know what you're talking about.
(07:25):
So you do need to show search engines.
And similarly, people are actually exactly the same way.
Even though people like short and sweet. I mean, not everyone's a maniac like
me. No, it's not. It's not that.
No, what I'd say specifically is even you, okay?
Even someone who likes things short and sweet, I guarantee you if you went to
a website and all there was was one paragraph, your first instinct would be
this person probably doesn't know what they're talking about or they didn't
(07:48):
take any time to do this. You know, right?
Search engines are just like people. We make quick judgments. So do the algorithms.
So you have this content on the site that talks about a topic.
Again, a lot of people talk about
keywords. words, they're actually less relevant than they used to be.
What it really is, is content that focuses on the topic that you are talking about.
So if you are talking about a line of business, life insurance,
(08:09):
or even let's be more specific, limited pay, whole life insurance.
Talking about that topic, you don't even have to have the specific phrase you're targeting in there.
I think that one would occur naturally, but you don't necessarily have to.
You just have to make sure the content on your page is relevant to that key
term that you're targeting, even if you don't have the key term in there.
You write about it. You write about it as an expert, ideally in an engaging way.
(08:32):
And as you do that, you tell people and search engines, look,
I know what I'm talking about.
And you should consider listing me if someone searches for this specific key term.
God, I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. So now we're going to talk
about a little bit before we move into the social media and like that whole
digital moment. We've got our website.
Now we've got our current client base that all of us have as agencies.
(08:56):
And we want to stay in front of our current. We want to cross sell.
We want to say, hey, here's what we're doing. You know, check in. How is things?
How often should we be in front of our clients? Is that every week,
every other week, once a quarter, once a month?
Like what is effective when it comes to communicating with your current client base?
I would say as long as you have something to say that they're going to actually
(09:18):
care about, because that's actually the biggest issue.
You don't want to keep in touch with them for no reason, just to throw your
name out. Like, hey girl, hey, nobody wants that from their insurance agent.
Look, if they just purchased life insurance like just recently,
chances are they don't want to keep hearing about life insurance.
They just purchased it. They're not getting another product product tomorrow, right?
(09:38):
You want to be like in their minds, but you don't necessarily want to do it
all the time. I'd say that reaching out once a month is fine.
Again, if you have something to say in say newsletter form or whatever you want
to do once a month, I wouldn't do it very much more often than that,
unless there really is something that you think is a call to action.
Yeah. I mean, if you, if there's news that comes out a week later,
(09:59):
that's actually genuinely relevant or interesting, or you were a life insurance
agent and now you're offering health insurance and you you want people to know that, go ahead.
A week later, go ahead and email them. Go ahead and contact them however you want.
But if you're just trying to keep your name in front of them,
I really wouldn't do more than once a month, maybe once every two months.
I think it's interesting, too, for insurance people when they are the consumer,
you know, you and I both we have insurance, too.
(10:21):
I'm only thinking about insurance when I get a bill for it, when it's coming
up for renewal or because I'm irritated about something that's going on or I have a claim.
Right. I'm not really thinking about it all the time.
And so it's one of those things that's hard to, I don't know,
get in front of the consumer because unless it's off top of mind for them,
like you're probably at the end of their, are, you know, wanting to hear.
One thing I do think that's very interesting is there is a lot of talk about
(10:44):
insurance and there's a lot of talk in the news about insurance companies,
you know, with what's going on here in California and all these other states.
So me, you know, being one that can provide the information as to,
you know, what the legislatures are doing and the different topics.
I mean, that's a great way to stay in front of your clients because they want
to know what is going on because they're freaked out.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think that giving people updates that they wouldn't
(11:07):
know about otherwise, because as you say, they're not really paying that much
attention to the insurance world. I think that that's absolutely useful.
I also think that there's often specific products within the insurance space
that people don't think about that are absolutely relevant to people's lives.
I would say that, again, let's say with health insurance, for example, lump sum cancer care.
(11:28):
Those are rarely talked about. A lot of people I know don't even know they exist.
So throwing that out there, being like, by the way, this is there.
And that's going to tell people, oh, I actually do want that.
That's fantastic. Or I've never heard about it.
Or maybe, you know, maybe it just gets that one person who's just been diagnosed
or has someone in their family that's been, you know, going down that road.
Plenty of ways that an insurance agent could contact these people that they
(11:52):
would genuinely appreciate.
I mean, I think coming up with one every month or every two months,
coming up with some sort of topic that's relevant to them, easy. Absolutely.
But you also, Also, you recognize, you've seen your own inbox. You've got 100.
Well, some companies will just keep, like, you get so much, you're like, ugh, it's too much.
Exactly. You know, I'm not buying the same pants every day from the store I bought pants on.
(12:13):
I don't need to hear about them again. And really, I don't care that they're on a 10% sale.
I already bought them. I'm not buying them again. So, yes, there's definitely
way too many companies. There's spam also. We all get spam.
So, of course, that extra email that you got or that extra piece of mail that
you got in your mailbox, some of it's too much, right?
You can easily do too much. But if it's created, you know, intentionally with
(12:33):
good information that may connect with somebody, it's not. And,
you know, they're a warm body, if you will.
They're already your client. So by giving them a little bit more information,
I think, is okay, which is a total different animal than, you know,
when you're trying to go out there and get new business.
I mean, we're talking right now just about your current client base. Yeah.
So one of the other things I always find interesting, is it more effective to
(12:55):
send like a blast newsletter or to be more connected with a direct email,
you know, that's a little bit more personalized, you know, and how you can design
things, you know, because people can tell if this has been sent out to 9000
people or if it's really just specific to them.
I mean, do you see one being better than the other?
I'm personally a bigger fan of contacting people directly and really being friendly
(13:17):
with them. I do that in my own line of work.
And really, whenever I reach out to anybody, I really try to write it myself.
I stay actually away from newsletters.
But let's be honest, like the larger it is and the more people you got to contact,
that does get really difficult.
So that's where I'd say, like, just keep the focus on something that you know
is genuinely of interest to a lot of people.
And as long as you know it's of interest to a lot of people,
(13:38):
the newsletter is still fine.
Yeah, I like it. I like it a lot. But OK, now we're going to dive into the frightening,
exciting, scary place known as social media.
OK, there are so many different apps, things, all these different places of
where we can connect and get all the information. Some are great personal.
