The first set of tools you can use to generate insurance leads and promote your business fall primarily under the promotion category.
They also have a temporary SEO value (We will get to how that works later.) and a great communication value.
The Key to marketing using these services is to NOT blatantly market, but to start and contribute conversations. View them as any real world social gathering. You wouldn’t attend a party or cookout and try to sign everybody up for insurance, would you? (if you would, remind me not to invite you over) But people would ask you about what you do in general, wouldn’t they? Then, if someone actually needed your services, you would probably invite them over to your home or office to talk about it, right?
Well it works the same way online. You develop conversations with others and in your profile lets them know what you do for a living. Your profile also has your websites and contact information listed so that they can visit your website or call or email you so that you can invite them to your office or set up an appointment to go see them. Through your conversations, the people with whom you network with will come to view you as an friend and expert at what you do.
The first one to join is Facebook which if you haven’t yet signed up is a social network that connects you to friends, co-workers, and family members so that you can keep up with each other. When I signed up with them, I was amazed at the number of people that I had not seen (or even thought of) in years that found me. One thing that I found highly effective with starting conversations was when I posted pictures of things I had been doing and family pictures.
The next one to sign up with is Twitter. Twitter was originally designed as a mobile phone application where you could text message your friends simultaneously as to what you were currently doing in a short message of 140 characters or less. Messages like: “I’m at Starbucks on 7th st hanging out, meet me there.”
The reason that it has caught fire with internet users is that you can instantly send everyone following you a short message and shortened link (called a tiny url) to whatever web page you are currently browsing (including your health insurance website.) In turn, your followers can re-send this message to all their followers and so on. A pretty simple way to cast a wide net quickly.
The third social network to join is Digg. Digg lets you comment on different articles such as blog posts and news stories. It also lets you share your comments with your contacts. This is kind of like getting into a political or religious discussion at a party where someone ends up wanting to know more about your point of view afterwards. Then they can get to your website through your signature to check out more about what you do.
So sign up and start a few conversations and get some referrals.
Thanks for stopping by my insurance leads blog.
Cheers
Mac
