Presentation: How Social Media Changed Our Business Model Presented by: Mike Smith, Principal/CEO, Axis Insurance Services, LLC The presentation will focus understanding how the use of social media and internet advertising was used to help an insurance broker produce double digit sales increases in each of the last five years. Mike will also provide insight into some of the pitfalls and failed strategies that didn’t work. He will share some ideas and explain his rationale for using social media how it changed the way they do business. www.bdionline.com

1. September 30, 2013

2. § About Our Business
§ Our use of Social Media
§ Impact of Social Media on our business
§ What we have learned
§ Pitfalls and What to Avoid
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4. § I read the newspaper almost every day
§ I watch the news
§ CNN, News 12, Fox
§ I know who Matt Lauer is
§ I send Christmas Cards and handwritten thank you notes
§ I call my friends and relatives when I want to speak to
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them
When I eat out with my wife, I leave my cell phone in my
pocket and actually talk to her.
I do things because I have always done them
I wear ties, pay my tithes
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5. § Like it not I had realize that I’m not the norm anymore
§ If I want to reach customers, I have to go where they are
§ If I want to get their attention, I have to do it quickly and
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concisely
I had to step outside my comfort zone and market in a
way that really don’t agree with
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6. § Retail Professional Liability Broker (E&O, D&O, EPL etc.)
§ Our clientele is a $5M to $50M Revenue professional
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service firm.
Our target is the President/CFO of these organization that
purchase the insurance
Market is dominated by the wholesale market
Nationwide market
We had a limited amount of money for marketing
We were an unknown player, new to the market and had
very few clients.
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7. § We had a limited marketing budget (as in no money)
§ We had to reach a nationwide clientele
§ We could not afford to do marketing for the sake of
marketing.
§ It had to produce results in a short period of time
§ We had never done any outside marketing
§ Our client was a sophisticated buyer and probably would
not buy over the internet
§ We still would need a one on one strategy to close a sale
§ Everyone had a solution to sell us.
§ I tried a lot of solutions before I found something that
works.
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8. § Create Multifaceted approach
§ Create top
of mind awareness
§ Create Image of Credibility
§ Develop Readership
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9. §
No Print Advertising – too expensive
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Develop Database of email addresses
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Direct Email Marketing
§ Bi Monthly
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Drip Marketing
§ Weekly
§ Must have relevant content
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Social Media
§ Establish credibility
§ Maintain Communication
§ Get them to read /open my stuff
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10. §
Reach largest number of people for the least amount of dollars
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Supplement our other marketing efforts
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Create Brand Awareness
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Engage our Customers Customer Engagement
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Content Distribution
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Relationship Building
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Create Networking
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Lead Generation
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11. § Blast email to 60,000 insurance agents
§ 6,000 or 10% open the email
§ 300 or 5% of those go to our website
§ We send the 300 people a follow up email
§ 50 of these people returned to our website
§ We called the 50
§ Begin drip marketing to the 300 people
§ Monthly communications
§ Begin Linking process (linked in, Google plus, twitter)
§ Daily postings to LinkedIn, twitter, Google plus
§ At least three articles of relevance per week
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People buy from who they Like, Know and Trust (Suggest you Read “the Go Giver”)
People buy what they perceive as value.
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Reaching people that aren’t your customers is wasted effort
We wanted to be top of mind when the following happened
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They were ready to buy
They had their wallet out
Marketing and sales are not the same thing
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To increase sales, provide more value to more people
Marketing creates top of mind awareness
Sales closes the deal.
They are two completely independent processes
All of our marketing is followed up by a specific strategy to create top of mind awareness
Marketing and Social Media has to be content driven
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Oversaturation will turn off the interest of the end user
No more than 1 in 6 communications can be in advertising form
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We have our website SEO friendly and rank on page 1 Google
Send 150,000 emails per month (approximately 2 million per
year)
Post information daily to LinkedIn, Google plus and twitter
§ (Facebook is not relevant for our clientele)
We post at least three relevant articles per week to our blog
We post to approximately 100 blogs each week and link back to
our site
We review the results and statistics weekly
We adjust our plans accordingly
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14. §
20+% growth each year
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Established a name recognition that still allows a 10% open/read rate
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Our Business has grown over 500% in the last 8 years
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We don’t do cold calling
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Created a machine that runs itself
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17. §
Social media and marketing for the sake of marketing is wasted effort
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Social media will not have an immediate effect on sales, it’s a long term strategy
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Social media and marketing needs to have a stated return on investment
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Do your homework on any outside vendors you hire and set goals for the vendors
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Be prepared to invest both time and money in the process.
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Marketing without establishing credibility wont work
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Readers get tired of advertising. You must provide value for them to continue reading your
stuff.
Note: image courtesy of Stuart Miles /freedigitalphotos.net
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