A Lesson in Local Search Visibility

Marketing Sherpa recently posted a chart illustrating the growing importance of local search. As noted here before, most insurance agencies have not

caught on to this business source.  And those insurance agents who have not taken the simple step of claiming and optimizing their local listings in Google, Yahoo and Bing, are losing money because of that.  And that lost income may be substantial.  In the last two days I have had an interesting phone call with a Midwestern insurance agent and reviewed local search results for 41 established insurance agencies.

My Midwest agent mentioned that she had recently picked up a $60,000 commercial lines account.  When she asked the client how they found her agency he said he did a web search and chose the agency with the most professional web site.  Moral of the story:  if you can’t be found, even an astonishing website won’t help you.

The 41 agencies I reviewed are all well established agencies; most have more than 10 employees and are located in a variety of communities:  urban, suburban and rural.  I should note that these insurance agencies are regarded as top quality by their competitors and are highly sought after by insurance companies seeking representation.  All of them have aggressive commercial lines growth objectives.  I did a Google search to see how visible these agencies might be to business insurance prospects in their market areas.  I gave each agency an unfair advantage by using the zip code of the agency location as take from an insurance company agency locator*.  Here’s how these agencies ranked for a search on ‘business insurance zip code’.

Only 7 of the 41 agencies had claimed their listing in the Google Local Business Center; of those, four had a number 1 ranking in the local listing, and two ranked in the top 10, just outside the 7 pack.  34 agencies had not claimed their local listing at all so the information Google ranked on and displayed was derived from third party sources like Info USA.  Two of those 34, who were located in small towns, fortuitously showed up in the 7 pack and another rural agent made the top 10.

Even the agencies that claimed their listing in the Google Local Business Center could have taken greater advantage of the details Google allows businesses to provide, like company representation, key products and insurance coverage provided, photos and video. But the most striking thing about this graphic is that 73% of the agencies just don’t show up (see the red and yellow regions).

Even quality insurance agencies could be competing a lot more effectively for new business and local search is possibly the most budget-friendly item missing from agency marketing repertories.

Insurance agencies can learn more about local search through a free webinar offered by Confluency Solutions.

*Insurance agencies who are providing P. O. box zip codes to directories and agency locators are often not doing themselves any favors with local search.

This screen shot of the local search portion of a Google search for ‘insurance chattanooga, tn’ points up the problem for insurance agencies.  Why are four of the 7 pack spots occupied by doctors?

The answer is because no local agencies have optimized their local listing in the Google Local Business Center.  Most haven’t even claimed their free listing.  I have seen local SERPs with attorneys, body shops and even Wal-Mart’s Vision Center better positioned than local insurance agents.  An individual searching on the word insurance is far more likely to be seeking an insurance provider than eye or medical care – and Google would like to provide options that fit a searcher’s objectives.  But even Google needs a little help from time-to-time.  This oversight committed by most insurance agents provides a golden opportunity for others.  Confluency Solutions is conducting a free webinar for insurance agents on April 22.  If you want to boost your agency’s search visibility, and write more new business,  you might want to think about signing up and sitting in.

The Insurance Journal posted an article yesterday, summarizing the main reasons why insurance agents aren’t adopting social media as a communication tool. I think it is worth commenting on each….

Some agencies are concerned about the errors and omissions risks that might arise out of the use of social media outlets…

E&O exposures can be managed to zero – if your insurance agency is willing to go out of business. On the other hand, E&O exposures can shoot through the roof if agencies don’t manage their communication policies at all. Somewhere between going out of business by practicing absolute avoidance and going out of business by not controlling E&O is a level of Errors and Omissions exposure that can be acceptably managed. That management should start with a policy, include staff training and monitoring of communications. Social media, including blogs, Facebook, Twitter and the like, are communication tools, just like the telephone, snail mail and email they should be managed the same way.

Many agents are reluctant to blog because they view themselves as insurance people, not writers….

All businesses – insurance agencies included – are in the business of acquiring customers, keeping them, and maximizing customer value by doing as much business as possible with each customer. There are numerous and varied techniques for getting new business and developing customers but one thing all tactics share in common is communication; without communication, no business gets done. Insurance agents need to know about insurance products and coverage if they are to provide professional counsel to customers and prospects (besides, licensing pretty much requires it) but that counsel won’t be received unless agents can communicate effectively. Increasingly, people use social media to communicate all kinds of things. Taking a head-in-the-sand approach to social media will eventually lead to deteriorating business results – even for insurance people.

Some (insurance agents) see social media as just fad…

MySpace used to be the leader in the U.S. in online social networking until it was supervened by Facebook. LinkedIn is the leading business social networking tool among Americans but it is being challenged by the Europe’s leading social network Xing. Twitter is a johnny-come-lately; maybe it will be a force a year from now, maybe not. The point is this: individual social media services may be fads but social media, as a communication trend, is clearly not.

