The Top 10 Reasons Why Every Insurance Agency Needs A Website
You have a lot on your plate when you operate an Insurance Agency. You must balance the budgets, pay your staff, manage your workforce, keep your customers satisfied, purchase supplies, deal with vendors, and much more! You may be required to do all of these tasks on the same day. It’s annoying! An Insurance Agency owner of any size doesn’t need anything else on their plate.
More things, unfortunately, fall into the laps of Insurance Agency owners as the way businesses do business changes. To their many responsibilities, they now have to add marketing and web design. Many people will simply give up at this point. On top of all of their other responsibilities, no one has time to do everything those jobs entail.
It doesn’t have to be a pain in the neck to establish your own website. You may employ a marketing firm to meet with you, find out exactly what you require, and assist you in achieving your professional objectives. Working with a marketing firm to develop your website saves you the time and effort of attempting to do it yourself. You no longer have to stress about finding the ideal template, selecting a hosting firm, or selecting a marketing automation solution, among other things. You have a professional who will take care of everything so you can focus on what you do best…running your Agency.
Let’s look at why your Insurance Agency needs a website and how to select a marketing firm and designer who genuinely cares about your success.
1. Provides Your Insurance Agency With A Professional Appearance.
While almost any Insurance agent can start a business, having a website formalizes it. Websites are more official than a business card! Having a website for your agency communicates to the rest of the world that you are serious about what you do. You can use your website to highlight your products, employees, and the benefits of doing business with you.
Consider things from the perspective of a consumer. Who do you think they’ll select if they locate two Insurance agencies on the internet, but only one has a website? Who is going to make the best first impression? It will almost always be an Insurance Agency that has a website. Especially in a time where most people now prefer to just look up things online. If you’re not online, it’s like you don’t exist.
However, you can’t just publish anything on the internet and expect it to succeed. A terrible website may be almost as bad as having no website at all. It might also be a turnoff if your website does not communicate effectively with your clients or is not user-friendly. Collaborate with a marketing agency or a web design firm to develop a site that will benefit both your Agency and your consumers. They can add social networking links, email registration, blogs, product offers, and whatever else you might think of to your website.
This type of one-stop-shop for all things linked to your business will make a great impression on potential and existing consumers, as well as help you get new ones.
2. Helps you grow your Agency by expanding your reach beyond your current customer base.
You can add options for referrals to your website on service(s) you don’t provide. By getting referrals for products that you don’t offer yourself but still can earn something on by referring it to someone else and helping your customer find the service they need is like hitting two birds with one stone. All this can be done from your website simply and easily.
3. Gives you a quick and easy way to market your Agency and build your brand.
Marketing and branding are two areas where an Agency’s effort and money can be wasted. When you have a website, it might help you with some of the marketing. A well-designed website projects the right picture of your Agency and can contain a page with the latest promotions, deals, and other pertinent information. Instead of contacting all of your clients to inform them or sending out postcards, send out an email blast with a link to your website.
Maintaining an up-to-date website will also save you money. You may use your website instead of spending money on brochures, catalogues, or other printed products. This allows you to make changes and updates in the moment without having to worry about printing expenses.
An Agency’s marketing budget can quickly deplete. However, if you use these funds properly on a functional website, your Insurance Agency may save thousands of dollars on printed brochures. This is not only less expensive, but it is also better for the environment. A website is an excellent way to put your marketing money to good use.
4. Allows you to stand out from the crowd.
You develop your narrative as you build your Insurance Agency. What distinguishes your brand from the rest is a method to set yourself out from the competition. Your website serves as the medium via which you may tell that tale. Anything on your website that might assist a customer connect with your organization and understand why you do what you do should be included. You can include information such as any credentials you have or how long you’ve been in Insurance Agency.
Unfortunately, as we mentioned earlier in this article, only around half of Insurance Agency owners have a website online. Having a website is another approach to distinguish yourself apart from others in your field. This will not only set you apart, but it will also provide you a competitive advantage.
5. Assist You in Keeping Your Business Relevant
In the present economic climate, doing business is difficult. There is more competition now than there has ever been. We are no longer restricted by physical limits thanks to the internet. Every conceivable opportunity must be used by a wise Agency owner. Having a website will assist you in doing so. A well-designed website may provide you a competitive advantage over your competitors while also promoting
your brand. A website, at the absolute least, lets you and your rivals compete on an even playing field. People won’t know who you are or be able to find you unless you have a website.
Don’t get me wrong: social media is preferable to doing nothing at all. In today’s world, having no internet presence isn’t going to cut it. However, having a Facebook profile isn’t enough. It’s a good start, but a website is required to keep your Insurance Agency in front of customers’ thoughts. You can’t be relevant if people don’t know who you are or where they can find you.
