How to Integrate Social Selling Into Your Insurance Organization’s Digital Marketing Strategy
Risk is a double-edged sword for insurance agencies and carriers. The insurance industry certainly thrives because it deeply understands risk. But being knee-deep in risk makes many carriers reluctant to adopt new marketing methods such as social selling. This is an epic missed opportunity (which you, as an insurance marketer, understand and probably have to navigate daily).
Social selling isn’t as new as it seems at first glance; insurance agents have always relied on relationship-building for sales. Social selling is just another way for them to build trust with customers. The only difference? The connections happen online via social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn rather than in person. And those digital connections can become the foundations for long-term relationships and sales.
So, how can you integrate social selling into your carrier’s marketing strategies? Start with these three steps: overcome reluctance to change, invest in bonds with sales, and deploy a comprehensive social selling program.
Let’s get into it.
1. Getting Leadership Onboard
Change doesn’t happen overnight (just look at the timeline of digital transformation in the insurance industry). It also doesn’t happen without some kind of catalyst. This is your chance to lead marketing change. Insurance marketers who want to launch a social selling program need to educate their teams and leaders about what social selling is and why it’s so essential.
“What is social selling?” is a crucial first question to answer to get buy-in. Step one is to advocate and share resources with colleagues and carrier leadership that explain what social selling is and its benefits. If you tell them that social selling will allow agents to get more face time with customers, humanize your brand, and bring in leads, they might just be willing to hear the rest of your plan.
Decision makers at the carrier level might be more willing to fund social selling programs once they gain a deeper understanding of them. Be patient but persistent about building a culture that supports the overall strategy.
2. Reshaping the Traditional Insurance Sales-Marketing Relationship
More so than other digital marketing strategies, social selling requires sales and marketing teams to work together. When properly executed, social selling helps both teams make a more significant impact during the customer journey and, ultimately, can increase the number of leads agents generate. The sales team is essential to your social selling dream team because it understands what makes agents tick and how to get them invested in the program.
Results matter to a sales team, so one way to get this kind of relationship moving is by using metrics to show that social selling isn’t just another to-do on the growing task list. It can increase profits (and agent commission or bonuses!). For instance, you could share that associates who regularly post content are 45% likelier to exceed their quotas, and their companies are 57% likelier to generate leads.
Show your sales team how social selling can keep their prospects. Once bought in, the sales team will serve as an essential conduit to agents, demonstrating that social selling can keep prospects warmed up and engaged. Social selling isn’t just for prospects either; it’s an important way to stay in touch with current customers, supporting retention and referrals. Think about it this way: Net promoter scores are significantly higher among insurance customers who’ve interacted with their providers in the last year than those who did not. Staying in touch matters to the bottom line. The benefits are measurable, so use that to your advantage when getting sales buy-in.
3. Choosing the Right Social Selling Platform
Another way to seamlessly integrate social selling into an existing digital marketing strategy is using the right social selling tool. Digital platforms can make social selling at scale streamlined and intuitive. Show sales, leadership, and any other decision makers how the right platform can make it easy to support intermediaries, showcase thought leadership, and build trust and relationships that will lead to sales.
A solid social selling platform will manage your social channels, ensure compliance, curate relevant content, and boost the effectiveness of your social efforts. Seek technology that understands your industry’s nuances and the impact intermediaries can make through social selling. The right solution should create efficiencies for you, your team, leadership, and users.
4. Executing Social Selling Campaigns
At this point, you might be wondering how to start a social selling program effectively within your organization. Once carrier leadership, sales, and the rest of your teams are on board with social selling, it’s time to construct and deploy a full-scale social selling program.
Here’s what it looks like at a high level: First, your social sellers must create authentic content to post (with your help, of course!). The content should have a human angle to it and feel very real. Generally speaking, social sellers should distribute different types of content, including images, videos, and links to articles, to keep their audiences engaged and excited.
You can help social sellers by using customizable content libraries that make relevant and timely content easily accessible. Train intermediaries on when to post, how to use the platform and libraries, and what kind of engagement you’re hoping to achieve.
Don’t forget: Once agents have shared content, it’s time to engage in the social conversation. There’s a reason intermediary-owned social content enjoys higher levels of engagement than brand-owned content: that content usually has more organic back-and-forth between parties.
Finally, remember that social selling programs perform best when they’re integrated. Paid and organic social posts have a symbiotic relationship; a strategy that doesn’t leverage both simply isn’t effective. While organic content creates richness and humanizes your brand, paid ads help your agents get in front of customers they haven’t met yet. Combined into a comprehensive social selling plan, these strategies can have a significant effect on ROI.
