As insurance agencies create their marketing plans for the upcoming year, many will focus on insurance agency web marketing as a key marketing driver to generate insurance agency leads. Web marketing is not merely a trend; it is a new way of doing business, and one which agencies cannot ignore. The days of agency growth from a purely referral driven perspective are gone, as more and more communication becomes virtual in nature, as networking moves from handshaking to internet surfing, and younger buyers embrace digital communication over face to face meetings.

Yet what does web marketing mean these days? According to Wikipedia, web marketing “refers to the placement of media along many different stages of the customer engagement cycle through search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), banner ads on specific websites, e-mail marketing, and Web 2.0 strategies.” This serves as a reasonable definition for our discussion, as we answer important questions relating to insurance agency web marketing: Let’s begin by identifying the key components of an insurance agency web marketing plan:

Agency Web Seminar Marketing Blogging and Vlogging Insurance Agency Website Design Insurance eMarketing Campaigns Insurance Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Insurance SEO (Insurance Agency Search Engine Optimization) Pay Per Click (Google PPC, LinkedIn PPC, etc.) Social Media Marketing (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, StumbleUpon) Insurance Agency Telemarketing (augments web marketing)

Arguably, insurance agency web marketing always begins with a comprehensive insurance website redesign, unless the agency website was recently completed and is up to date. An insurance agency website must be graphically attractive, it should have current and compelling content, a blog (and vlog if possible), and industry news to mention a few important elements. Video is becoming increasingly more important as it provides a medium for the quick conveyance of information in a compelling and personal manner. Website video can also be leveraged on YouTube to further increase insurance agency internet presence. Vlogs, which are video blogs, can be very helpful to a website. Vlogs can be a talking head video, recorded PowerPoint presentation or even voice over photographs. They integrate the contextual power of a blog with the enhanced impact of a video or PowerPoint.

Content is king on the internet, and insurance agents should take great care in the creation of their website content. A graphically attractive website, short on content, will result in a sub-optimized insurance search engine marketing result, adversely impacting insurance agency SEO efforts and mitigating website stickiness and efficacy. These days, a key aspect of any insurance agency web marketing plan should include an annual review of website content. Further, the content should be of interest to both prospects and clients alike.

Social media marketing incorporates Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and StumbleUpon to mention just a few of the major opportunities, allowing agencies to dramatically expand their marketing reach. Social media marketing offers insurance agencies the ability to expand branding, share content, establish subject matter expertise and participate in discussions. There are many aspects of insurance social media marketing to consider. For example, a simple blog entry can be utilized in many ways to expand reach. A blog can be tweeted, reblogged, ePublished, and incorporated in a newsletter or eMarketing campaign. In this case, one blog is reused five times, though there are methods where one blog can be used ten or more times, dramatically expanding internet reach and enhancing cyber presence and insurance SEO. Why is social media marketing a critical component of an overall insurance agency web marketing plan? Social media marketing creates a cyber foundation for an agency to build upon. Ultimately, social media marketing, if used correctly, can become one of the key drivers for insurance agency leads. For the purposes of this article, we’ll add blogging and ePublishing to the social media marketing category since these are tightly interconnected. Blogs which are repurposed as articles can then be shared on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and StumbleUpon, helping insurance agency SEO.

Social media marketing along with insurance agency SEO help with organic search engine rankings. Another option is paid engine ranking placement otherwise known as PPC or Pay Per Click advertising. At the top and side of the organic SERP (search engine results page) are paid PPC ads. When an internet user clicks on one of these, your agency is charged a fee. These fees can range from under a dollar to $15 or more depending upon the competitiveness of the search term. For example, let’s say that your PPC keyword phrase is New York Business Insurance, and when someone types in that keyword phrase your PPC ad appears. Depending upon your budget and keyword phrase bid, you might appear on the top, and when someone clicks on the ad, you are charge a PPC fee, let’s say five dollars. The great thing about this is that the volume, efficacy and conversion ratio are really easy to track. The negative is, of course, that you are constantly paying out ad fees. Thus the difference between organic and PPC, and predicated on your insurance agency web marketing plan, you may have budget for only one or the other, or perhaps for both.

Web seminar and eMarketing campaigns represent a compelling outbound approach for agents. Agency webinars offer the ability to communicate on a high level with B2B prospects. eMarketing campaigns that offer educational content are much better received than insurance product offers or pitches. A long term approach to agency web seminar marketing can yield significant dividends, though it is important to note that eMarketing and web seminar programs can often take up to 6 months to establish a following.

