IIG_IFCA_Presentation-0909

1
Leveraging Social Media and
Networking in Your Marketing
and Communications
Presented by:
Mark T. Stone

©2009 Insurance Insight Group. All rights reserved.2
A Little Info About Me
 Principal and Marketing Strategist for
Insurance Insight Group
 I own the company with two other partners
 Over 20 years of experience in the insurance industry
 Served in executive leadership positions at a major insurance
carrier and a national marketing organization
 Licensed insurance agent
 Expertise includes all aspects of the marketing communications
and online functions performed by insurance organizations

A Little Info About Insurance Insight Group
 We are creative, experienced insurance marketing people
 A full spectrum of product development, distribution,
marketing communications, and policy processing expertise
 www.InsuranceInsightGroup.com
 2008 & 2009 I.F.C.A. award winner

What made you attend this
breakout session today?

What does social media mean to you
and how do you approach the use of it?

“When marketing is continuous and targeted
rather than occasional and shotgun, business
gets easier.”
Joanna Krotz
Co-author, Microsoft Small Business Kit

©2009 Insurance Insight Group. All rights reserved.
Today’s Webinar
7

When marketing tools are used
independently of one another they do
very little to engage our audience when
it comes to meeting our long-term goals

The primary goal many of us want from
our sales & marketing initiatives:
Goal: Reach our audience and to build a
relationship with them
Spur Sales & Long-term growth

Who is our audience?
Independent Marketing Organizations
Individual Producers
Consumers
2 Key Things to Remember
Broker Dealers

How are your messages going to break
through that clutter?

How do you get your audience to focus
and absorb your message?

Leveraging Social Media and
Networking in Your Marketing and
Communications

When Creating Marketing and Sales Initiatives
Two Important Questions:
Who is my audience?
How well do I know my audience?
Technology should play a vital in how
we answer those questions.

You Need to Utilize Information You Gather on
Your Audience to Create The Most Targeted
Campaign Possible

Understanding the data you’ll collect on your
audience and how you’ll store it should always
be at the start of any initiative
Have a plan for the information you gather
and how it will be utilized in the next steps
Better information will trigger better
campaigns – this will drive sales and reduce
acquisition costs

20 Entire contents © 2008 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
groundswell.forrester.com

Creators
Critics
Collectors
Joiners
Spectators
Inactives
The Social Technographics™ Ladder
Social Technographics
classifies people according to
how they use social
technologies.
Forrester can quantify the
number of online consumers
within these groups using our
consumer surveys.

Creators
Publish a blog
Publish your own Web pages
Upload video you created
Upload audio/music you created
Write articles or stories and post them
The Social Technographics ™ Ladder
Creators make social content
go. They write blogs or upload
video, music, or text.
Groups include people participating in at least
one of the activities monthly.

Creators
Critics
Publish a blog
Post ratings/reviews of products/services
Comment on someone else’s blog
Contribute to online forums
Contribute to/edit articles in a wiki
Critics respond to content from
others. They post reviews,
comment on blogs, participate in
forums, and edit wiki articles.

Creators
Critics
Collectors
Publish a blog
Use RSS feeds
Add “tags” to Web pages or photos
“Vote” for Web sites online
Collectors organize content for
themselves or others using RSS
feeds, tags, and voting sites like
Digg.com

Creators
Critics
Collectors
Joiners
Publish a blog
Use RSS feeds
Maintain profile on a social networking site
Visit social networking sites
Joiners connect in social
networks like MySpace and
Facebook

Creators
Critics
Collectors
Joiners
Spectators
Publish a blog
Use RSS feeds
Read blogs
Watch video from other users
Listen to podcasts
Read online forums
Read customer ratings/reviews
Spectators consumer social
content including blogs, user-
generated video, podcasts,
forums, or reviews

Creators
Critics
Collectors
Joiners
Spectators
Inactives
Publish a blog
Use RSS feeds
Read blogs
Listen to podcasts
Read online forums
None of the above
Inactives neither create nor
consumer social content of any
kind

Creators
Critics
Collectors
Joiners
Spectators
Inactives
Publish a blog
Use RSS feeds
Read blogs
Listen to podcasts
Read online forums
None of the above
Taken together, these groups
make up the ecosystem that
forms the groundswell.
By examining how they are
represented in any subgroup,
strategists can determine
which sorts of strategies make
sense to reach their
customers.