Some are great professional.
What is effective for an insurance agency? Is it Facebook, Instagram,
(14:01):
LinkedIn, Threads, you know, X, formerly known as Twitter? I mean,
where what is effective?
That's a great question. I think that there's a few components to that.
I'd say, first of all, of course, it's,
products you offer. You're going to be on LinkedIn if you're offering commercial insurance.
Facebook's not going to be a great place for that. You can still be on Facebook
again, but you don't need to put a bunch of resources to it.
(14:22):
I'd say the other question though is what are you willing to do consistently?
Because if you're not willing to do it consistently, people are going to think you died.
They're going to think your business went under. So if your last post was from
2022, it doesn't matter how great that post was.
They're going to worry that something's happened to you and they're not going
to trust you with their money. So I'd say that it is about what you could do consistently.
For example, video is is really popular, but video is hard to produce.
(14:44):
If you're not thinking that you're comfortable in front of a camera and creating
like little clips once a week, probably want to stay away from TikTok, right?
It's just not for you because it's clearly not something you can do with consistently.
It's very expensive to outsource to other people. A lot of people don't want
to spend that money. Probably don't do that.
Facebook, very simple to use, but Facebook also has tendencies now with their
(15:06):
algorithm to show you a bunch of junk and not show you what you you want to see.
So again, it's, are you willing to consistently post there? Really try to grow
an audience, maybe even pay for Facebook ads. So you get a little bit more views on your content.
If you're not willing to do that, you should still post on all of these,
maybe not TikTok, but you should post on all of these.
But you know, once every two weeks show people you're updated at minimum, that's fine.
(15:28):
You know, it's, do you want to spend a lot of resources on there?
It better be something that you can do consistently.
And it's gotta be something that you're going to put a lot of time into.
Well, and I think it elevates your brand for for sure, because you can touch
a ton of people really quickly.
It is a full time job to manage social media and to be consistent with it.
And it's, you know, hard to constantly like if it's not your wheelhouse,
(15:49):
which for many of us, it's not.
And it's like a whole area that just continues to change. Right.
Hashtag this and follow this. And oh, my gosh, it's a lot.
And it's a lot for people that are, you know, maybe more seasoned and have been
around. This is a whole new territory for a lot of people.
I mean, I've been in the business for 25 years and it's crazy and new to me.
(16:11):
And I'm like, you know, pretty, I'm kind of hip.
I mean, I think I'm kind of hip, but I realized when I see my young daughters, I'm not that hip.
And I think, too, that there are different avenues that are going to be more
profitable. So like LinkedIn is probably really great to touch on business clients, professionals.
But that's not to say that they're not on Facebook, too. Right.
And they're not, you know, they're maybe on Instagram as well.
(16:31):
So I do think it really just depends on.
What I would typically say is you should maintain a presence on all of them. Yeah.
In some form. That's why I said minimum once every two weeks on Facebook, quick posts.
Totally fine. If you're not willing or able to really invest a lot into Facebook,
just as an example, you You can still get by. A quick post takes you a few seconds.
It can be pre-programmed. You can set up a whole bunch in advance to run automatically.
(16:55):
Just get something on there. Make sure that you're staying active so people
can find you. They can remember your brand.
Then if you are thinking of actually like really investing resources in this,
as you said, it's a full-time job.
People make their entire careers out of being a Facebook member.
But it's also one of those things, too, that you can spend a little bit of money,
you know, 50, 60 bucks and touch a ton of people.
(17:15):
Yeah. you know, with a Facebook ad, once you start to kind of play around with it.
And there's a lot of ways that you can track the results, which is something
that if you don't know what you're looking at, it can be really overwhelming.
It's some of the programs are a little bit more user friendly than others,
but there are a lot of tools when it comes to social media and it's definitely
like evolving quite a bit.
One of the things as businesses that can be kind of problematic are online reviews.
(17:41):
Yes. Right. Because what happens a lot of times is most people aren't going online.
I mean, there are people that go online and sing your praises,
but sometimes people go online and just want to write nasty things about you
because it's easy for them to do that.
And how detrimental that can be to a small business and how you can boost your
more positive reviews without making it seem tacky to ask for them.
(18:03):
So do you have any like tactics that you kind of recommend to clients?
Because that shows up in the search engine too. Well, the first one is,
again, offer a customer service. I mean, let's be honest, honest,
I'm not going to name names.
I mean, if you're not good and you get, I mean, we can't help you.
There are people who have come to me and said, look, I offer great service to
have this review, but I really talked to him.
I'm like, I actually don't think you're offering the great service you think you are.
(18:24):
So first offer great service. Of course, that's going to get you positive reviews.
The second one is make sure that opportunities to review you are everywhere.
So on your email, you can actually link, like leave us a review on the bottom.
And it's not weird, right? No. Okay.
In fact, I would say that's having it essentially always available is actually
much less uncomfortable than emailing people directly.
(18:44):
But honestly, people are used to the emails. If you had someone you offer great
service to, they've sung your praises in an email and said, thank you so much.
You can write them back and say, you know, I really appreciate it.
You know, if you are willing to leave a Google review, here's the link,
I'd really appreciate it. No pressure, you don't have to.
Nobody looks down on that anymore. People completely understand it.
So I think everybody should do that, you know, and if they're comfortable with it.
(19:08):
And even if you're not, like I said, a little thing in your footer,
in your email signature, for example, that just said, did you enjoy the service? Leave us a review.
People are going to leave reviews. You get enough positive reviews,
you're going to really build your reputation.
Right. And so for a business that has no reviews or a few reviews,
one of the pieces of advice we may, you know, suggest is get some more reviews
(19:30):
because it will help boost your online presence when someone Googles you,
you know, that will come up and, you know, people can read that and people are reading it.
Oh, yeah. People are reading it, whether or not you like it or not.
It's sometimes the first thing that comes up, especially if you have a unique name.
Yeah. It's the first thing that will come up. Good to know. Good to know.
All right. Right. Let's talk about magazines, radio, newspaper. Is that a dead thing?
(19:51):
Are people still finding information that way? I want to say it's not.
It exists and it's a good way to find customers. It's not something that won't bring you in revenue.
What I'd say is you still have to pay attention to how much you're spending
on one thing and not the other.
And I know this This agent who was buying full page ads, three full page ads
(20:14):
in a magazine, a local magazine.