A recent survey from Forrester Research suggests independent insurance agents need to have a little more fun.  Consider:  ‘When it comes to “enjoyable,” consumers rated independent agents “poor,” but gave them “good” ratings for “meets needs” and “easy to work with.”’  Well, two out of three ain’t bad, but what if your agency could cancel out that insurance dread and score 3 out of 3?  This low ‘fun’ score is precisely why insurance agents find it so challenging to come up with social media content – social media is all about fun, and…well, socializing.

Who was #1 on the enjoyable list?  USAA.  USAA is a unique animal, to be sure, but there is something to be learned from their Facebook page.  I just scanned their currently displayed wall, top to bottom.  Nowhere did I see a we-can-save-you-money sales pitch or read a dreadful claims scenario wherein someone found out they didn’t have the right insurance.  USAA understands that Facebook isn’t a medium for the hard sell…it’s for fun.

For years now, I have had insurance agent after insurance agent admit – sheepishly – that they were not ‘fully utilizing’ their agency management system.  Don’t feel bad – you have company.  Back in November of 2009 Wired.com noted in their Gadget Lab blog that the iPhone App Store Apps hit six digits.  More recently, the NY Times suggested that the average iPhone owner actually uses only 5 – 10 apps with any regularity.  Out of over 100,000.  Yet no one accuses iPhone users of ‘under utilizing’ their devices because the assumption is that each individual iPhone user gravitates to the apps that are most useful for that individual.

Independent insurance agencies have a wide range of feature options, not only with their agency management systems, but with other technology tools like email, websites, and mobile devices.  So, if there is a shortcoming that insurance agents are guilty of, it probably isn’t under utilizing the technology available to them, but rather, the shortcoming may be not choosing the right five or ten tech features that help achieve agency growth and profit objectives.

Snowstorms, Social Media, Your Insurance Agency

Snowpocalypse: When weathermen predict large amounts of snowfall in a short period of time – Urban Dictionary

Snowmageddon: President Barack Obama’s term for the February snowstorm that shut down Washington, D.C.; or End of (school) Days due to an excessive snowfall event.*

What does any of this have to do with insurance?  Surely, if your insurance agency is located in an area experiencing a snowpocalypse, you have an insurance story to tell.  Maybe it’s how your staff were able to work from home to help clients with claims issues, or a heroic trip into the office to be there for your agency customers at a time they might be more likely to need your services.  Making the connection between a weather event and what is going on with your agency, your staff, and your customers is an easy blog or Face Book riff.  You don’t need to write a new chapter for War and Peace every time you post to Social Media.  And who knows what kind of interest your short post might engender, particularly if you can add a photo or video?

*Note:  Snowmageddon was the number 1 trend on Twitter at one point during the February, 2010 snowstorm

What is it that makes Apple’s iPhone, iMac, iTunes, and other products so wildly successful and easy to use.  One suggestion, quoted in a recent NY Times article, is that they are ‘disease’ free; that is, none of these devices is afflicted with ‘featuritis’.

“A defining quality of Apple has been design restraint,” says Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster and consultant in Silicon Valley…They are edited products that cut through complexity, by consciously leaving things out — not cramming every feature that came into an engineer’s head, an affliction known as “featuritis” that burdens so many technology products.

We see insurance agents struggling under the weight of management system features; independent agents have the freedom to represent any insurance company that will sign a contract; to launch a facebook page or twitter feed; agents can build and manage their own websites without worrying about restrictions imposed by one mother-ship product supplier.  But does all this freedom of choice lead to featuritis?  What is the minimum feature set delivering maximum benefit for independent insurance agents?  What do they need from the companies they represent, the marketing programs they choose, website solution and social media options…what is that minimum set of features that is super simple to use and provides the most important set of benefits in such a way that it would make Apple wish they had come up with the answer?

About 18 months ago, Google published a survey that showed that about 70% of the time, consumers finding the name of a business in a print medium next went to the web to learn more about that businesses’ products or services.  These consumers turn out to be highly motivated, with nearly 70% purchasing a product or service – from someone.  Also about 70% of the time (nice symmetry: 70:70:70), those consumers consummate the sale, not online, but over the phone or in person.

Just this week, Wells Fargo published some survey results about their insurance customers and the findings were similar:  customers, particularly those in their 30′s, research insurance online before purchasing.  For simple insurance products, like renters insurance, those consumers are willing to buy online.  But for more complicated insurance, like car insurance, people want to talk to someone before buying.  Spokesperson Melanie Donaghy noted, “when it comes to purchasing, people want an agent to talk to before making the final buy..if auto were as easy as renters insurance we would see more purchases online…”

There are a few obvious take-aways for independent insurance agents:

1.  Lack of a quality website will impair sales (a finding also corroborated by PIA studies)

2.  You should not use your agency website as a barrier between your people and the prospective customer; that is, don’t make them fill out on line forms – give them a choice

3.  You should make it clear on your website that you welcome calls

4.  If you want to measure the sales contribution made by your website, you have to ask call in prospects how they found you or if they visited your website before they called

This Marketing Sherpa Chart of the Week provides an interesting context through which to view your insurance agency website analytics and lead management results.  Not all website inquiries turn into leads, but this chart suggests  that a healthy proportion could, and probably should.  If you are getting a lot of traffic but little sales activity, then some page redesign may be in order.  Of course, you have to be able to track lead sources first, especially since a significant proportion of web-sourced quote opportunities ultimately arrive by phone.

