In the March 2019 edition of Masters of Marketing, ITC's free insurance marketing webinar, SEO Consultant Stephanie Ewen discusses how to earn and leverage online reviews for your insurance agency.
Let's Review: How to Get Online Reviews for Your Insurance Agency Website
1. Let’s Review
How to Get Online Reviews for Your Insurance Agency Website
Stephanie Ewen
SEO Consultant
2. Welcome to Masters of Marketing!
• Follow along with our live conversation on Twitter using #MastersMktg
(Follow us on Twitter @InsTechCorp while you’re at it!)
• If you have questions during the webinar, please use the chat window and I will answer all
questions at the end.
• Today’s presentation will be posted on our blog later today:
https://resources.getitc.com/masters-of-marketing
• Join us next time on April 18th at 12:00 p.m. for Answering Your Top Website FAQs hosted
by Website Coordinator Karly Baker.
4. Why You Need Reviews
• 86% of consumers read reviews for local businesses
• 95% of millennials
• Insurance services is the 12th highest ranked industry that
consumers read reviews for
• 91% of millennials trust online reviews as much as
personal recommendations
• 57% of consumers won’t use a business that has fewer
than 4 stars
5. Why You Need Reviews
Buyer Decisions
• 91% of millennials trust online reviews as much as a
personal recommendation
• 57% of consumers won’t use a business that has fewer
than 4 stars
6. Why You Need Reviews
SEO Value
• Reviews make up 10% of Local SEO ranking factors
• Can provide frequent, fresh content on your website
• Reviews with keywords in them can help overall keyword
rankings
• Do not ask for this, hope it happens naturally
7. Why You Need Reviews
Offline Marketing
• Use reviews in print materials
• Handouts, flyers, postcards, etc.
• Use reviews on in office materials
• Window clings, posters, business cards, etc.
• Use as hold music on your phones
8. How to Get Reviews
Create Your Pages
• Create a Google My Business page and verify it
• business.google.com
• Create a Yelp page and verify it
• business.yelp.com
• Make sure your website has a testimonials section
9. How to Get Reviews
Ask
• Don’t be afraid
• Let them know where they
can review you
• Call it “feedback”
• Say you have an internal
contest if you are
mentioned
Timing
• After great service
• After saving someone
money
• After someone thanks you
for something
Kinda Obvious Pro Tip: Track what works best for your
agency and focus on that.
10. How to Get Reviews
Incentives
• Establish a reward system for employees or teams
• Customers of each employee
• How many times an employees name is mentioned
• How many times a location is mentioned
• How many times a product is mentioned
• Do not incentivize someone leaving a review for you
Ex: “We are running a little internal contest and if you mention my
name in that review I could get a bonus!”
11. How to Get Reviews
Email Marketing
• Build it into a campaign
• After a new sale
• After a renewal
• After X years
• One-off email blast
12. You Have Reviews, Now What?
Reply to All Reviews
• 89% of people read responses to reviews
• Good feedback for agency
• More likely to get other reviews
Response Formula for Positive
Review
Thank + Pull
Response Formula for Negative
Review
Apologize + Pull + Ensure
13. You Have Reviews, Now What?
Positive Review
Very helpful, upfront and
efficient. The process was
smooth and painless.
Response
Thanks so much for the 5 stars!
We like making buying insurance
as efficient as possible to save you
time.
Negative Review
I had to come into the office
numerous times to sign papers.
They could not send them
through email. I canceled my
policy 2 months later, after I
joined them. Very poor service.
Response
We’re sorry you had a bad
experience with us. Our service
normally sets us apart from the
competition. We will review what
happened and learn from it to
make sure it doesn’t happen again.
14. You Have Reviews, Now What?
Use on Your Website
• Home page
• Line of business pages
• Location based pages
• Employee directory
Tip: Mark them up with schema so they show in Google
results.
https://schema.org/Review
18. You Have Reviews, Now What?
Utilize Offline
• Print materials
• Handouts, flyers, postcards, etc.
• Office materials
• Window clings, posters, business cards, etc.
• Hold music
• Have someone record them reading their review and use that as
part of your hold music
23. Thank You for Joining Us!
• Find slides & a recording of this presentation at
https://resources.getitc.com/masters-of-marketing
• Join us next time on April 18th at 12:00 p.m. for Answering
Your Top Website FAQs hosted by Website Coordinator
Karly Baker.
Editor's Notes
There are a lot more that go into reviews than just getting review on Google. Before we tackle how to get reviews, you should know why reviews are important for your agency. Then, after you learn how to get reviews, you need to know how to fully utilize them and maximize their value.
To kick us off, I wanted to show some awesome states that Bright Local gathers in their annual survey each year.
https://www.brightlocal.com/learn/local-consumer-review-survey
These two statistics make it clear that reviews are important. So many people are connected to the internet at all times with their computer, phone, Google Assistant, Siri, etc.
Moz.com does an annual survey to gather some awesome data on Local SEO and they determined that 10% of Local SEO ranking factors is related to reviews. Reviews, when left on your website, can help provide fresh new content on your website on a consistent basis if you continue to gather them. Some of your reviews might mention your city, or lines of business, and those reviews can help you even more. It’s important not to ask people to do this, because if everyone does, and it looks spammy, this can actually hurt you and earn you a penalty.