I don't know why you need more than one, but three full page ads in a magazine.
Aggressive. And had a free Google website.
Awful website. No marketing done at all. That's what I question.
I'd say, like, are you spending if you're spending four or five thousand dollars
on on on magazine ads and you don't even have a website, let alone an online marketing presence.
(20:34):
Probably not the best. It's not the best use of your funds. People are using
the Internet for essentially everything, as we discussed in the beginning.
People are using the Internet to Google you.
In fact, actually, after they see your magazine ad, I guarantee you they are
not calling right away. They are going to Google. They're going to go Google you.
So I'd say that they're not dead. But if you're on limited funding,
really limited, and you're like, oh, would this magazine ad be the best use
(20:56):
of my funds? Probably not.
I really think there's better things to put your money to. But I would never
as a marketer say don't advertise somewhere.
I mean, buy a bench ad for all I care. If you think that it'll get you people
and you can afford it, the more your name's out there, the better. You know, just...
Make sure that you recognize when you're not spending in other areas.
(21:16):
Yeah. I mean, one of our areas of focus was property always.
And so we made an effort to be in the property manager publications,
the, you know, apartment building groups across different cities.
That was always effective for us because it was targeted to what we were looking for.
So I guess one of the pieces of advice, too, if you know, because you probably
get called and hit up a lot by different, you know, when I started,
(21:39):
it was the Yellow Pages. Okay.
I don't even know if the Yellow Pages is still around anymore.
However, the, you know, there are a lot of different local magazines and things
that, you know, are always looking for advertisers.
So I think it, when you get approached, you know, if it makes sense financially,
make sure it's a right market for you.
You know, if you're selling personal lines and home and auto makes sense,
then being in the neighborhood that you live in might be a great fit.
(22:01):
Absolutely. Because you're going to be talking to people that see your picture
and go, oh, yeah, like I know her or I know him.
Yeah. So really finding like what works, I think, best for you is such a key element.
But again, and remember, too, that you they aren't going to call you right away.
So you do need to make sure you do still have a digital presence that speaks positively about you.
It doesn't need to be something that, you know, you're investing $10,000 in a month.
(22:24):
Right. It doesn't need to be a huge expense, especially if you're starting out.
That's just an impossibility. Yeah.
But just remember, they are going to Google you first. They are going to try
to learn more about you. And they need to find that you have good reviews.
You have a nice website. You have products that speak to them.
You're someone they can trust with what could be a significant amount of money
for them and their families.
And so you really have to be careful to make sure that, yes, go ahead and do the ad.
(22:49):
But don't just think the ad alone is what makes sense. Well,
and what I'm hearing, and I know this from personal experience,
it's consistency, right?
It's a constant staying in front, you know, whether it's just a little bit of
a newsletter, whether it's a little bit of a post online, whether it's,
you know, connecting with your clients to get that, you know,
wonderful Google or Yelp review.
It's consistency. And it's little bits that make a difference in the long run.
(23:11):
And you've got to be consistent with it.
Getting your brand out there. You're a brand and you need people to know you
exist and trust you. And the more you're out there in essentially all forms
consistently, the more people are going to recognize you.
They're going to know you exist and you can trust that they're going to call
and they're going to trust you.
They're going to realize that you are definitely someone that they can trust
with their products and their needs. I love it.
So in addition to the word SEO, I totally get freaked out when I hear the two
(23:37):
letters A and I together, right? Artificial intelligence.
This is all we hear about all the time in every industry.
And, you know, I attend a lot of different conferences and a lot of different
chats about insurance, where we're going, what's going on.
And it's a bus, right? We're constantly hearing these two letters put together.
What do they mean? What does this mean for us?
(23:58):
And how is it affecting our industry? You know, even from a marketing perspective,
like what is it looking like in your seat?
Yeah, I think it's probably easier for me to talk about it from a marketing perspective.
And what I'd say is that, first of all, one thing to understand is it's not
actually artificial intelligence.
It's actually an algorithm. It's just math.
It is determining what the next word will be in the content or whatever you might be doing.
(24:19):
Even the images that it creates, it's determining what the most likely next pixel is.
And it's putting those together. It's basically just math that took billions
of documents, billions of images, and figured out an algorithm to put it together.
So the first thing to understand is it's not— My head's spinning,
by the way. It's not thinking, right?
It's not—it doesn't even know what it's talking about because it's not talking.
(24:42):
So that's something really important to understand.
From the industry perspective, it's an interesting tool for productivity,
but honestly, its quality is actually still really poor. And it's likely to
be really poor for a while. It's grammatically perfect.
Grammatically, it's great. But in terms of engagement, there's no human element
(25:03):
in terms of understanding the experience of the reader, of the person who might be interested.
There isn't much there. there. So one of the only fearful things about AI that
I could imagine someone really caring about is it can crowd out a better content for people, right?
You grab something from AI and you throw it online.
And if it does rank, like if a big company does that, which is going to help it in search engines.
(25:27):
Nobody is going to be interested in that company when they read it.
It's really not going to be very good.
But it might crowd out the genuine information that you wrote.
So I'd say that there is reason to not be very happy about AI existing.
But if you're talking about in terms of like, well, is it going to be better
or can it replace what I could do?
(25:48):
Like what I as an insurance agent, if I'm writing a blog or I'm doing a quote
or I'm trying to inform people, can I replace it? It really can't. It's not that good. it.
It's really more of something that's like a fun quirk, right?
Where like, if you want to have it wrap in the style of, you know,
the wiggles, it's very good for that. And it's going to come up with something really funny.
(26:09):
If you're trying to have it market for you, you're going to need to be spending
as much time editing it as you could have done writing it.
So it's something that the only way that I would personally be concerned about
it as an insurance agent is is people using it to kind of gum up better content,
better information out there, not in terms of being actually offering something to the reader very much.
(26:30):
Right. And it totally does take your personality and who you are out of it.
It's completely gone. Like I was doing a newsletter for something else and I
just popped it in to see like, what does this look like?
And what came out was like, I would never speak like that, sound like that, you know?
And so I think there's probably some stuff that we can take that might be kind
of a cool tool. You know how it could be useful, for example,
(26:51):
if you're if you're a consistent blogger and you're really struggling to come
up with new topics just because you've you've come up with all the topics.