Paving the Way to Success With High-Quality Social Selling
Social selling as part of a larger digital marketing strategy isn’t a radical concept, even in insurance marketing; it’s a proven method that produces solid returns over time. Without a doubt, social selling takes time and energy from people outside your marketing bubble. However, by gaining leadership buy-in, building closer bonds between your team and sales, and strategically rolling out to agents, there is so much more to gain than to lose. The more comfortable everyone becomes with social media, the more likely they’ll see it as a welcome addition to the sales and marketing playbook.
Are you interested in learning how to get your team excited about social selling? Want to know how it can expand your marketing reach and develop richer relationships with customers? Request a demo of Denim Social today.
How to Integrate Social Selling Into Your Insurance Organization’s Digital Marketing Strategy
Risk is a double-edged sword for insurance agencies and carriers. The insurance industry certainly thrives because it deeply understands risk. But being knee-deep in risk makes many carriers reluctant to adopt new marketing methods such as social selling. This is an epic missed opportunity (which you, as an insurance marketer, understand and probably have to navigate daily).
Social selling isn’t as new as it seems at first glance; insurance agents have always relied on relationship-building for sales. Social selling is just another way for them to build trust with customers. The only difference? The connections happen online via social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn rather than in person. And those digital connections can become the foundations for long-term relationships and sales.
So, how can you integrate social selling into your carrier’s marketing strategies? Start with these three steps: overcome reluctance to change, invest in bonds with sales, and deploy a comprehensive social selling program.
Let’s get into it.
1. Getting Leadership Onboard
Change doesn’t happen overnight (just look at the timeline of digital transformation in the insurance industry). It also doesn’t happen without some kind of catalyst. This is your chance to lead marketing change. Insurance marketers who want to launch a social selling program need to educate their teams and leaders about what social selling is and why it’s so essential.
“What is social selling?” is a crucial first question to answer to get buy-in. Step one is to advocate and share resources with colleagues and carrier leadership that explain what social selling is and its benefits. If you tell them that social selling will allow agents to get more face time with customers, humanize your brand, and bring in leads, they might just be willing to hear the rest of your plan.
Decision makers at the carrier level might be more willing to fund social selling programs once they gain a deeper understanding of them. Be patient but persistent about building a culture that supports the overall strategy.
2. Reshaping the Traditional Insurance Sales-Marketing Relationship
More so than other digital marketing strategies, social selling requires sales and marketing teams to work together. When properly executed, social selling helps both teams make a more significant impact during the customer journey and, ultimately, can increase the number of leads agents generate. The sales team is essential to your social selling dream team because it understands what makes agents tick and how to get them invested in the program.
Results matter to a sales team, so one way to get this kind of relationship moving is by using metrics to show that social selling isn’t just another to-do on the growing task list. It can increase profits (and agent commission or bonuses!). For instance, you could share that associates who regularly post content are 45% likelier to exceed their quotas, and their companies are 57% likelier to generate leads.
Show your sales team how social selling can keep their prospects. Once bought in, the sales team will serve as an essential conduit to agents, demonstrating that social selling can keep prospects warmed up and engaged. Social selling isn’t just for prospects either; it’s an important way to stay in touch with current customers, supporting retention and referrals. Think about it this way: Net promoter scores are significantly higher among insurance customers who’ve interacted with their providers in the last year than those who did not. Staying in touch matters to the bottom line. The benefits are measurable, so use that to your advantage when getting sales buy-in.
3. Choosing the Right Social Selling Platform
Another way to seamlessly integrate social selling into an existing digital marketing strategy is using the right social selling tool. Digital platforms can make social selling at scale streamlined and intuitive. Show sales, leadership, and any other decision makers how the right platform can make it easy to support intermediaries, showcase thought leadership, and build trust and relationships that will lead to sales.
A solid social selling platform will manage your social channels, ensure compliance, curate relevant content, and boost the effectiveness of your social efforts. Seek technology that understands your industry’s nuances and the impact intermediaries can make through social selling. The right solution should create efficiencies for you, your team, leadership, and users.
4. Executing Social Selling Campaigns
At this point, you might be wondering how to start a social selling program effectively within your organization. Once carrier leadership, sales, and the rest of your teams are on board with social selling, it’s time to construct and deploy a full-scale social selling program.
