Insurance is an attractive financial investment as it enables people to manage risk and protect themselves against unexpected situations that could result in financial loss. Most people are under some type of insurance coverage whether it's health, auto, home, life, business or another policy, with healthcare being the predominant source of coverage.
For example, as of the last United States census, 92.1 percent of people had health insurance at some point during the year. Meanwhile, the global property insurance market is growing steadily each year and is projected to reach a market volume of US $0.77 tn by 2028.
Why Is Content Marketing For Insurance Companies Important?
Insurance is not just a matter of policies and claims. Insurance is also about building trust with customers, maintaining a robust online presence, and nurturing customer relationships.
Content marketing offers insurance companies a unique opportunity to educate their audience on insurance offerings and coverage, while also showcasing their products and services. Insurance agencies can use content marketing to provide value and understanding to current and potential customers, while also establishing themselves as the authority when it comes to insurance content. If you’re wondering about the tangible benefits that an insurance content marketing strategy can offer, let’s dive into some of them.
Examples of Insurance Content Marketing
Insurance firms use content marketing creatively to stay connected to their policyholders and attract potential consumers. Although the content types, formats, and delivery methods vary by company, the one thing that all insurance companies have in common is that they publish on topics relevant to their target audiences.
For example, MetLife’s target demographics are middle-income and more affluent customers. They utilize their blog as a resource to publish content about future financial planning for families, personal finance tips, navigating changes to the economy, and life tips.
Oscar, the insurance company targeting millennials between the ages of 26-35, uses videos to explain their products, provide health and wellness tips, and even communicate to non-English speaking audiences.
6 Benefits of Insurance Content Marketing
New and existing insurance companies are leveraging the advantages of insurance content marketing to achieve brand awareness, grow revenue, and retain existing policyholders. With nearly 4.9 billion active internet users globally, insurance companies worldwide are finding the importance of having a strong digital presence, especially in the heavily regulated Industry where practices are normally outdated.
Insurance content marketing is a powerful strategy as it enables companies to communicate with their existing and potential clients by providing valuable online content that addresses clients' pain points. A strong strategy is often research-driven and targeted to a company's specific audiences. When done correctly, insurance content marketing is cost-effective and can increase brand awareness, improve customer engagement, enhance lead generation, and enable higher search engine rankings.
1. Increased Brand Awareness
The Internet is a global platform where companies can engage directly with customers from wherever they are. By using this platform consistently and strategically, insurance content marketing helps companies reach a wider audience, thus increasing brand awareness. The types of content are usually information based and educational and are always geared towards solving your clients' pain points and addressing their problems. By showing knowledge and expertise, it helps build trust and establish your brand as a thought leader in the industry.
2. Improved Customer Engagement
Creating relevant and solution-oriented content helps companies establish genuine connections with their target audiences by providing the answers to their questions. Since consumer behaviors have changed, people are looking for trustworthy companies that can provide a personalized customer experience. For example, according to McKinsey, US auto insurance carriers that provide excellent customer service consistently have attracted two to four times more new business and about 30 percent more revenue than firms that offer inconsistent customer service.
Retaining policyholders is just as important as attracting new customers in the insurance industry. Content marketing is a great way to engage current customers and attract new ones by consistently providing factual content that clients will care about.
3. Enhance Lead Generation
Providing valuable content is one part of the equation, and delivering content across various mediums is another. Content marketing enables insurance companies to repurpose content and/or use it across different channels, such as blogs, social media posts, and emails. This makes it an efficient marketing strategy that targets audiences across every platform, enhancing lead generation.
4. Higher Search Engine Rankings
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a hot marketing topic across the world. Companies worldwide are competing to rank on Google's first page. Google's algorithms are constantly scraping the web for informative and high-quality content. By consistently publishing high-quality content online, your company's rankings on Google's search engine results page will improve making it easier for potential customers to find you.
Additionally, since the insurance market is saturated, insurance-related keywords are among the most expensive for Google's pay-per-click ads, at over $50. By ranking higher on Google's search engine results page for different keywords, your company can get in front of its target audience without needing to bid for those keywords.
5. Cost-Effective Marketing
Most content marketing strategies are cost-efficient and can even be free, depending on your method. For example, posting a blog only requires the site costs, while posting on social media is free. However, one of the greatest impacts of content marketing is that others often share these posts for free. Compared to traditional marketing methods like print or TV advertising, content marketing is more cost-effective and can deliver better lead generation and customer engagement.