It's pretty interesting as a way to like maybe inspire.
Right. Like, oh, you know, I didn't think to talk about that. So it inspires me.
But you're still going to want to write it because actually the truth is that
people who work in the content world, as I do, we can always tell when something's
(27:12):
AI. It's actually extremely clear to us.
And it's going to be a personality list. it's not going to have much information
and it's not going to be as valuable as,
what you could do as someone as an expert in industry. So I would say that,
you know, if someone wants to play around with it in terms of inspiration or
to like kind of help them with trying to discover a topic, some or something interesting, go for it.
(27:35):
You know, I wouldn't stay away from any tool that is useful,
but I would be careful about relying on it.
And also the more it creates, the worse it's actually going to get because it
feeds its own answers into itself.
So it's actually going to get kind of worse over time. So don't rely on it too much.
But definitely, if you want to use it for some sort of purpose for productivity,
(27:55):
it's it can still be useful. Okay, I feel a little bit better.
I feel a little bit more, you know, wise when it comes to that.
One of the things that's important to when we are making our online presence
known is, you know, the Department of Insurance Regulations,
which do require us to have our license number on all of our websites,
our output, whether it's, you know, social media.
(28:16):
Your LinkedIn, anywhere where you're talking about insurance,
trying to drum up business about insurance, you got to have your license number on there.
It does need to be in that more than 10 font, which 10 font is like an ant.
I mean, maybe I'm just getting old and I can't see, but anyways,
you should have it everywhere.
And also with any states that you're doing business in, if you're licensed in
multiple states, you have to put your home state plus any of the states that
(28:38):
you're marketing out to. You got to put those license numbers in there.
And the other thing that's very interesting about websites is their ADA compliance,
which was something that I, you know, had a client have a situation and brought
this whole thing to my attention.
And that is a, is it a simple button that you can put on your website?
Yeah, mostly. Yeah. That yes, luckily now they create plugins.
(29:01):
They create things that are easy to use, thankfully. So you can easily just kind of plug in a plugin.
It'll provide essentially most of the ADA compliance you need.
You do still need to worry about some things like font size.
You don't want it to be too small.
You also need to consider alt text. Do you know what alt text is? No, I have no idea.
So people who are visually impaired, they use screen readers.
(29:22):
Yes, yes, yes. No, I do not know. On the images, yeah, you described the image.
Now, if it's purely decorative, it's not terribly important.
But if it is something that, like, you actually have a picture of something
that's very interesting or important for the piece, you're going to want to
have alt text in there so that someone with a screen reader can read it.
That's actually also somewhat of a legal requirement.
Yeah. So you want to make sure you have that on there as well.
(29:43):
God, Micah, you're brilliant. I can't say thank you enough.
We have dove in. I think we've unpacked and unpeeled a whole bunch of marketing
little tricks of the trade that can help us enhance that digital marketing presence
that we're all looking for.
Thank you for joining us today. And thank you for being up to speed.
Music.
Music.
(00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Up to Speed, where we are talking to real-life insurance
personalities, people in the industry that are doing things.
And today we are joined with my friend Micah from High Bolt Digital to talk
about our digital marketing presence.
We're going to dive in. We're going to talk websites. We're going to talk direct
marketing, social media, Google searches, magazine print.
(00:30):
Is that still a thing? We are also going to dive into the concept of AI and
learn a little bit about that today. We're going to hit on some of the Department
of Insurance regulations as far as our websites go.
And, yeah, I'm excited to jump in. So let's go.
Let's do it. Let's do it. All right. So how important is a website for your
business as an insurance agency?
(00:51):
Problem number one, tell me what we need to know. Very important.
And why? The end. Okay. The end. It's very important.
One of the things that I found in working with a lot of insurance agents and
agencies is that a lot of them tell me that they are referral-based businesses.
And I think, honestly, the insurance
world is filled with referral-based insurance agents and agencies.
(01:12):
The issue is that that doesn't really truly exist anymore. There's no such thing
as someone who is only referral-based.
And the reason is because in the time it's taken to introduce talking to me,
I could have Googled you, found your reviews,
found your social media platform, decided already, if I like you,
learn more about you, learn what you offer, before you even finished with this
(01:33):
conversation, before you even finished talking to me. It's so quick.
Two seconds. Seconds, right? I can learn everything I want to know about a business. And I will.
So the idea is you have all this information in your pocket,
you have all this information in your phone, and there's just no reason not
to Google someone. And so everybody does it.
When you give your landscaper's information to me, I do not call your landscaper.
I Google your landscaper. Then I decide if I'm going to call your landscaper.
(01:56):
So even if you're a referral based agency, you do have to have some sort of
presence because the referral is going to Google you. They're going to Google
you. They're going to look.
They're going to Google you. And even if you don't have a presence, you do have a presence.
Your lack of a presence is a presence. People will notice that you're not around
or that you don't have reviews. They're going to notice all these things.
They're going to judge you for it. So some might still call. Right.
(02:18):
You know, you had a really good relationship with them. They're a friend,
a family member, or you just had a great conversation.
They might still decide to call. But you have no idea how much you're losing
because you don't know which one's decided not to call you.
I love it. I love it. And just to back up a little bit, your primary,
you know, a lot of what your business is, is working with insurance agencies.
So, you know what works, what doesn't work and what your clients are doing and,
(02:40):
you know, what you've transitioned your clients into to have a little bit more online success.
I remember this story of this one insurance agency that had,
I think, a free Google website. So it didn't have their picture,
didn't have anything on it.
No reviews, no nothing else. and we switched their website over.
We didn't do any marketing for it. All they wanted was the website. That was it.
Switched their website over. They got 15 to 20 new clients within,
(03:04):
I think, a period of a month and a half.
Keep in mind that was with no marketing. That's people who were already being
referred to them that were finally calling them that had not called them before.
Yeah. So I can't guarantee that for everybody. Of course, I don't think that
that's always going to be a universal because it's about referrals.
And that's not even doing anything, pushing it forward with any marketing.
I mean, that's just a quick sit. That's it. Like switcheroo.
(03:24):
So here's something I always like to know is like what type of stuff makes a successful website?
I mean, as an insurance agency, obviously you want to have the who,
what, when, where, why, you know, who you are, what you are,
what you do, where you're licensed.
But like what other kind of stuff is important?
