With Valentine’s Day this week, we are turning our focus to what matters most. The clients. Because let’s face it we can have all the carriers we want, employ the best people, and have the coolest office, but without clients calling us, coming in the door, or reaching out to us through email and text, we would not be where we are with all of this.

So with Valentine’s Day this week, there are many different ways you can “show the love” to your clients. It’s a great way to send a simple email or you can even run a great promotion to the current clients to raffle off a gift certificate for dinner at a restaurant or a bottle or wine or gift basket depending on what your goals are.

Here are some quick things you can do in your office to make it engaging with your clients.

1. Send a quick email. You can send a quick email wishing them a Happy Valentine’s Day & how you “love” amazing clients like them. This is probably the quickest and easiest way to let your clients know directly that you are thinking about them. I also find that sending an email is a great way to hear back from your clients and be a reminder to them about something they’ve been meaning to talk to you about.
   
   
2. Post on Social Media. While this might be an obvious and easy way to speak to your followers, oftentimes we get busy and forget to do a simple post on a holiday. Posting a simple “Happy Valentine’s Day!” and stating you appreciate and love your followers is a fast way to remind clients you are thinking of them.
   
   If posting this on Facebook on your business page, don’t forget to “share” it direct to your personal page. Also, remember the forgotten social media platforms like Google, LinkedIn, Pinterest and IG. Whatever you are on, the more you post and share across platforms, the more eyeballs will see it and think of you.
   
   For a graphic you can use to post on your social media, you can download it for free by clicking on the button below.
   
   
3. Raffle off dinner, a bottle of wine, or a gift basket. So, while this one takes more planning, this is a great way to get leads, engage with your current clients, and have a little fun in the process.
   
   If you want to do a campaign and call it something like “spread the love” you can enter current clients into a raffle for referrals to your office. So, if prospects are referred for a quote, the current client gets entered a raffle that would be drawn ideally the week before or of the 14th. Don’t have time for that? Draw it on the 14th as you “spread the love”.
   
   Another idea would be to do a life insurance promotion and raffle off something for people who get a life insurance quote. You can call it the same thing only it would be about how “life insurance is for those you love”.
   
   
4. Incorporate Video, Facebook or IG lives. When you do the drawings, you can do a Facebook live where you announce the winner for the raffles. Video is also a great way to gain traction and followers in your online social media posts. You can also wish clients a Happy Valentine’s Day from your office & saying how you “love” your clients.

 
Whatever you decide, there is no one way or a right or wrong answer. Its whatever works for you and what feels most comfortable. You can do one or all of them. The point is to be engaging and to have fun.

And Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you!

If you thought this was good, please “share the love” here and share this post on your social media. Don’t forget to get your free Valentine’s Day graphic below that you can use in your own social media postings this week. 
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Have your own spin on what to do to engage with clients on Valentines Day? Comment or post your idea below! Your idea might help others.

​If you are like most independent agents, you have a lot to do. You have claims and payments to process, clients to meet with, staff to train or retrain, and of course the marketing. So, with all this who has time to create new content for my online social media pages right? I mean after all why reinvent the wheel?

Don’t get me wrong. I understand that when it comes to your endless list of to-dos’ when you are an agency owner, being creative and coming up with original content is sometimes at the end or not even on your list of things to get accomplished this week. But I am going to break your content down for you into three quick categories as an agency owner and how you can map out a plan with done for you and original content along with the benefits of both.

Whether you are an independent agent or a captive agent, chances are your company or companies offer you online branded contented and solutions you can just plug and play that make it very easy for you to do something daily for your agency.

The good part about that? Consistency. It makes it very simple for you to either copy and paste or directly link your Facebook business page, twitter account or LinkedIn right into their system and have it just run for you. Easy-peasy right?
Now why would this be bad? Well its not that its bad, but many times you are posting their generic or company branded content with links to the company web pages, not your own. It also is just that – generic.

“But wait” you ask. “Can’t I use some of it to just easy my brain and take a little something off my to-do list?” Absolutely.

Here is what I suggest:

1. Company content is good for brand recognition, especially when you are representing the national carriers with a much bigger marketing budget. However, instead of using their auto-posting tools, do it yourself and either provide links back to your own page or your agency phone number in the post. Better yet, link to have them contact you through Messenger in post if you are doing it on Facebook.
2. Fill in the other days with posts about helpful tips about things that have to do with the weather, safe driving, or whatever your niche is. For example, post about frozen pipes with a link to a blog post you did about frozen pipes.
3. Fill in some days with funny posts, motivational Mondays, TGIFs, anything that you think fits your agency’s personality.
4. Client testimonials are a great way to post things that would go viral. If you have the client’s picture, post that with the testimonial or make it into a picture with the words over their picture. Don’t have a photo? Post the text with a color background and border as an image. Images and video get more visibility than just text alone.
   
   

And I know you are busy. As an agency owner myself, I get it that we only have so many hours in the day to be able to get done what needs to be done. And oftentimes the to-do’s end up sucking the creativity out of us until we are left with nothing. So, use your companies where you can and give your brain some breathing room. Fill in the gaps with the fun things that shows what separates your agency from the rest of your competition. By doing this combination, you will be off to a solid start and a strong online content plan for 2019.
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For more content you can use on your own social media pages, we have some free content, not company branded, that you can also take and use as your own.
 

In the insurance industry, I have heard marketing in two different terms. True story, when I first started, I assumed when someone said they were marketing and account, it meant they were targeting a niche and that marketing meant advertising yourself.  I obviously had a lot to learn. Little did I know that “marketing” meant “shopping” around an account. However, looking back, it was essentially the same thing as advertising yourself.

Marketing an account means finding the best company for your client and their needs. On the sales and advertising side, marketing also means finding those clients that are the best fit for you by conveying your specific message. It’s something we all must do to get new business. As a small business, many times we dabble in it, take the free postcards that our companies provide us for Auto, Home, and Business insurance and drop those postcards in every mailbox in a 5-mile radius of our agency. Then we wait. Or maybe we do some Facebook advertising because someone said it’s good to do. We boost a post, promote our page, and even place an ad here or there. How is all of this working? Do you know? Do you track it? You wait a few weeks and nothing happens. Or maybe you don’t know because your staff isn’t asking how they heard about you. So…you stop. You stop marketing and eventually, you become reactive instead of proactive. You wait for the phone to ring. Then business slows and we figure, hey it’s time to dabble in this marketing thing again because we need more business. And so the cycle begins.

Unfortunately, many of us fall victim to this cycle. But it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing cycle. You don’t have to be on one month and then nothing for the next three. W. Clement Stone said “Big doors swing on little hinges.” Meaning that if you do one small thing to market your business and convey your message and who you and your agency is, then it will not seem so overwhelming. It could be a post or promotion on Facebook. Call two potential clients or send out that postcard or mailing. Remember to be able to “market” an account, you must first “market” yourself. Do something to talk about what you do every day. Don’t have a Facebook fan page? No problem. Promote yourself on your own personal page. Being a great agent, is part of who you are. Brag about it and tell people how you can help, every day.

Where can you start today to market yourself and your agency? It doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Make a list of 50 different ways you can promote, talk or advertise what you do. It can be something as simple as asking for a referral from a good client or as complex as a three-part marketing campaign for a specific niche you work with. Click below for your free download to get started.

Need more help getting started? Agency Marketing Pro specializes in helping you market your agency both online and offline. Whether you need a Facebook page or are looking for done-for- you marketing. We help you and your agency stand out from the rest in a way that is uniquely you. Contact us for a free consultation to see how we can help you.