6. Increased Social Media Reach
Different audiences utilize different social media platforms, making it challenging to keep up with all the different mediums. Insurance content marketing provides an easy salutation as it can be used across all social media platforms. Additionally, if the content is high quality, other people or companies may share or repost it on their social media platforms and link to it on their sites. This helps insurance companies expand their reach, which can be a valuable source to attract and engage leads.
Key Elements of Effective Insurance Content Marketing
Content marketing can provide advantages to insurance companies. However, achieving these benefits requires a well-thought-out strategy. An effective insurance content marketing strategy is composed of key elements related to your industry.
Identifying Your Target Audience
A health insurance company wouldn't want to target customers looking for auto insurance. This runs true for content marketing as well. Before posting content, it's essential to identify your target audience so that you know what your insurance clients' specific needs are. Building research and data-driven buyer personas paints a picture of your company's ideal customer when it comes to buying insurance. It can give you information about who your customer is, what they do, the challenges they face, and their motivations and goals.
Creating Engaging Insurance Content
In addition to high-quality content that addresses a customer's problem, insurance companies should strive to create engaging content. There are several ways to make your content engaging and unique, but creativity is needed to stand out from competitors.
A few ways your insurance company can stand out is by using subject matter experts, outsourcing content from credible industry experts and insurance thought leaders, and diversifying your media type with videos, photographs, and other graphics. Licensing health content, images, or videos from credible sources is another great option to consider, as it can provide your company with high-quality content to post and your audiences access to high-quality, informative content from well-known writers on various topics.
How Do You Create Insurance Content?
The first steps to creating an insurance content marketing strategy begins with knowing your target audience and establishing objectives. Once your audiences are identified, and goals are established, you can plan the various content formats you'd like to publish and the types of topics that would interest your audiences.
Since consistency is a key component of a successful content strategy, creating an editorial calendar can help you stay on track. Licensing content on relevant topics, including personal finance, health and wellness, life, and the economy, by credible writers and artists can help add consistency to your content strategy, attract your audiences, and save resources. Licensed content can be used in blog posts, newsletters, emails, social media, eBooks, and on other channels.
Diversify Your Content Formats
A content marketing strategy doesn't have to stick to one format. Some consumers may prefer ebooks and blog posts, while others may find images and videos more appealing. Planning a strategy with diverse content formats including blogs, videos, photographs, infographics, podcasts, and ebooks, is the best way to appeal to a broad audience and capture more people's attention.
Providing Valuable Content Marketing
Providing valuable insurance content to your target audiences is crucial to keeping them engaged. But what is "valuable insurance content?" 80 percent of the search queries on Google are informational. This means most people search the Internet for valuable information that educates them on specific topics. So when it comes to Insurance content marketing, be sure your content is answering the real questions that people ask about insurance, and overall, helping them become educated leads, prospects, and customers.
Produce Content Regularly
Producing content consistently and regularly creates a better customer experience, as consumers don't have to question when you'll deliver content. It is also a great way for insurance companies to build trust and establish credibility but can be the most challenging part of an insurance content strategy. Creating a content marketing editorial calendar can help you strategize and plan what posts will go out and when. Additionally, repurposing content is a great way to add to your content pipeline. For example, you can repurpose an ebook into a blog post or infographic to maximize efficiency and get the most results from your team's efforts.
Use Multiple Channels
Each social media platform attracts a specific audience, so your target audience may not be on all platforms or will utilize one more than the other. It's also likely that some consumers only use email. That's why using multiple marketing channels, including social media, email, and industry publications, can help maximize your reach.
Incorporate Storytelling
Storytelling is a great way to appeal to your audience's senses and intrigue their interests. Insurance content that tells a great story is more persuasive than just delivering facts and statistics. Incorporating narrative journalism and storytelling techniques into your marketing strategy can evoke emotional responses and help your brand better connect with its audiences.
Outsource Content Development
If you're wondering how to create a content marketing strategy with limited resources, outsourcing content development and outsourcing blog posts may be the solution. By working with a credible content provider such as NYTLicensing, you'll be able to use high-quality articles, images, videos, and more created by credible writers and artists. Topics can range from healthcare to lifestyle, finance, cooking, education, science, and more to capture your specific audience's interests.
Encourage Phone Calls as a CTA
Compared to other industries, consumers in the insurance industry are most likely to pick up the phone. In fact, a whopping 68% of shoppers have started getting on the phone at some point during their journey. This percentage is even higher for those searching for healthcare, with 76% making a phone call before their decision. Including a phone number in a visible area on your CTA makes it easy for consumers to contact a representative.