Well, first of all, it has to be good on mobile. Most people are using their
phones and it has to be good on desktop as well. It has to be a site that looks nice on both.
(03:47):
Images, a human component is usually really useful, a picture of a person.
A lot of sites, again, they don't or maybe they have a very old one.
So a picture of a photo of your team, the individual lines of business,
as well as information about them.
Because again, if I go to an insurance agent's site and I don't see what I'm
looking for, even if they offer it, if I don't see it right away,
I might just assume they don't. They don't offer it. I leave.
(04:09):
Oh, let's see. There's, you know, just having a fast website that loads quickly,
good visual imagery, good content
throughout, and something that really speaks to them as a reader too.
Again, most people know what, for example, car insurance is.
So just like a thing that says, what is car insurance?
That's not going to sell them. They're not going to feel engaged with you.
You don't stand out in any specific way. You need to talk to them.
(04:30):
One of the things we talked about before we started recording today was just
how I am a person that has no attention span whatsoever.
So in the first three to five seconds, if I'm not like wowed or moved, I'm out. Right.
So, you know, I think having those key moments up front, quick and easy for
people to really see and identify with your brand quickly is I mean,
you do need to have the content and the words, you know, much bigger on other pages.
(04:53):
But on that front home page, really drawing people in and getting them right
then and there is. Yeah. Who you are, what you do.
I'm a big fan of, it's called header videos. So something that moves,
so like immediately engages the eyes, right?
If not header videos, then let's just say an imagery that's very colorful,
very saturated, something that really captures them, not something kind of grayed out and...
(05:15):
Sad. And yeah, I agree. And then you want exactly what you offer,
who you are immediately. We're talking the homepage.
Honestly, what you're saying, I would extend to the content on other pages as well.
There is this kind of, there's this war in the marketing world.
Do you have something really short or do you have something really long?
Yeah. And the truth is that you have both.
In the beginning, you capture their attention, tell them to call you,
(05:36):
get them interested right away.
And the people who aren't going to keep reading, they won't because you've got
a phone number, you've got a contact info, you've got what you do.
They've already gotten and what they need.
Then you can have longer content after that. The longer content is what shows
them, look, you are an expert. You know what you're talking about.
You didn't just throw this site together.
For people who do have questions, typically you try to answer those questions
in longer content. There are going to be people who keep reading.
(05:56):
Some people are short and sweet. Some people really like take the time.
Well, and also those words on the site are going to lead me into my next topic,
which is the SEO and the search optimization that when people do do Google you,
those words are the words that are going to pop and show up.
So how important are those keywords?
And like, let's just even back up because I am a salesperson.
(06:17):
I am not a internet, you know, I kind of fancy myself as smart in many areas.
This space is not one, right? I like something that looks good and could get me where I need to go.
But as far as what works as a marketing tool with Google and all these other
search engines, like what is the SEO?
What is how does it work like give
it to us so people do actually think that seo is is really complicated seo is
(06:43):
difficult to do but it's actually kind of easy to understand seo is essentially
does your site and everything around your site answer what someone wants and have trust,
to some excuse me do they give someone what they want and do they build trust
in such a way that that it tells both search engines and real people that you're
(07:04):
someone that they can trust with their business.
So if I'm doing SEO, what I need is I need information on the site that shows
that I'm an expert, both to the reader and to search engines, right?
That's where short and sweet doesn't quite cut it, right? You can't just do
like one sentence that says what you are, because even though that's short and
sweet, search engines have no idea you know what you're talking about.
(07:25):
So you do need to show search engines.
And similarly, people are actually exactly the same way.
Even though people like short and sweet. I mean, not everyone's a maniac like
me. No, it's not. It's not that.
No, what I'd say specifically is even you, okay?
Even someone who likes things short and sweet, I guarantee you if you went to
a website and all there was was one paragraph, your first instinct would be
this person probably doesn't know what they're talking about or they didn't
(07:48):
take any time to do this. You know, right?
Search engines are just like people. We make quick judgments. So do the algorithms.
So you have this content on the site that talks about a topic.
Again, a lot of people talk about
keywords. words, they're actually less relevant than they used to be.
What it really is, is content that focuses on the topic that you are talking about.
So if you are talking about a line of business, life insurance,
(08:09):
or even let's be more specific, limited pay, whole life insurance.
Talking about that topic, you don't even have to have the specific phrase you're targeting in there.
I think that one would occur naturally, but you don't necessarily have to.
You just have to make sure the content on your page is relevant to that key
term that you're targeting, even if you don't have the key term in there.
You write about it. You write about it as an expert, ideally in an engaging way.
(08:32):
And as you do that, you tell people and search engines, look,
I know what I'm talking about.
And you should consider listing me if someone searches for this specific key term.
God, I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. So now we're going to talk
about a little bit before we move into the social media and like that whole
digital moment. We've got our website.
Now we've got our current client base that all of us have as agencies.
(08:56):
And we want to stay in front of our current. We want to cross sell.
We want to say, hey, here's what we're doing. You know, check in. How is things?
How often should we be in front of our clients? Is that every week,
every other week, once a quarter, once a month?
Like what is effective when it comes to communicating with your current client base?
I would say as long as you have something to say that they're going to actually
(09:18):
care about, because that's actually the biggest issue.
You don't want to keep in touch with them for no reason, just to throw your
name out. Like, hey girl, hey, nobody wants that from their insurance agent.
Look, if they just purchased life insurance like just recently,
chances are they don't want to keep hearing about life insurance.
They just purchased it. They're not getting another product product tomorrow, right?
(09:38):
You want to be like in their minds, but you don't necessarily want to do it
all the time. I'd say that reaching out once a month is fine.
Again, if you have something to say in say newsletter form or whatever you want
to do once a month, I wouldn't do it very much more often than that,
unless there really is something that you think is a call to action.
Yeah. I mean, if you, if there's news that comes out a week later,
(09:59):
that's actually genuinely relevant or interesting, or you were a life insurance
agent and now you're offering health insurance and you you want people to know that, go ahead.
A week later, go ahead and email them. Go ahead and contact them however you want.
But if you're just trying to keep your name in front of them,
I really wouldn't do more than once a month, maybe once every two months.
I think it's interesting, too, for insurance people when they are the consumer,
you know, you and I both we have insurance, too.
