Despite the rise of other forms of content marketing, blogging is still a crucial part of outreach strategy for many businesses.

According to a recent report from Hubspot https://www.stateofinbound.com/, marketers who make it a priority are 13 times more likely to see a positive return on investment than those who don’t.

But sometimes it can be a challenge keeping the interesting, engaging topics coming—week after week. If this is a constant challenge for you, here are some topic ideas to get your insurance blogging strategy started off strong in the New Year.

Every marketer has experienced this at some point: you carefully craft an email, taking time with design elements and links and your call to action. Then you hit “send” and wait.

And your open rates aren’t as high as you expected. In fact, they’re pretty low.

It can be disappointing to put all that work into an email or series of emails and get less-than-expected results. But you don’t have to put a ton of work into an email to get great results—as long as you know the elements of strong copywriting for email marketing.

Despite all the effort businesses put into advertising and marketing across different mediums, perhaps the single most effective way to generate more business is through a personal referral. People trust their family and friends far more than advertising and marketing messages, no matter how strong our messaging.

But whereas you control your own advertising and marketing efforts, referrals are generated outside of your control. It can be difficult to deliberately take action to generate more referrals—difficult, but not impossible.

Social media can transform your marketing, helping you reach new customers in important market niches. But it’s not always easy or intuitive to build a strong social media following. And chances are, if you run your own insurance business, you don’t have a lot of time to devote to social media.

Here are some things you can do today to expand your social media reach—without spending tons of time online.

Know where your audience hangs out

Insurance can be sold to both consumer markets and businesses. B2B (business to business) marketing has different challenges and expectations than B2C (business to consumer) marketing. However, there are also some similarities—particularly in insurance, which is a complex product even for consumers.

Here’s a look at the different tactics and mindsets to keep in mind.

Emotion vs. logic

It’s not always easy to hold an audience’s attention these days, when there are so many distractions—both online and off. Here are a few tips for hosting a webinar that keeps your audience glued to their screens.

First, in order to create a webinar that’s truly riveting, you have to know what your audience will find fascinating. It’s not always the same thing a general audience would be interested in.

Many companies are using chatbots to improve the customer experience, including those in the insurance sector. Are chatbots right for your agency? Let’s look at the pros and cons.

Pro: Chatbots save you money in expanding your capacity.

There are infinite ways to market your insurance business. Some are more worth your time and money than others, however. Here are five common mistakes many of us have been guilty of—at the beginning of our careers or even despite or experience.

Buying low-quality leads. According to a study by ZoomInfo https://blog.zoominfo.com/4-biggest-challenges-of-the-b2b-sales-rep/, over half of people who sell in B2B markets find lead quality and quantity to be their biggest challenge.

Content marketing can be fun and effective. But it can also be demanding and work-intensive. According to a study from SmartInsights, the average time to write a single blog post was up 65% in 2019 from 2014.

Content marketing isn’t easy. You have to come up with interesting ideas that speak to your audience and generate results on a regular basis—and that takes time.

Here are a few ideas to adapt to your own insurance blog, newsletter, social media posts, or other content marketing efforts to add a little spark to your content marketing.

There’s no question that the events of 2020 have led to a great deal of change and upheaval. Marketing strategies have changed as well, and so have consumer mindsets and expectations. Here are a few trends for insurance marketing in 2021.

First, personalization is becoming more important. You may have been able to get away with blasting out the same message to multiple demographics in prior years, but if you’re still doing that, you’re leaving money on the table.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been unfolding for about a year at this point, and you may have gotten used to working from home.

For some people, it’s easier to stay productive in their own space—but for others, productivity is a struggle when work and home aren’t physically separated. If you’re caring for kids full-time while trying to work, that can make things even harder.

If you’ve found your productivity slipping in the past few months, you’re not alone. Here are some tips for better focus under less-than-ideal conditions.

The situation was less than ideal for everyone in 2020, and if you’re like a lot of other business owners, chances are your business suffered. The pandemic has changed the marketing and business landscape for insurance agents as well as those in many other industries.

If you’re looking for ways to get your business back on track, there are a few marketing trends to pay attention to in the coming year.

Insurance is a business based on trust and relationships, and video marketing can be a great tool in your arsenal to cultivate those relationships with customers. It lets people see you face to face, helps you make connections that you can’t make via text, and can do a lot of heavy lifting in terms of building trust.

Making videos might sound work-intensive, but it doesn’t have to be. In the days of COVID lockdowns, people are very forgiving of lower-budget videos, and even expect them. These days, you don’t have to spend a lot of money on equipment to make effective videos.

Cultivating empathy for your audience helps you connect with them better and give them better service—and it also helps you develop more effective marketing messages. Here’s how to incorporate compassion and empathy into your social media strategy.

Know your audience—inside and out. It’s important to understand the people you sell to. Write up a customer profile—many insurance agents have several customer profiles, depending on the types of insurance they sell. Understand how old your typical customer is, what their needs are, and what challenges they face in buying insurance.

Local SEO is all about making sure your agency appears in top search results for businesses in your area. Placing well in local search results can be a game-changer for insurance agencies.

It’s a good idea to hire an SEO expert to give your website a comprehensive overhaul. But if your budget can’t support it right now, there are a few simple things anyone can do to improve local search rankings without expert help.

A lot of people are working from home these days—and for some, it can be a challenging adjustment. It’s not unusual for those used to working at an office to feel scattered and distracted while working from home, especially if the whole family is home as well.

One of the first things you should do when planning to work from home is to create a dedicated workspace. Ideally, this would be a room with a door—but it could be anywhere in your house, as long as it’s out of the flow of traffic.

For many people, the 2020 holidays will not be ideal. But you can still reach out to your customers and bring joy in an impactful way—even in the midst of a challenging holiday.

One way to do it is to run a holiday contest—one with a really great prize. This is an area where your community connections can really help you.

There are lots of different ways you can market your insurance business online. Using online apps like Tiktok, YouTube, or Vimeo can be effective, but they can also be time-consuming. As with any social media platform, you have to decide where your investment will be most effective—in both money and time.

However, video marketing could turn out to be your secret weapon. According to a recent Oberlo study, approximately 85% of consumers watch online video content. That’s a lot of opportunity.

Despite all the other news lately, the pandemic is still happening—and in many places, it’s getting worse. Your customers doubtless have a lot on their minds. So how do you communicate effectively with them in these challenging times?

First, consider what do your customers need right now—and what issues are keeping them up at night.

Attracting leads can be a challenging part of any business. And it can be tempting to cast a wide net when you’re crafting an insurance marketing campaign—so you can attract the largest number of leads possible. But sometimes the net can be too wide.