5 Things Insurance Companies Should Do For Their Agents

Over the last several years, we have reviewed literally thousands of online directory and local search listings for insurance agents. Our intent has always been to find ways to increase agency visibility and click through rates in search engine results. But over the course of all these reviews, we noticed that some insurance companies were really helping their agents a lot more than others.

Back when insurance companies first recognized the internet as a significant marketing communication channel the first reaction for many was to set up a direct-to-consumer operation, effectively leaving agents out of internet marketing strategies. Today, a growing number of insurance companies are recognizing the need to help their insurance agencies market and communicate by using digital communication channels. There is still some residual hang-over from the distinct channel thinking - insurance agency distribution is one channel, the internet is a another - but companies are starting to offer training, guides, and coop money to their agents to help with SEO and local search optimization. The mutually exclusive thinking that caused the initial lag in digital marketing assistance for agents is starting to break down, but it hasn't disappeared entirely.

Often, insurance companies, particularly those using the independent agency system, seem to make investment decisions about corporate websites and digital marketing separately from investment decisions regarding their agency distribution's online capabilities. Don't get me wrong, some companies are doing the right things. For instance, Central Mutual Insurance co-brands their policy service portal with agency information. Progressive Insurance, through their agency locator, provides a unique web page for each agency that can be indexed by the search engines.

Here are five simple things an insurance company could do to help make their agents more visible to insurance seekers plying the web:

1. Have an agency locator: A surprising number of carriers still do not have one, making it unnecessarily difficult to purchase.
2. Link to the agent's website: Again, surprisingly, this is missing from many agency locators.
3. Include a page for each agency in the locator with information like hours, products they are permitted to sell and a map.
4. Provide unique links for agents for product forms, claims and billing pages and co-brand these pages.
5. Adword that are generated locally to each agency page: PPC setup can be done by almost anyone, but the keyword research, ad copy writing, and landing page development for a really effective paid search program requires expertise. Most insurance agencies don't this skill set on staff. Carriers could coop setup and campaign costs for agents.