(10:21):
I'm only thinking about insurance when I get a bill for it, when it's coming
up for renewal or because I'm irritated about something that's going on or I have a claim.
Right. I'm not really thinking about it all the time.
And so it's one of those things that's hard to, I don't know,
get in front of the consumer because unless it's off top of mind for them,
like you're probably at the end of their, are, you know, wanting to hear.
One thing I do think that's very interesting is there is a lot of talk about
(10:44):
insurance and there's a lot of talk in the news about insurance companies,
you know, with what's going on here in California and all these other states.
So me, you know, being one that can provide the information as to,
you know, what the legislatures are doing and the different topics.
I mean, that's a great way to stay in front of your clients because they want
to know what is going on because they're freaked out.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think that giving people updates that they wouldn't
(11:07):
know about otherwise, because as you say, they're not really paying that much
attention to the insurance world. I think that that's absolutely useful.
I also think that there's often specific products within the insurance space
that people don't think about that are absolutely relevant to people's lives.
I would say that, again, let's say with health insurance, for example, lump sum cancer care.
(11:28):
Those are rarely talked about. A lot of people I know don't even know they exist.
So throwing that out there, being like, by the way, this is there.
And that's going to tell people, oh, I actually do want that.
That's fantastic. Or I've never heard about it.
Or maybe, you know, maybe it just gets that one person who's just been diagnosed
or has someone in their family that's been, you know, going down that road.
Plenty of ways that an insurance agent could contact these people that they
(11:52):
would genuinely appreciate.
I mean, I think coming up with one every month or every two months,
coming up with some sort of topic that's relevant to them, easy. Absolutely.
But you also, Also, you recognize, you've seen your own inbox. You've got 100.
Well, some companies will just keep, like, you get so much, you're like, ugh, it's too much.
Exactly. You know, I'm not buying the same pants every day from the store I bought pants on.
(12:13):
I don't need to hear about them again. And really, I don't care that they're on a 10% sale.
I already bought them. I'm not buying them again. So, yes, there's definitely
way too many companies. There's spam also. We all get spam.
So, of course, that extra email that you got or that extra piece of mail that
you got in your mailbox, some of it's too much, right?
You can easily do too much. But if it's created, you know, intentionally with
(12:33):
good information that may connect with somebody, it's not. And,
you know, they're a warm body, if you will.
They're already your client. So by giving them a little bit more information,
I think, is okay, which is a total different animal than, you know,
when you're trying to go out there and get new business.
I mean, we're talking right now just about your current client base. Yeah.
So one of the other things I always find interesting, is it more effective to
(12:55):
send like a blast newsletter or to be more connected with a direct email,
you know, that's a little bit more personalized, you know, and how you can design
things, you know, because people can tell if this has been sent out to 9000
people or if it's really just specific to them.
I mean, do you see one being better than the other?
I'm personally a bigger fan of contacting people directly and really being friendly
(13:17):
with them. I do that in my own line of work.
And really, whenever I reach out to anybody, I really try to write it myself.
I stay actually away from newsletters.
But let's be honest, like the larger it is and the more people you got to contact,
that does get really difficult.
So that's where I'd say, like, just keep the focus on something that you know
is genuinely of interest to a lot of people.
And as long as you know it's of interest to a lot of people,
(13:38):
the newsletter is still fine.
Yeah, I like it. I like it a lot. But OK, now we're going to dive into the frightening,
exciting, scary place known as social media.
OK, there are so many different apps, things, all these different places of
where we can connect and get all the information. Some are great personal.
Some are great professional.
What is effective for an insurance agency? Is it Facebook, Instagram,
(14:01):
LinkedIn, Threads, you know, X, formerly known as Twitter? I mean,
where what is effective?
That's a great question. I think that there's a few components to that.
I'd say, first of all, of course, it's,
products you offer. You're going to be on LinkedIn if you're offering commercial insurance.
Facebook's not going to be a great place for that. You can still be on Facebook
again, but you don't need to put a bunch of resources to it.
(14:22):
I'd say the other question though is what are you willing to do consistently?
Because if you're not willing to do it consistently, people are going to think you died.
They're going to think your business went under. So if your last post was from
2022, it doesn't matter how great that post was.
They're going to worry that something's happened to you and they're not going
to trust you with their money. So I'd say that it is about what you could do consistently.
For example, video is is really popular, but video is hard to produce.
(14:44):
If you're not thinking that you're comfortable in front of a camera and creating
like little clips once a week, probably want to stay away from TikTok, right?
It's just not for you because it's clearly not something you can do with consistently.
It's very expensive to outsource to other people. A lot of people don't want
to spend that money. Probably don't do that.
Facebook, very simple to use, but Facebook also has tendencies now with their
(15:06):
algorithm to show you a bunch of junk and not show you what you you want to see.
So again, it's, are you willing to consistently post there? Really try to grow
an audience, maybe even pay for Facebook ads. So you get a little bit more views on your content.
If you're not willing to do that, you should still post on all of these,
maybe not TikTok, but you should post on all of these.
But you know, once every two weeks show people you're updated at minimum, that's fine.
(15:28):
You know, it's, do you want to spend a lot of resources on there?
It better be something that you can do consistently.
And it's gotta be something that you're going to put a lot of time into.
Well, and I think it elevates your brand for for sure, because you can touch
a ton of people really quickly.
It is a full time job to manage social media and to be consistent with it.
And it's, you know, hard to constantly like if it's not your wheelhouse,
(15:49):
which for many of us, it's not.
And it's like a whole area that just continues to change. Right.
Hashtag this and follow this. And oh, my gosh, it's a lot.
And it's a lot for people that are, you know, maybe more seasoned and have been
around. This is a whole new territory for a lot of people.
I mean, I've been in the business for 25 years and it's crazy and new to me.
(16:11):
And I'm like, you know, pretty, I'm kind of hip.
I mean, I think I'm kind of hip, but I realized when I see my young daughters, I'm not that hip.
And I think, too, that there are different avenues that are going to be more
profitable. So like LinkedIn is probably really great to touch on business clients, professionals.
But that's not to say that they're not on Facebook, too. Right.
And they're not, you know, they're maybe on Instagram as well.
(16:31):
So I do think it really just depends on.
What I would typically say is you should maintain a presence on all of them. Yeah.
In some form. That's why I said minimum once every two weeks on Facebook, quick posts.