6. Customers won't find your business if you don't have a web presence.
What do you believe is the first thing people do when they start looking for a product or an Insurance Agency that delivers a certain service/product? They used to resort to the phone book, look through the newspaper or perhaps ask their friends and relatives for references until a few years ago. Now people can just do an internet search as their initial step (or ask for tips on social media). Google has evolved into the modern-day telephone directory.
According to statistics, about 90% of buyers start their purchase trip by performing comparison shopping and research on the internet. These searches have an influence on their purchasing decisions. How would customers know you sell what they’re seeking for if you don’t have a website? Your sales will suffer as a result of your absence of a website.
Websites may also assist your business gain more foot visitors. If someone is looking for local camping stores to check who offers a specific brand of cooler and comes across your website, they may not want to buy it. They might want to come in and have a look. If that’s the case, you have an opportunity to win a new customer and upsell them on further trip-related items. Without a website, none of this would have been possible.
7. Gives your Insurance Agency credibility and a good first impression
So much of today’s business starts with online interactions. In today’s environment, your website is the first impression you make on clients. Even if you have a physical business, you still want to deliver excellent service to everyone who enters through your doors. However, you must consider the possibility that they have already checked you out online. Your website now serves the same purpose that smiles and pleasantries did when you first walked into a store.
8. Lead Generation And Growing Your Email List
Majority of people can agree on this, we all receive an excessive number of emails. We are apprehensive to disclose our email address to stores when they ask for it. Even from stores from whom we already receive emails, we prefer not to provide it to them again. We get anxious, fearful that we may receive even more emails from them. Some people have a separate email address to which Agencies may send their “junk emails.” When it comes to email marketing tactics and best practices, Agencies have a lot to learn. Sales communications should not make customers feel so overwhelmed. But that may be the subject for another time.
There are a variety of tools you can integrate into your website to assist you in collecting emails from visitors. Pop-up forms might help your business generate even more income. They will vary in price, but most will be quite affordable. Following up on capturing a new email address and sending a welcome email to your new prospect.
You don’t have to worry about doing this yourself once again. Having an agency set everything up for you or employing an email automation service can take care of such issues. You might be interested in utilizing HubSpot or Mailchimp as a marketing tool. These types of tools can send welcome emails to anybody who registers up on your website automatically. They can also handle all your existing email contacts and send segmented emails to each of them. This is a much easier and more functional alternative compared to printing out paper and mailing labels, or a great add-on as almost everyone has an email these days.
9. Websites for businesses allow you to appear in local search results.
A website provides you with additional benefit thanks to Google’s search algorithms. You will appear in their local pack of results if you have a website. When consumers search for “coffee shops in (insert particular neighborhood here),” they receive results for that neighborhood. You won’t appear in their local search results if you don’t have a local website. Not appearing in those search results is just another setback for your sales and profits. You can’t adopt a hands-off attitude to increasing your Insurance Agency’s sales. It’s just too competitive now to sit back and wait for clients to come to you.
Local SEO (search engine optimization) abilities come into play when it comes to local search results. Hearing those phrases should not make you anxious or afraid. SEO stands for search engine optimization, and it refers to the methods used to improve your site’s ranking in Google. Your marketing agency will utilize targeted words while building your website to assist you appear in local search results. They will incorporate phrases like “BEST INSURANCE AGENCY IN (state)” or ” BEST ENROLLMENT PLATFORM FOR MEDICARE” in your written content to improve your rankings and discoverability. They’ll also double-check that you’ve claimed your Google Business listing and that all the information is up to date.
10. Hours of operation are 24/7 when you are online
A convenient thing these days is the ability to do things online anytime, anywhere and any day. You may not be open during the Holidays or after-hours but with a website your Agency is always open. Many people don’t always have the time to call or visit your office during your working hours and perhaps nights and/or weekends may be the best time for them, how can you help them? By having a website online, YOU don’t have to. The options you can add to your Agency website these days are limitless from consumer self-rating and binding (depending on the insurance companies you work with), payment portals, service requests or FAQs. You can decide how self-functioning you want your website to really be. Whether you have a staff of 1 or a staff of 10, you do not need to work all day and night if you have a properly set up website online. This can save money on employee costs, training time and of course the goal of every business – make you more money.
As an Agency owner the thought of not paying a salary or someone by hour but still be able to service your clients any time of day sounds nice, but how can this be done? This is where working with an experienced marketing firm that knows the industry you are in can be very beneficial, the firm can get your online agency up and running smoothly and efficiently with no additional headaches to you. As an Agency owner one already has enough on their plate.