6 Biggest Blunders Agents Make on Their Websites
Every insurance agent should have a website. Not only can a good site generate exclusive
leads, allow you to expand your market, speed up the application process and improve
your professional image, these days your prospects simply expect you to have one.
That said, not every website effectively delivers the goods: too many agents are
settling for a trickle of web-generated leads when with just a couple tweaks, the
floodgates would open. Take a good look at yours. Are you guilty of the 6 biggest
blunders you could make on your website?
- No personal photo. It seems like a little touch, but the importance
of a personal photo can’t be stressed enough. People are more comfortable
than ever making financial decisions online, but that doesn’t mean they don’t
want to deal with a real live person somewhere in the process. In fact, the vast
majority of insurance consumers still prefer to close a deal directly with an agent.
Your smiling face reassures your website visitors that yes, there is a man or woman
behind the graphics and the quote engine. Without a picture you risk blending in
with all the impersonal, anonymous-looking sites out there (and there’s a
LOT of them) and turning off visitors that should convert into prospects.
Your photo helps you stand out from the pack and starts building trust with your
prospects off the bat.
Solution: Add a photo of you or you and your family to your home
page. If you’ve got a smaller staff, throw a picture of them on, too. Take
the personalization even further by putting a caption under your team photo: “When
you call ABC Insurance, you’ll speak directly with me, Bob or Linda. We’d
love to discuss the affordable insurance options available to you.”
- No testimonials. Satisfied clients sell your products for you.
Now it’s time to bring that old marketing standby online: If you’ve
invested any time and effort in collecting testimonials, you MUST add them to your
site. (See #1 re: building trust.) If you don’t have a backlog of testimonials,
start building this important marketing resource NOW.
Solution: Add at least one testimonial (make sure it’s your
most powerful one) to your home page and then either sprinkle several more throughout
the rest of the site or create a separate testimonials page (or both). Select ones
that demonstrate the various virtues of doing business with you, such as how you’ve
helped customers save money, select the best plan, get written etc.
- Bare bones “About Us” page. Who
are you? As more and more agents add quote engines to their sites you can’t
rely on that tool alone to convert visitors into prospects. Savvy shoppers click
on About Us pages because it’s the quickest way to do a little background
check on you. Again, they really just want to know who you are, that you’re
not just some anonymous internet company, and why they should trust you with their
money. If you want your site to convey the image of a much larger agency and think
too much information will tip your hand, keep in mind that the big companies and
agencies all take pains to have detailed About Us pages. You don’t have to
reveal the true size of your operation but you must provide visitors a peak at
your business credentials.
Solution: Here are the top things people want to see, and the minimum
of what should be included on your “About Us” page:
- Your name. Whether you head up a larger agency or are a one-man
shop, one of the greatest web marketing sins you could make is to leave your
name off your site.
- Your contact info. Street address, phone number and email
address. Availability is huge. People won’t trust you if you don’t
offer a way (if not multiple ways) to communicate with you. If you won’t
put your full contact info on your website, how do your prospects know you’ll
be around when they need help down the road?
- Your photo. Yup, this again. It’s that important.
- Other non-essentials that are nice touches to include: how long you’ve
been in business; your mission (this can just be a short statement of your goals,
what you offer your clients etc.) and how you stand apart from the competition.
- The About Us page is a great sales opportunity that you shouldn’t miss
out on. Remember, it’s your chance to tell prospects in your own words
why they should do business with you.
- No carrier information. The advantage of being an independent
agent or broker is being able to offer customers multiple products from multiple
carriers. Seeing a variety of options assures prospects that you’ll be able
to effectively shop around for them to find the best rate. It’s a huge selling
point, but a lot of sites don’t reveal all their available carriers until
after a customer has used the quote engine to view the rates they qualify for.
The carriers you work with already have built-in name-recognition and branding
consumers trust – you should be capitalizing on it! Let your carriers’ professional
image rub off on your site.
Solution: If possible, display carrier logos on your home page
or on an easy to find “Companies We Work With” page. Even if you can’t
get the logos, at least list the companies!
- Information dead ends. If you’ve got
a link, some click happy visitors will check it out. A link that leads to an empty
page looks unprofessional. Worse, it quickly frustrates a visitor who clicked in
the good faith that they’d be provided the promised information. For example,
if you have a “Companies We Work With” link, and visitors are sent
to a template page with absolutely no companies listed, and zero content total,
you’re seriously testing the already seconds-long attention span of the average
online visitor.
Solution: Put something of value that delivers on the promises
on all your pages, or don’t give visitors the option to click through to
them!
- Not interactive. In a tight market, to win
over the lion’s share of prospects your website has to be packed with information.
If all a prospect can do is write down your phone number or send you an email,
they’re probably going to continue shopping around online. Maybe they’ll
call you, or maybe your competitor will do a better job stopping them in their
tracks.
Solution: Integrating a quote engine onto your site allows prospects
to compare your rates and products side-by-side at their convenience. Not only do
you get to impress prospects by quoting them a variety of plans, you get their personal
information sent immediately to your inbox. No waiting around for them to contact
you: you can be on the phone with a prospect before they’ve even left your
site.
Remember, a website isn’t like a yellow pages ad: you’re not stuck with
what is sent to the printers – it can be modified whenever you want. And if
you want your site to consistently deliver quality leads, it has to be personal,
interactive and it has to deliver on your promises. The biggest mistake
you can make on your website? Letting these 6 problem areas go untreated.
 |
|
Jeremiah Desmarais and his award winning team have won 3 awards in 2006 for their marketing initiatives that touch Norvax' client base and carrier relationships on a daily basis. He is author of several white papers including the applauded ‘Selling Insurance Online:
Identifying 9 Top Trends for 2006’, and has been a contributor to the Agent’s
Sales Journal, Health Insurance Underwriter as well as a guest speaker at various carrier events
and workshops. He is a member of the Society of Industry Leaders. He welcomes feedback at jdesmarais@norvax.com |
|