Here’s what it looks like at a high level: First, your social sellers must create authentic content to post (with your help, of course!). The content should have a human angle to it and feel very real. Generally speaking, social sellers should distribute different types of content, including images, videos, and links to articles, to keep their audiences engaged and excited.
You can help social sellers by using customizable content libraries that make relevant and timely content easily accessible. Train intermediaries on when to post, how to use the platform and libraries, and what kind of engagement you’re hoping to achieve.
Don’t forget: Once agents have shared content, it’s time to engage in the social conversation. There’s a reason intermediary-owned social content enjoys higher levels of engagement than brand-owned content: that content usually has more organic back-and-forth between parties.
Finally, remember that social selling programs perform best when they’re integrated. Paid and organic social posts have a symbiotic relationship; a strategy that doesn’t leverage both simply isn’t effective. While organic content creates richness and humanizes your brand, paid ads help your agents get in front of customers they haven’t met yet. Combined into a comprehensive social selling plan, these strategies can have a significant effect on ROI.
Paving the Way to Success With High-Quality Social Selling
Social selling as part of a larger digital marketing strategy isn’t a radical concept, even in insurance marketing; it’s a proven method that produces solid returns over time. Without a doubt, social selling takes time and energy from people outside your marketing bubble. However, by gaining leadership buy-in, building closer bonds between your team and sales, and strategically rolling out to agents, there is so much more to gain than to lose. The more comfortable everyone becomes with social media, the more likely they’ll see it as a welcome addition to the sales and marketing playbook.
Are you interested in learning how to get your team excited about social selling? Want to know how it can expand your marketing reach and develop richer relationships with customers? Request a demo of Denim Social today.
Insurance leaders know the value of agents when it comes to product distribution, but smart marketers should be making the case to invest in digital enablement at the agent level. This means extending social media efforts beyond the brand and to the intermediaries building relationships at the local level.
Helping agents feel comfortable on social media and weaving it into their everyday sales mix is much different than managing a social presence at the brand or company level. But when your business goes to market through intermediaries, empowering them on social media is crucial.
Unsure where to start with a social selling program? It can feel daunting, but Denim Social can help. Learn how to set the right tone, train, create content and more in the latest guide from Denim Social: Guide To Social Selling for Insurance.
People buy from people. It’s an old adage in business that still holds true today: Trust and relationships are the bedrock of insurance. A deeper agent-customer relationship means more products sold over a longer period. It’s crucial to understand that trust extends to the world of digital, especially social media.
In today’s environment, it’s not enough to release content from your carrier’s social accounts and hope that consumers will connect with it. Your strategy needs to include agents, the advisors building customer relationships in their communities. Enabling agents to leverage social media to engage and form bonds with existing and potential customers opens the door to agent-centered digital sales. As part of a bigger digital strategy, a social selling program for intermediaries helps establish their presence within the digital landscape, showcasing thought leadership, building relationships, and ultimately growing business.
Why Is Social Selling Important for Building Trust in Insurance?
As digitization continues to be a hot topic, one thing has remained steady: the agent’s role. Although many customers are accustomed to buying auto coverage online, for example, that isn’t the case as their needs mature. Just because a customer is digital-first doesn’t mean they don’t want human guidance, especially when protecting their futures.
Social selling is a powerful addition to an agent’s toolbox (and your marketing toolbox!). After all, most consumers spend roughly two and a half hours online daily. So, agents who engage their online networks through social media are more likely to expand their prospect and customer relationships.
However, it’s not enough to show up in digital spaces. “Being there” is a great first step but doesn’t ramp up trust-building in a systematic, measurable way. Instead, you need to establish digital marketing strategies that lean on social media and social selling as powerful sales tools (which they are!).
Here are some key steps:
1. Identify your agents’ social maturity.
There will always be varying levels of social media experience from the agent perspective. From naysayers to dabblers to experts, evaluating and segmenting your agent group is critical before constructing a social selling program.
The agents most comfortable and active on social media often become early adopters and champions of internal social selling programs and digital marketing strategies. With some education and profile optimization, this elite team is an incredible tool for securing more buy-in. Getting them started on social selling before their peers allows them to gain experience with the process, build interest, and better advocate for the strategy.
2. Educate agents on the value of social media as a sales tool.
Agents might assume that because they have social accounts for their business, they must be social selling. They’re not. Social selling is much more than “keeping up” a social media account. It’s consistently posting organic content, strategically weaving in paid advertising, and engaging with an audience. Just like in-person relationship building, the value comes in the conversations and connections. Agents should continually engage and turn those conversations into digital-first relationships to grow their business.
