Content marketing: it’s more than a trendy buzzword. It’s a type of marketing that’s perfectly suited to wholesale insurance brokers. If you’re in the business of being an expert resource to the agents you work with—and if the principal commodity you’re selling is your in-depth expertise in certain specialty lines and the markets that sell them—then you’re missing out if you don’t have a solid content marketing strategy.
Content marketing is basically marketing through education. A good start to a content marketing strategy involves identifying the questions about certain markets and lines of insurance that are common with the agents you work for, and bringing them the answers—in a range of different media. Options you have include:
Blogs and blog posts. Your blog is absolutely part of your content strategy. And yes, it can be easy just to post whatever’s on your mind, either mostly on-topic or not, whenever you have time. But you’ll get more traction from your blog if you carefully plan out the posts you’ll run based on factors such as changes in the insurance regulatory landscape, coverage trends, insurance carrier mergers and transitions, and other things that your agents will need to know about.
White papers and reports. These longer, more in-depth pieces provide advanced expertise in one area of coverage, analysis of trends, assessment of new regulatory changes, and other information the insurance agents you’re working with will need. Consider what your agents want to know most—what questions you often answer from them—and choose white paper topics that answer those questions.
Podcasts. The market for wholesale broker podcasts is wide open—and if you can develop interesting, informative, and valuable content for a podcast on a regular schedule, chances are you’ll gain a lot of traction. You can also get visibility on iTunes, which is an unusual move—and possibly a very effective one, given how many people use this platform.
Webinars. Webinars are online classes or presentations, which can be as short or in-depth as you want. You can invest a lot in webinars in terms of production value, but you don’t have to—you can also film them using a setup as simple as your office and the camera in your laptop.
These are just a few ideas for ways to package the expertise you have and get it in front of insurance agents. When designing your content strategy, it’s crucial to consider what information the agents you work with are dying to have that you can provide—always keep their perspective in mind. If you do, it won’t matter whether you package your information in written, podcast, or video form—your audience will seek it out.
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