Lastly, where and how does telemarketing fit in, after all, it is not technically a web marketing solution. Telemarketing, or in this case perhaps appointment setting is a better description, can be an important component of an overall web marketing plan. After all, these web marketing leads need to be followed up upon. If producers are busy with renewals, or if they only have time for warm prospects, the outsourcing an appointment setter can be very helpful to an agency’s overall pipeline building effort. For example, when doing an eMarketing campaign, all prospects who click through to an agency website and all webinar registrants should be called directly after the web seminar to ensure that the agency has taken advantage of their web marketing efforts. If producers don’t have the time to call, the calls should be done with a qualified appointment setter. After all, the primary purpose of any web marketing plan is to drive qualified leads into the pipeline.

Online marketing is tightly integrated with traditional channels these days and the radio business serves as solid evidence of this. In fact, many of them are leveraging email to communicate with their audiences in ways that were not possible some 15 years ago. Let us take a look at a step-by-step email marketing plan a radio station can utilize to gain more listeners and build their following.

Create An Opt-In List

A radio station can grow their listening audience by leaps and bounds all from a single opt-in list. Simply put a sign-up form on your website, use SEO and other proven methods to attract visitors, and give them a reason to hand over their email address. There are many options here, and they don’t necessarily have to be related to anything scheduled on the airwaves. For example, a sports station could offer breaking news, scoreboard updates, and team photos via email to encourage new sign-ups. If this is something people are seeking upon coming to your site, it could result in more listeners over time.

Build Intrigue

Email marketing is very effective at building hype around something. That hype could be around a new product, cutting edge technology, or a big sale. For a radio station, it might be promoting a new show, a sponsor, or just a segment. Using email is the perfect way to get new subscribers to tune in, and the ability to do this effectively is all in the value offered by whatever you are trying to build hype around. Provide an easy way for your subscribers to share your content, and your listening audience could grow dramatically.

Extend to the Social World

The great thing about email is that it synergies extremely well with so many other marketing methods. Often considered the perfect companion, social networking is one that could definitely help a radio station gain more listeners. Integrating these two popular channels has never been easier as they can be connected with features such as social sharing buttons, email signatures, and simple links attached to a strong call to action. Harness the power of a Facebook fan page or a few tweets to spread your message, and new listeners may tune in just to see what all the buzz is about. Once you use email as the vehicle to drive you there, rest assured that the social networks are capable of handling the rest.

The big radio broadcasting companies have been using email marketing for some time, and now more of the smaller niche stations are coming to realize its power. This tactic is highly effective at reaching new audiences, improving communication, and even opening up new revenue opportunities. While many traditional channels are struggling in the internet era, radio stations have a chance to continually thrive by latching onto an awesome tool like email.

Teen entrepreneurs can have some of the most innovative ideas in business today. Having great ideas doens’t mean they don’t need a business plan. In fact, a teen business plan may help them have a great chance at success.

It can be tempting to think that a teen business is simple and doesn’t really need a business plan. However, a business plan helps you think through some of the details that trip up the best entrepreneurs of any age. In some cases, those can be the very details that are the difference between a success and just a good try.

What’s in a teen business plan? It doesn’t need to be complicated or complex. Get these key elements and you’ll be on your way to being one of the teen entrepreneurs with a solid plan and a solid chance at success.
What is your business? A simple but complete description of the business is important so others can understand what your business is doing. Is it providing a service or a product? You should be able to describe and explain your business in one minute or less to others. Who will buy what you are offering? This is also called a target market, but really this is just who is going to buy what you are selling. Within this group are the people who will become your customers. A target market should not be too broad because you cannot serve everyone’s needs. It should also not be so narrow that you will run out of potential customers in the first month. What is your marketing plan? Every business needs some type of marketing. The type of business can help you determine what type of marketing you will be doing. For instance, advertising for a lawn service might rely on lots of flyers throughout several neighborhoods while a babysitting service should have more targeted information at local churches or day cares. Do you need help? In a larger business, this would be employees. In a smaller one, it could be parents or friends. It is highly likely that you will not need help immediately. In fact, if you design your business to rely on others from the outset, you should consider rethinking your plan. Starting smaller is much easier to manage for most teen entrepreneurs. You can focus on the business and customers without having to worry about managing others. How much money will it take to get started? This doesn’t need to be precise but it shouldn’t be a big guess, either. Do you need money to buy supplies to make crafts that you will sell? Will you be printing flyers from a home computer for a service business? Make a quick list and then put dollars by each item. These costs should be considered when figuring out how much you are going to charge for your services or products to help ensure that you make a profit.

If you have a good business idea, it should only take you thirty minutes or so to get this teen business plan mapped out. It may take you longer if you haven’t thought about some of these areas. However, if you find yourself struggling with these concepts in general, it may be a sign to rethink your teen business idea.