Totally fine. If you're not willing or able to really invest a lot into Facebook,
just as an example, you You can still get by. A quick post takes you a few seconds.
It can be pre-programmed. You can set up a whole bunch in advance to run automatically.
(16:55):
Just get something on there. Make sure that you're staying active so people
can find you. They can remember your brand.
Then if you are thinking of actually like really investing resources in this,
as you said, it's a full-time job.
People make their entire careers out of being a Facebook member.
But it's also one of those things, too, that you can spend a little bit of money,
you know, 50, 60 bucks and touch a ton of people.
(17:15):
Yeah. you know, with a Facebook ad, once you start to kind of play around with it.
And there's a lot of ways that you can track the results, which is something
that if you don't know what you're looking at, it can be really overwhelming.
It's some of the programs are a little bit more user friendly than others,
but there are a lot of tools when it comes to social media and it's definitely
like evolving quite a bit.
One of the things as businesses that can be kind of problematic are online reviews.
(17:41):
Yes. Right. Because what happens a lot of times is most people aren't going online.
I mean, there are people that go online and sing your praises,
but sometimes people go online and just want to write nasty things about you
because it's easy for them to do that.
And how detrimental that can be to a small business and how you can boost your
more positive reviews without making it seem tacky to ask for them.
(18:03):
So do you have any like tactics that you kind of recommend to clients?
Because that shows up in the search engine too. Well, the first one is,
again, offer a customer service. I mean, let's be honest, honest,
I'm not going to name names.
I mean, if you're not good and you get, I mean, we can't help you.
There are people who have come to me and said, look, I offer great service to
have this review, but I really talked to him.
I'm like, I actually don't think you're offering the great service you think you are.
(18:24):
So first offer great service. Of course, that's going to get you positive reviews.
The second one is make sure that opportunities to review you are everywhere.
So on your email, you can actually link, like leave us a review on the bottom.
And it's not weird, right? No. Okay.
In fact, I would say that's having it essentially always available is actually
much less uncomfortable than emailing people directly.
(18:44):
But honestly, people are used to the emails. If you had someone you offer great
service to, they've sung your praises in an email and said, thank you so much.
You can write them back and say, you know, I really appreciate it.
You know, if you are willing to leave a Google review, here's the link,
I'd really appreciate it. No pressure, you don't have to.
Nobody looks down on that anymore. People completely understand it.
So I think everybody should do that, you know, and if they're comfortable with it.
(19:08):
And even if you're not, like I said, a little thing in your footer,
in your email signature, for example, that just said, did you enjoy the service? Leave us a review.
People are going to leave reviews. You get enough positive reviews,
you're going to really build your reputation.
Right. And so for a business that has no reviews or a few reviews,
one of the pieces of advice we may, you know, suggest is get some more reviews
(19:30):
because it will help boost your online presence when someone Googles you,
you know, that will come up and, you know, people can read that and people are reading it.
Oh, yeah. People are reading it, whether or not you like it or not.
It's sometimes the first thing that comes up, especially if you have a unique name.
Yeah. It's the first thing that will come up. Good to know. Good to know.
All right. Right. Let's talk about magazines, radio, newspaper. Is that a dead thing?
(19:51):
Are people still finding information that way? I want to say it's not.
It exists and it's a good way to find customers. It's not something that won't bring you in revenue.
What I'd say is you still have to pay attention to how much you're spending
on one thing and not the other.
And I know this This agent who was buying full page ads, three full page ads
(20:14):
in a magazine, a local magazine.
I don't know why you need more than one, but three full page ads in a magazine.
Aggressive. And had a free Google website.
Awful website. No marketing done at all. That's what I question.
I'd say, like, are you spending if you're spending four or five thousand dollars
on on on magazine ads and you don't even have a website, let alone an online marketing presence.
(20:34):
Probably not the best. It's not the best use of your funds. People are using
the Internet for essentially everything, as we discussed in the beginning.
People are using the Internet to Google you.
In fact, actually, after they see your magazine ad, I guarantee you they are
not calling right away. They are going to Google. They're going to go Google you.
So I'd say that they're not dead. But if you're on limited funding,
really limited, and you're like, oh, would this magazine ad be the best use
(20:56):
of my funds? Probably not.
I really think there's better things to put your money to. But I would never
as a marketer say don't advertise somewhere.
I mean, buy a bench ad for all I care. If you think that it'll get you people
and you can afford it, the more your name's out there, the better. You know, just...
Make sure that you recognize when you're not spending in other areas.
(21:16):
Yeah. I mean, one of our areas of focus was property always.
And so we made an effort to be in the property manager publications,
the, you know, apartment building groups across different cities.
That was always effective for us because it was targeted to what we were looking for.
So I guess one of the pieces of advice, too, if you know, because you probably
get called and hit up a lot by different, you know, when I started,
(21:39):
it was the Yellow Pages. Okay.
I don't even know if the Yellow Pages is still around anymore.
However, the, you know, there are a lot of different local magazines and things
that, you know, are always looking for advertisers.
So I think it, when you get approached, you know, if it makes sense financially,
make sure it's a right market for you.
You know, if you're selling personal lines and home and auto makes sense,
then being in the neighborhood that you live in might be a great fit.
(22:01):
Absolutely. Because you're going to be talking to people that see your picture
and go, oh, yeah, like I know her or I know him.
Yeah. So really finding like what works, I think, best for you is such a key element.
But again, and remember, too, that you they aren't going to call you right away.
So you do need to make sure you do still have a digital presence that speaks positively about you.
It doesn't need to be something that, you know, you're investing $10,000 in a month.
(22:24):
Right. It doesn't need to be a huge expense, especially if you're starting out.
That's just an impossibility. Yeah.
But just remember, they are going to Google you first. They are going to try
to learn more about you. And they need to find that you have good reviews.
You have a nice website. You have products that speak to them.
You're someone they can trust with what could be a significant amount of money
for them and their families.
And so you really have to be careful to make sure that, yes, go ahead and do the ad.
(22:49):
But don't just think the ad alone is what makes sense. Well,
and what I'm hearing, and I know this from personal experience,
it's consistency, right?
It's a constant staying in front, you know, whether it's just a little bit of
a newsletter, whether it's a little bit of a post online, whether it's,
you know, connecting with your clients to get that, you know,
wonderful Google or Yelp review.
