Should agents staff or outsource the marketing of their insurance agency?
Most agencies know that they need to improve their marketing, embark on a digital marketing program, embrace social media marketing, and update their website. All of these are important to the long-term success of an agency. To accomplish this, agency owners must determine how and when to spend valuable budget dollars. This invariably leads to the issue of adding staff, trying to tap into inexperienced internal resources, or outsourcing the marketing initiatives of insurance agencies. Let’s review these three options.
Option 1: I will use a recently graduated family friend: It is rare that this option works for most agencies, and it is one of the most expensive options they can select. The total cost is likely to exceed $ 50,000 a year, and the recent graduate probably “doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.” These inexperienced resources should understand website development, insurance agency e-marketing, social media marketing, and insurance agency search engine optimization. There are 5 different skill sets required for this list, plus the general experience required to successfully execute these initiatives. So the agency not only pays the $ 50K, but it also pays for all errors in work, errors in judgment, technical deficiencies, and inexperience in the industry.
Option 2: I will hire a VP of Marketing: This is likely a better solution than option 1, although it requires even more budget dollars. An experienced VP of Marketing (let’s call this person a $ 100,000 + resource) will bring both knowledge and experience. However, even with this resource, the agency will undoubtedly require specialized skills and tools in the areas of web development, insurance search engine optimization, insurance agency emarketing, graphic design, and more. A variation on this theme is to hire an experienced marketing manager, perhaps a $ 75,000-a-year resource with some of the previously mentioned experience and skills.
Option 3: I will outsource my marketing to an experienced marketing company: There is a well-known paradigm called “Good, Fast, Cheap”. In this paradigm, you are supposed to choose which of the two criteria you want (Good and Fast, Good and Cheap, Fast and Cheap). But in our new Internet-based world, it is possible to get all three services and solutions that are good, fast, and profitable. Agencies can select an experienced insurance agency marketing firm and get all of the above-mentioned services at a lower cost than even Option 1, the inexperienced college graduate.
Small to medium-sized agents and brokers may find an outsourcing model the most effective way to achieve their marketing goals. Outsourcing can allow these agencies to accomplish everything from website development to social media marketing to insurance agency lead generation, without having to add expensive staff to fuel their continually growing needs.
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