Make It Easy to Shop For Insurance Online
The Internet is still the most used medium for consumers to navigate toward making a final decision. Most consumers (26%) still prefer to make online purchases, which is even more apparent in the healthcare industry, where 30% of consumers shop online. A user-friendly website with valuable insurance content makes it easy for consumers to find what they want.
Types of Insurance Content Marketing
Insurance companies can expand their reach by using various types of content. Here are a few common types of insurance content marketing being utilized in the industry:
Blogging
Blogging is an important type of content marketing in the insurance industry as it enables you to publish content frequently and increase your online presence. Blogging is also one of the best ways to increase search engine rankings. Each blog post has the potential to rank highly on Google's search engine results page, making it easier for leads to find your company.
Industry News
Whether it is health, life, auto, home, or another type of insurance, one thing all consumers have in common is that they're looking to mitigate financial risk. Providing industry news is a great way to answer current and prospective consumers' questions. Additionally, your firm will stand out as a thought leader in the industry by providing the latest updates and changes in the insurance industry.
Social Media Marketing
Purchasing an insurance policy has a personal component to it since it can relate to a potential policyholder's lifestyle and habits. Social media is a great way to attract customers, maximize your market reach, build customer engagement, and increase revenue through advertising. Social media posts can be repurposed from existing content or can simply promote a page on your site. Additionally, sponsoring posts on certain platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook can help you get in front of specific audiences of people who are searching for insurance.
Video Marketing
More users are drawn to watching videos to help them learn and understand topics that interest them. YouTube is the second biggest social media platform in 2023, with over 2.1 billion monthly active users worldwide and 122 million users per day. Videos are a great way to diversify your content strategy and help potential customers understand what your company offers and how it will help them, such as videos explaining coverage or defining core insurance terms. It's no wonder that 94% of marketers say that video content marketing has helped increase consumer engagement with their business by making it easy for their audiences to understand their offerings.
Infographics
65% of people are visual learners and would prefer digesting information through a visual format. Infographics use visual components like diagrams, images, charts, and graphs, making it easier for people to break down and retain important insurance information, such as basic insurance concepts, costs, policies, and coverage. They can be used to share research or even to help summarize a policy.
Podcasts
Another part of the population (30%) are auditory learners, who learn and retain information mostly by listening. Adding podcasts to your insurance marketing strategy can appeal to auditory learners and create trust between the podcaster and the audience. You can get as creative as you want when creating podcast episodes by adding music and dialogue to give an immersive and relevant user experience. There are several relevant insurance podcasts to follow to dive into the subject matter.
White Papers/Ebooks
White papers and eBooks are research-based reports or guides that can educate your audiences by providing in-depth information about a specific product or subject. For example, your insurance firm could create a whitepaper around insurance industry trends. Using these in your content marketing strategy can help position your brand as a thought leader in the insurance industry since the facts presented in a whitepaper are usually from credible sources. Whitepapers can combine words with images, graphs, and charts to help readers break down information in various ways.
Final Thoughts
The global insurance industry is projected to grow significantly, with estimates suggesting worldwide revenue will surpass $661 million by 2028. The industry faces significant challenges in attracting new customers and retaining old ones with growing consumer demand, changes in consumer behavior, and increased competition.
Knowing your target audience, providing valuable information, and consistently distributing content are key to delivering exceptional user experiences to potential and existing policyholders. Licensing articles, photographs, and videos are effective ways to stand out from traditional insurance content marketing strategies.
NYTLicensing is the leader in content outsourcing; by partnering with the world's top publishers, including Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, and Deal Book, we offer content relevant to audiences in the insurance industry. Schedule a discovery call to learn about the advantages content licensing can add to your content marketing strategy.
Frequently Asked Questions About Insurance Content Marketing
Why is marketing important in insurance?
With the current and growing demand for insurance policies each year, a strong marketing strategy can help insurance companies identify and target the right audiences and attract them to their products. Other advantages of marketing in insurance include building trust and establishing credibility in the industry.
What type of marketing do insurance companies use?
In addition to posting on social media and email outreach, content marketing is a key strategy in the insurance industry. Content can be distributed on the website, driving traffic and increasing organic search rankings.
What makes a good insurance website?
A good insurance website is user-friendly and easily accessed on phone, tablet, and computer devices. The best insurance websites provide clear, easy-to-read, high quality content about insurance and may cover available policies and services, and may even offer interactive elements such as quote calculators and places to submit claims online. All in all, the most effective insurance websites make it very easy for website visitors to understand insurance nuances and terminology, and to find the products or support they are seeking.