It's consistency. And it's little bits that make a difference in the long run.
(23:11):
And you've got to be consistent with it.
Getting your brand out there. You're a brand and you need people to know you
exist and trust you. And the more you're out there in essentially all forms
consistently, the more people are going to recognize you.
They're going to know you exist and you can trust that they're going to call
and they're going to trust you.
They're going to realize that you are definitely someone that they can trust
with their products and their needs. I love it.
So in addition to the word SEO, I totally get freaked out when I hear the two
(23:37):
letters A and I together, right? Artificial intelligence.
This is all we hear about all the time in every industry.
And, you know, I attend a lot of different conferences and a lot of different
chats about insurance, where we're going, what's going on.
And it's a bus, right? We're constantly hearing these two letters put together.
What do they mean? What does this mean for us?
(23:58):
And how is it affecting our industry? You know, even from a marketing perspective,
like what is it looking like in your seat?
Yeah, I think it's probably easier for me to talk about it from a marketing perspective.
And what I'd say is that, first of all, one thing to understand is it's not
actually artificial intelligence.
It's actually an algorithm. It's just math.
It is determining what the next word will be in the content or whatever you might be doing.
(24:19):
Even the images that it creates, it's determining what the most likely next pixel is.
And it's putting those together. It's basically just math that took billions
of documents, billions of images, and figured out an algorithm to put it together.
So the first thing to understand is it's not— My head's spinning,
by the way. It's not thinking, right?
It's not—it doesn't even know what it's talking about because it's not talking.
(24:42):
So that's something really important to understand.
From the industry perspective, it's an interesting tool for productivity,
but honestly, its quality is actually still really poor. And it's likely to
be really poor for a while. It's grammatically perfect.
Grammatically, it's great. But in terms of engagement, there's no human element
(25:03):
in terms of understanding the experience of the reader, of the person who might be interested.
There isn't much there. there. So one of the only fearful things about AI that
I could imagine someone really caring about is it can crowd out a better content for people, right?
You grab something from AI and you throw it online.
And if it does rank, like if a big company does that, which is going to help it in search engines.
(25:27):
Nobody is going to be interested in that company when they read it.
It's really not going to be very good.
But it might crowd out the genuine information that you wrote.
So I'd say that there is reason to not be very happy about AI existing.
But if you're talking about in terms of like, well, is it going to be better
or can it replace what I could do?
(25:48):
Like what I as an insurance agent, if I'm writing a blog or I'm doing a quote
or I'm trying to inform people, can I replace it? It really can't. It's not that good. it.
It's really more of something that's like a fun quirk, right?
Where like, if you want to have it wrap in the style of, you know,
the wiggles, it's very good for that. And it's going to come up with something really funny.
(26:09):
If you're trying to have it market for you, you're going to need to be spending
as much time editing it as you could have done writing it.
So it's something that the only way that I would personally be concerned about
it as an insurance agent is is people using it to kind of gum up better content,
better information out there, not in terms of being actually offering something to the reader very much.
(26:30):
Right. And it totally does take your personality and who you are out of it.
It's completely gone. Like I was doing a newsletter for something else and I
just popped it in to see like, what does this look like?
And what came out was like, I would never speak like that, sound like that, you know?
And so I think there's probably some stuff that we can take that might be kind
of a cool tool. You know how it could be useful, for example,
(26:51):
if you're if you're a consistent blogger and you're really struggling to come
up with new topics just because you've you've come up with all the topics.
It's pretty interesting as a way to like maybe inspire.
Right. Like, oh, you know, I didn't think to talk about that. So it inspires me.
But you're still going to want to write it because actually the truth is that
people who work in the content world, as I do, we can always tell when something's
(27:12):
AI. It's actually extremely clear to us.
And it's going to be a personality list. it's not going to have much information
and it's not going to be as valuable as,
what you could do as someone as an expert in industry. So I would say that,
you know, if someone wants to play around with it in terms of inspiration or
to like kind of help them with trying to discover a topic, some or something interesting, go for it.
(27:35):
You know, I wouldn't stay away from any tool that is useful,
but I would be careful about relying on it.
And also the more it creates, the worse it's actually going to get because it
feeds its own answers into itself.
So it's actually going to get kind of worse over time. So don't rely on it too much.
But definitely, if you want to use it for some sort of purpose for productivity,
(27:55):
it's it can still be useful. Okay, I feel a little bit better.
I feel a little bit more, you know, wise when it comes to that.
One of the things that's important to when we are making our online presence
known is, you know, the Department of Insurance Regulations,
which do require us to have our license number on all of our websites,
our output, whether it's, you know, social media.
(28:16):
Your LinkedIn, anywhere where you're talking about insurance,
trying to drum up business about insurance, you got to have your license number on there.
It does need to be in that more than 10 font, which 10 font is like an ant.
I mean, maybe I'm just getting old and I can't see, but anyways,
you should have it everywhere.
And also with any states that you're doing business in, if you're licensed in
multiple states, you have to put your home state plus any of the states that
(28:38):
you're marketing out to. You got to put those license numbers in there.
And the other thing that's very interesting about websites is their ADA compliance,
which was something that I, you know, had a client have a situation and brought
this whole thing to my attention.
And that is a, is it a simple button that you can put on your website?
Yeah, mostly. Yeah. That yes, luckily now they create plugins.
(29:01):
They create things that are easy to use, thankfully. So you can easily just kind of plug in a plugin.
It'll provide essentially most of the ADA compliance you need.
You do still need to worry about some things like font size.
You don't want it to be too small.
You also need to consider alt text. Do you know what alt text is? No, I have no idea.
So people who are visually impaired, they use screen readers.
(29:22):
Yes, yes, yes. No, I do not know. On the images, yeah, you described the image.
Now, if it's purely decorative, it's not terribly important.
But if it is something that, like, you actually have a picture of something
that's very interesting or important for the piece, you're going to want to
have alt text in there so that someone with a screen reader can read it.
That's actually also somewhat of a legal requirement.
Yeah. So you want to make sure you have that on there as well.
(29:43):
God, Micah, you're brilliant. I can't say thank you enough.
We have dove in. I think we've unpacked and unpeeled a whole bunch of marketing
little tricks of the trade that can help us enhance that digital marketing presence
that we're all looking for.
Thank you for joining us today. And thank you for being up to speed.
Music.
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