These days insurance agencies are more likely to use digital marketing tactics than the more “traditional” strategies like ads in yellow pages or local newspapers. But how exactly do insurance agencies execute digital strategy on a day-to-day basis?
In March 2012, Insurance Insight, The Journal of the Independent Insurance Agents of Illinois, released a survey analyzing the digital marketing habits of approximately 300 agencies across the U.S. and Canada. In the second installment of a three-part series, we’ll take a look at how social media is executed at insurance agencies, from planning to content generation and employee social media policies.
Planning
Overall, it seems that insurance agencies lack a documented marketing strategy of any kind. Just over 60% of agency respondents say that they do not have a marketing plan for either traditional or digital marketing tactics. Almost 70% indicated that they do not have a documented social media plan.
As you can see in the chart below, the most common digital strategy falls under “general marketing actions” that lack both documented planning and budget. Just 27% of insurance agencies execute digital strategy that is both planned and supported by a budget.
Content Generation
Close to the majority of survey respondents indicated that they maintain their platforms internally, including both platform management and content creation.
Social Media at Work
Workplace social media policy is a hot button issue in any industry these days. In the insurance industry it looks like there’s a pretty even spread of policy decisions, with an even split between allowing and disallowing social media during work hours. 16% of insurance agences said they block access to social media sites.
Stay tuned to the lonelybrand blog for part three in our social media and insurance series, which will take a look at how insurance agencies calculate social media ROI.
