After speaking to a co-worker today, I've got mixed feelings on the whole pandemic thing. Yes, hundreds of thousands of people are dead and even more have gotten sick. People are tired of having to isolate and stay in their homes. I get all of that.
Like others, I've had to make some major adjustments in my practice and have had to find new ways to market ourselves. My insurance agency, Surf Financial Brokers, is no different. Social media and a web presence are one of the many ways we are trying to get the word out about the products we sell and the services we provide.
Actually, we were already changing the way we were marketing pre-Covid. The traditional way of selling insurance, by asking for referrals and mingling at networking events, was still working for us, but only in a limited capacity. And to be honest, agents can get burnt out quickly that way. My agents and I had some conversations as to what changes we could make to expand our messaging. We also asked for feedback from our clients.
Social media can be a rabbit hole for a growing insurance agency like ours. It can be very easy to get caught up in all of the differing platforms out there, and the last thing we wanted is to take away time and resources from our clients. "Sorry, I'm not able to help you with a death claim because I'm busy posting silly memes." Absolutely not! We needed a plan.
Facebook, which has become a juggernaut of social media, took on a larger role. The logic behind this was that our agents were already active on the platform. There wasn't much of a learning curve because we already had a good amount of clients there already.
LinkedIn was a no-brainer as well. As a great platform for networking and connecting with other professionals, it made sense to take some time to learn how to maximize it to our advantage. I've always managed to find good prospects on LinkedIn, as well as new sources of information.
Realistically, our agents agreed that Twitter was fine to post short messages to, but the expectations were low. Our thoughts were pretty accurate, as nothing much has happened from our Twitter feed, but we really haven't put much effort into it either.
You see, aside from this blog, I have managed to keep my time marketing on social media to under an hour each day, and typically it is more like 30 minutes. And that time is spent during early mornings or late evenings when clients don't expect us to be available.
Unknowingly we were preparing for social distancing before it was necessary. We were adding features like Calendly to our website, and transitioning to "phone appointments" months ahead of everyone else. When the Coronavirus became an issue, we already had most of the tools in place and just needed to step on the gas.
In recent days we have managed to dip our toe into another pool of social media, Instagram. Through discussions with some of our clients, we found out that not everyone reads blogs, even the interesting blogs like this one. A few clients said that they enjoyed reading short articles on life insurance, long term care plans and disability insurance, but they also liked the occasional short video too. The plan is to post short (less than a minute) videos on Instagram to cover various topics.
All of this was done to keep us busy in the short run, and possibly the long run if the pandemic continues to thwart our normal way of doing business.
And that is where the mixed feelings come in. I actually miss going to networking events, talking up my business and swapping business cards. Not being able to call a good client and invite them for coffee (my treat of course) has left a hole in my day.
Also gone are those speaking engagements I enjoy. Talking to a group of strangers is a challenge that keeps me out of my comfort zone, but I thrive on it. Zoom meetings and virtual conferences are no replacements.
Social media is great and it is keeping us afloat, but when we can get back to business as usual, I'll be a lot happier.
Chris Castanes is a professional speaker who helps sales people succeed through workshops and humorous presentations. He's also the author of "You're Going To Be Great At This!", a humorous look at sales. For booking information, click here. He's also the president of Surf Financial Brokers selling life and disability insurance in several states.
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