Where Does Social Media Fit Into the Beneficiaries Journey?
Social media marketing often feels like a completely separate activity from your total marketing efforts. Social media, is after all, about engaging with people and having a little fun with your insurance agency, is it a place where you should be thinking about your beneficiaries?
All of your marketing efforts should be focused on your beneficiaries, and that includes social media. And yes, there is absolutely a way to fit social media into each stage of the customer journey without resorting to sales-y posts or spammy messages.
Here’s how you can incorporate social media at every stage: know, like, trust, buy, repeat, and refer.
Know
Social media is an excellent place to introduce your insurance agency to new people. The first stage of the digital customer journey is all about exposing beneficiaries to your content. You want your prospects to get a better understanding of who you are, what you do, and why you’re better than your competition.
The first step to setting yourself up to meet new people on social media is making sure you establish a profile with all of your agency’s information, including your branding and logos. Whether you’re just starting with social media, or you’re bringing your pages back from the dead, organic social media begins with posting interesting (and share-worthy) content.
Like
Once you’ve gotten the attention of new prospects, it’s time to get on their right side! In the same phase, you’ll want to educate them on the problems. This is the time to show that you understand their pain points and that your business offers the perfect solutions. Continue to share your content, but whatever you do, make sure it’s meaningful. Take this opportunity to share blog posts, explainer videos, and podcast episodes that feature other experts in your field.
You also have the option to begin investing in boosting your content or sharing paid ads. Promoting content allows you to share your existing organic content with a broader audience, while paid campaigns give you the option to display sponsored posts to those who have already interacted with your social presence. Paid options – whichever route you choose – are ways to increase your presence on your specific and defined audience’s social feed and to build a sense of familiarity with the beneficiaries.
Trust
By now, you’ve convinced your defined audience that you know the insurance business and understand how to solve their problems with your agency’s services. Now is the time to reinforce prospects can trust your business and choose yours as their insurance agent. Existing content that is designed to move them towards that decision.
Posts and ads with targeted calls to action are the way to go here.
Buy
Once you’ve got your prospects to dive a bit deeper into your agency’s content – dazzle them with a peek at your agency! Step up your customer engagement with social media comments, replies, etc. If a customer or prospect comments, asks a question – be quick to offer a response! Taking those extra steps to get personal and engage with your beneficiaries on social is the way to help support the buying process and drive more sales.
Repeat
Once you’ve convinced your prospect to become a first-time customer, you have to keep them! Maintain your outreach efforts whenever beneficiaries engage on your page. If you get private messages from customers through social media, make it a priority to respond quickly. Social media management tools can help you reach across platforms in one centralized dashboard. This means there’s no excuse for missing an urgent communication from your beneficiaries!
On the organic social front, posting more in-depth content like case studies is a way to help build a rapport with your customers. Prove to them that you’ve provided long-term value to other customers, and they’re more likely to return to give you more business as well.
When it comes to paid options, retargeting allows you to stay top-of-mind with your existing customers.
Refer
The final step in this journey is to win referrals! If you want to get people talking about your brand with their friends, create shareable content. You’re already posting meaningful content that is relatable, but is there anything else you can do to be more fun and shareable? You can put together a quiz about “How well do you know your Medicare options?” Not only is this type of content useful but it’s also interactive and likely to be shared.
Social media is as much a part of your marketing efforts and guiding prospects to decide any other marketing tactics. The interactive nature of the platforms allows you to create one-on-one relationships with your beneficiaries and to target them with the messaging they need to see most at the specific stage of their journey. By using both paid and organic efforts, you can create a comprehensive strategy that drives your prospects further down the marketing funnel.
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