No business can effectively operate nor attract the funds needed to survive prosper and grow without a good business plan. A good plan is a management tool that shows where your business is going, and just how you plan to get there, and is a necessity for attracting lenders, investors, partners and key personnel, plan outlines vary but they all must cover certain key areas, such as: Executive Summary, Business Description, Marketing Plan, Financial Plan, Management Team, and Appendix.

Moreover, there are many kinds of software on the market that can help you write you write a good plan, but you must still input the data needed to write your plan into the software. The output of the software can never be any better than the data you put into it and you must manually put that in yourself. Here are four steps to help you write a strong business plan:

1. Put all of your plan data and information into several good old fashion file folders and label each folder so that you know what is in it. This data and information will include such materials as marketing methods you will use, market research, management team bio’s, financial statements, profit projects and other similar items.

2. Get a good outline or use the outline in the software you will be using to help draft your plan. And write a 250 to 500 word summary for each section of your business plan using the materials that you have in your plan data and information file folders.

3. Expand upon your brief summary descriptions for each section of your plan to write your actual plan, or let the software write this for you. Be sure to give extra attention to the marketing section of your plan because this section gets the more attention than any other part of your plan from lenders and investors, since this tells how your profits will be obtained.

4. Keep your plan to between eight to 12 pages, because when it comes to business plans more it not better, and anything longer than that quite simply won’t get read, then put a list of other information you have available in your appendix to be requested if wanted. You want your business plan to be a clear concise document that is easy to read and understand, because a confused mind will usually say no to what is being proposed.

A good business plan will help you to effectively and profitably operate your business, and is a clear road map that shows where you business is going, how you plan to get there, the people you will need to get there, and the profits your business will produce when you get there. And it will help you to get the money you need from lenders and investors to get where you want to go with your business. So do not underestimate the power of a good well written business plan, and by all means prepare you one getting started today.

With small business marketing and the internet the first thing a business will need is a well optimized website. Internet marketing for small business relies on a marketing plan and the website is the foundation of the plan. The website must be optimized for related keywords or phrases someone would use to find a business with. For some businesses a new website may be needed or an existing website will need to be tweaked.

If a website is more than a few years old it will definitely need some updating. With today’s web savvy population an outdated site will stand out for all the wrong reasons. With small business marketing the website is the first point of contact. The website or technically the web page, has to have a compelling message to grab the attention of the visitor. A website will have a half a second or less to say “HEY, LOOK HERE” (shouting intended).

Internet marketing for small business if done well can reward the business owner with an almost unlimited supply of new customers. If the search engines find a webpage with relevant content for a search term then the website that that page is on can gain first page placement in the search engine. The first page can receive over 90% of the search traffic for a term or keyword. We’ll talk about keywords more in a minute. The thing is, a website can dominate one page with more than one listing while showing up for multiple phrases on multiple pages. Depending on the term or keyword, there can be hundreds if not thousands of inquires for the term or phrase.

If you are a small business owner and you are not sure about your site talk to a SEM (search engine marketing) specialist not a website designer and here is why. Building a website is a technical function and a skilled designer can knock out a site pretty quick these days. Designers are now hiring SEM specialists to enhance their client’s web marketing needs. This is not to say that all designers don’t understand marketing or optimizing a website. You just want to make sure of the direction of YOUR marketing before designing the site

The SEM specialist will take the time to learn about you and your business in order to come up with a marketing plan that, number one fits a budget and is workable. A search marketing campaign follows a plan and the plan should have a way to measure the results. The technical function of building a site should come only after a solid course of action has been determined. The marketing plan can be put together in a few days after an initial meeting with a SEM specialist.

The SEM marketer needs to research your business to find a list of keywords that your best customer would use to find you on the internet. After a discussion with you and a review of the potential of the keywords, is when the website would be looked at. The Website should have one goal only and that is to compel visitors to take an action. The action can be as simple as to leave an e-mail address while requesting more information, make a purchase, book an appointment or call the business direct. Any one of these actions is called a conversion. Conversions are the goal.

When looking for someone or a company to work with on SEM for your business you will also hear about SEO which stands for Search Engine Optimization. If you look up seo or SEM at Wikipedia you’ll get similar definitions. Suffice to say Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization go hand in hand. In this article I’m addressing natural or organic traffic, there is a lot more that the seo/SEM specialist will take into consideration when organizing a plan for a business. SEM and SEO best practices overlap.

To get started marketing your business on the internet get a hold of a SEM/seo specialist. And I also want to mention that you shouldn’t get too hung up about speaking to someone that says they are a specialist for your industry. Smart businesses look outside their industry for ideas and inspiration all the time. With seo and SEM you are looking for someone that understands what it takes to get a website to the top of the search engines. Looking at a specialist that only works within one industry may result in a myopic solution. The search engines reward uniqueness, this is one time when doing what everyone else in your industry is doing may not be the right thing for your business future.