Data from Forrester Research Technographics® surveys, 2009. For further details on the
Social Technographics profile, see groundswell.forrester.com.

49%
25%
26%
6%
28%

35%
32%
34%
12%
12%

1,781 members

You Need to Utilize Information You Gather on
Your Audience to Create The Most Targeted
Social Media Strategy Possible

Move to the next level of engagement
Give your audience a chance to display their
level of expertise with the subject matter
Questions
Games Quizzes
Incentives

Get your audience’s attention by also giving
them a voice
Most communication initiatives are one-way
Use technology to open two-way
communications

Gather opinions and ideas from your audience
Once your customers feel they are part of the
process and that their opinions and ideas
count, they are more likely to do business with
you versus those that just send one of the
many “me too” communications with which
they are inundated every day

Everyone not only wants to be listened to,
they also want to heard
Acknowledge / Honor / Connect

You have their attention, now how do you
keep them coming back for more?
You need to keep your audience interested
and also balance initiatives with your
audience’s attention span and schedule

You have their attention, now how do you
keep them coming back for more?
Social media can help
Sales and marketing initiatives that were once
old can be new again
You can reinforce a message without
appearing repetitious

Many of us are guilty of trying to provide
information all at once
Our audience doesn’t have the time to digest
all of the information we provide them
Use small bites and schedule a series of
communications over time

Messages that are Portable,
Flexible and Consistent

Why is the usage so high?
Because the programming is available to
consumers when they want to watch it
Why can’t your messages be available the
same way?
The “On Demand” approach can provide you
with a steady stream of leads that can be
followed up on in a timely fashion – and
sometimes immediately

Thoughts and ideas on ways to incorporate
social media elements into comprehensive
integrated marketing and communication plans

Social Media Tools
 I like to look at the individual tools and see how they fit with
my:
 Audience(s)
 Communication plans
 Traditional communications
“…as the marketing mix moved from a “monologue”
model to one of dialog and conversation…”
- MarketingSavant, MarketTech 08

Identify compliance issues and concerns with
the various methods of communicating via
social media

Compliance Issues
 Going to be different form company to company
 Important for legal and compliance to be involved at the very
beginning
 Strategy sessions
 Planning
 Establish clear Do’s / Dont’s and rules for each tool
 Monitoring is important

5 Steps to Benefiting From Social Media

Step 1 - Explore
 Get online and see what’s out there
 No need to reinvent the wheel
 Discover a void that you can fill
 Discover a void your sales force can fill
 Get comfortable with the various tools

Step 2 - Participate
 Start to get involved
 Start by building relationships with groups or communities
you’ve identified as a fit for your business
 Offer to post advise about insurance solutions
 Guest blog posts
 Online articles
 Podcasts
 Post comments to blog posts where you can provide good
advice or information
 Join networks that relate to your business or the products
you offer

Step 3 – Create A Strategy
 At this point you should feel comfortable creating an online
strategy that includes using social media and marketing
 The best results are had by those with a plan
 Decide on which tools to use and set goals that can be
measured
 Map out an integrated project that incorporates social and
traditional medias
 Like traditional media, some tools may be good for creating
awareness and others may be good for driving sales
 Identify how much of your effort should be for
prospecting and how much for existing audience

Step 4 – Pick The Right Tools
 Which are the best for your business and audience?
 Make a list of the tools you’ve encountered and participated
in
 Decide on whether to keep participating or build your own
 Provide useful and succinct information

Step 5 – Promotion
 Lots of opportunities for promotion
 Cross promotion with existing tools will more than likely get
you the best results
 Make sure you mention your online tools when utilizing more
traditional forms of communication
 Give your audience an opportunity to contribute
 Utilize the relationships you built in the earlier stages to
generate links and awareness
 Be patient and stay focused

Mark Stone
Insurance Insight Group
801-290-3333
mark.stone@iigsolutions.com

IIG_IFCA_Presentation-0909

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Andere mochten auch

Andere mochten auch (20)

Ähnlich wie IIG_IFCA_Presentation-0909

Ähnlich wie IIG_IFCA_Presentation-0909 (20)

IIG_IFCA_Presentation-0909