What this chart suggests is that, if you get 100 new visitors to your insurance agency website, 38 of them would graduate to sales-ready lead status; indicators of this might be signing up for a newsletter, staying on  your website more than two minutes, viewing 4 or more pages, or visiting a specific page to view a video or use an interactive tool.  All of this can be measured through site analytics.  Generally, you would define someone as a prospect when you have a chance to quote.  If the chart above is representative of your agency then of the original 100 web inquiries, you would have a chance to quote on about 15 (100 times 38% times 39%); again, these quotes might happen by phone or they might come through the website.  Ultimately, for every 100 new visitors, assuming site design helps people graduate to lead status, you would write about 4 new customers.

Not all visits are new, but if we assume that site visits breas down in a 60% customer visits, 40% new consumers visits ratio, then 500 unique visitors to your website in a month should beget between 8 and 9 new customers.  Additionally, some of your customer traffic should result in new sales as well, particularly if you are directing customers to website insurance resources through links in monthly e-mail newsletters.  We consistently hear from agents that about 1 new policy is written each month from e-newsletter campaigns for each 100 emails.

So, what would a modestly promoted website do for an small agency sending out 500 emails each month?  If 1.5 policies are written for each new customer and that number is added to the customer development policies sales resulting from just the e-newsletters, monthly totals would stack up like this:

14 policies per month from new customers
5 policies per month from existing customers
19 new policies each month purely from web sources

That’s 228 new insurance policies a year; not enough to turn your independent agency into a e-marketing phenom, but generally enough to feed one of your carrier commitments for the year, and the extra $35,000 – $75,000 in commission revenue (recurring, by the way) is a nice addition to the bottom line.

One more thought before I go:  independent surveys performed by comScore and Google all suggest that between 70% and 80% of consumers will go to the web after seeing an ad for insurance.  The more traditional advertising and direct mail you do, the more site visits you should see – if your campaign is effective.  What happens to those inquiries, that is, how many convert to leads and prospects, has a lot to do with landing page design.  So if you are going to spend a significant amount of money on an ad campaign, it makes sense to put a little time into designing and testing a landing page for that campaign.  If you do, you can maintain or improve upon the inquiry –> sales conversion rates shown in the chart and achieve a much higher ROI for a traditional advertising campaign.

A new blog can be set up in a snap.  You can add a Facebook page for your insurance agency in just a few minutes.  Your insurance agency can prove it is in the know by setting up a Twitter profile.  Starting a social media account is easy.  Keeping up your shiny new blog or Facebook profile takes time, so much time, that most blogs quickly fall silent; in 2008 Technorati – the blog devoted to blogs – found that of the over 130 million blogs they tracked, only 5% had been updated in the last five months.

Deriving real business benefit from social media takes even more effort, and likely some cost, despite all the pundits who extol the virtues of this fee medium.  There is no doubt that blogging and Tweeting can add first stage SEO benefits for your insurance agency if you put the time and effort into these communication tools.  But what about the benefit of attracting a legion of loyal friends and fans to your social media space?  This may be most difficult of all for an insurance agency.

This week, Marketing Sherpa published a chart showing why consumers become fans of businesses.  While all of the reasons people friend businesses can be leveraged by insurance agencies, the top two, “Learn about new products and features” and “Learn about specials and sales” can probably be ruled out.

Why Consumers Become Fans of Businesses

( Note:  Max Connectors are defined as people with over 500 ‘connections’)

Insurance regulation prohibits discounts and sales, so unless you can be really creative, you are going to be hard pressed to post any content in this category that will attract a consumer following.  There is plenty of product innovation taking place in the insurance industry, as those of us working in the business know, but new product features and services tend to hold interest only to industry insiders.  That new coverage provision just can’t mesmerize the populace the way the newest iPhone, Windows operating system, or hybrid sports car can.

The remaining two content categories – “Company Culture” and “Entertainment” are probably rich enough to provide a thematic basis for your insurance agency social media content, but regularly posting this type of compelling content isn’t something most of us have been prepared to do.

I’m not suggesting that leveraging social media for the business benefit of your agency isn’t a strategy you should consider.  But I am saying that Facebook and blogging are not money-for-nothing, get-rich-quick schemes.  Social media takes as much time, effort, and expense as other business development options, so weigh your expectations and commitment accordingly.