Your website is an important branding tool for your agency, but certainly not the only one. You should utilize a number of online resources to promote your agency brand.

1. The first place to start is registering your business in Local Search listings with Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Yelp. Signing up for the local search is free and a great way to get new traffic to your website. It allows you to put your business name, URL, address, hours, and description on the most popular search engines. When somebody uses Google to search for a business at a particular location, for example “Auto Insurance Encino, CA,” Google displays “Local business results for auto insurance near Encino, CA” at the top of the search page with a map of the top businesses in the area. Clicking on a business name leads to its web site. Make sure to register your businesses on these sites and ask your customers to post online reviews about your agency. You want your agency to have as many positive online reviews as possible since it provides credibility to new web site visitors that may not have heard about your business.

2. You have probably heard that Facebook is the next big thing in online marketing. Facebook collects a large amount of data on its users and companies mine the data to offer consumers products tailored to their tastes. Every agency should setup a page on Facebook, and it should invite its customers to become its Facebook fans. This is a very handy way to keep in touch and retain existing customers. It gives your agency an opportunity to up-sell additional services. You probably want to search Facebook groups, such as new to the neighborhood, first time homeowners, car enthusiasts, and so on for potential prospects. You should invite potential prospects to become your agency’s fans on Facebook as well.

3. LinkedIn is a professional networking web site where you should list your agency. Your agency employees will link their personal LinkedIn profiles to the agency profile, which will help you with recruitment. In addition, LinkedIn entries are featured at the top of search results and this will help you attract more visitors to your web site.

4. Twitter is a Facebook on steroids. It is a handy way to post your agency status; for example, “just saved my Woodland Hills, CA client $245 in auto insurance,” and keep in touch with your clients. Twitter integrates with Facebook and can automatically display links to your Facebook updates. LinkedIn integrates with Twitter and will automatically display Twitter posts.

5. Blogging is the great way to maintain online brand inside or outside of the agency web site. Integrating your blog with your agency’s Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn account will go a long way to help you keep in touch with your prospects and customers. Some possible topics for your blog are as follows:
• Some insurance companies are more reliable than others and why a good AM Best rating is important
• What are the good coverage limit to income ratios (explain typical lawsuit amounts)
• Insurance fraud: what stupid things people might do and how easily they can get caught

6. Experiment with a free listing of your business information on Craigslist (expires in 30 days) or joining your local chamber of commerce. There are plenty of quality sites where you can list your business free or for a nominal fee. If you can list your business on Wikipedia (nearly impossible), Open Directory (very hard), or have a regional newspaper publish an article about your business, it would give a real boost to your brand. Stick to marketing venues that best work for your business and avoid those that are unsuccessful.

7. Keep in touch with your customers. Send your customers a monthly or quarterly newsletter by email. Give your clients valuable information, but do not spam them. As Ogilvy used to say: “A customer is not a moron—she is your wife." Your customers want to know how to be best protected through insurance. And if you can help them save money too that’s even better. Tell them what you know.

8. If you know a good local business like a dry cleaner, a doctor, or a lawyer share your marketing material with them. They will recommend you, and you will recommend them. However, make sure they are reputable.

Check back next month where I will explain how to attract traffic to your web site with search engine optimization.