It’s worth the effort to teach your agents about the unique benefits social selling can bring to their roles. Patience and demonstrating value are key. One way to demonstrate that value is by sharing a striking social selling statistic: 80% of salespeople who hit at least 150% of their goals say they’ve leveraged technology consistently to connect with consumers. That statistic is hard for ambitious, high-performing agents to ignore. More agents will be willing to get on board with social selling when they believe it can directly affect their paycheck, promotions, and commissions. (And it can!)
3. Invest in a comprehensive social selling platform.
Social selling at scale can seem overwhelming for even the most seasoned leaders. Understanding that not all social media management tools are created equal is the best place to start. Finding a platform dedicated to social selling, especially one that’s industry-specific, is key.
A solid social selling tool should do several things. It should enable a small and mighty team of marketers to manage a robust content library, analyze the broader story of the value of agent social selling, and monitor and archive from a compliance and regulatory perspective. Most of all, it needs to be easy for agents to use.
After choosing a social selling platform that does all these things, it’s good to run some test drives with your expert social media users (the agents who were first identified as being active on social media). Beginning with a concentrated group of agents allows everyone involved to learn the social selling tool’s nuances before scaling. After the initial user group is up and running, it’s easy to fold more agents into the process.
4. Collect data and optimize over time.
Getting your agents to believe in social media as a powerful relationship-building tool is the foundation of any successful social selling program. Building a content library to help position them as thought leaders within their social networks is the next layer. Once agents have adopted the concept of social selling and are posting regularly, you can establish benchmarks for what social selling means for your organization.
It’s important to track social selling like any other marketing or sales program. You can set general KPIs to start, such as agent adoption, basic content usage, and engagement. More KPIs can be added to the mix later, such as return on ad spend and leads generated.
Finally, it’s essential to make sure agents know social selling is a slow-and-steady process. The power of social selling grows over time — the way trust and good relationships do. When done correctly and patiently, it can move the sales needle in trackable ways.
Whether in person or online, consumers will always value the guidance of a trusted advisor. Building that trust and providing value through an effective social selling strategy with the above steps is crucial to establishing your agents’ positions within the digital landscape. Some things change in business, but others never do: “People buy from people” will always be true.
*This article was originally published in Digital Insurance.
The insurance industry is abuzz with discussion around digital transformation, with tech topics dominating this year’s Global Insurance Symposium and InsurTech New York agendas. Digitization, automation, and the direct-to-consumer business were on everybody’s lips, and one sentiment was clear: The role of the trusted advisor will always be necessary to the industry because human connection remains central to the insurance transaction.
That said, the way insurance agents interact with customers must evolve alongside technology.
Digitization is meeting people's needs in areas ripe for automation, but it’s also replacing some of the more mundane tasks that agents have traditionally handled. Agents don’t need to sit at their desks to sign papers anymore, but they do need to promptly answer their social media direct messages. This is all part of meeting customers’ changing needs.
While digital evolution is intimidating for many industry veterans, there is ample opportunity for carriers, marketers, and agents who are open to adopting new technology. And those who embrace change can shape the role of the advisor in the future. From investing in social selling to outsourcing your work (to AI!), here are some of the ways I see digital changes boosting your relevance and success:
1. Prioritize social selling in the prospecting, sales, and retention mix.
What's the biggest change coming to insurance agents? The way they connect with prospects. As the digital age continues, social media needs to be a larger piece of the communication pie. This doesn’t mean tossing out other communication methods, like phone calls, virtual appointments, emails, or in-person meetings. But it does mean agents should be incorporating social selling into their digital marketing and sales strategies.
Social selling is more than just being present on social media. It means giving intermediaries the reins to not only help humanize your brand, but also build personal connections through their own social networks. Why is this so important? Because people buy from people — even in this digital age. Those people are on social media, and when the intermediary is too, they're more likely to sell there. Stats back this up: Almost 80% of social sellers outsell their peers who aren't on social at all.
To stay relevant throughout the buyer's journey, marketers will need to help agents cultivate a healthy mix of organic posts and paid social ads. This will not only keep agents (and the insurance carriers they represent) top-of-mind, but also offer value to potential and current leads through thought leadership, insightful tips, and real-world advice.
Agents can also set aside time to respond to comments, engage with followers, and proactively reach out to audiences on social — after all, the whole point of social selling is adding the human touch to the sales process. Building community and rapport with leads will establish agents as trusted experts in the industry.
2. Use tech to free up time to focus on relationship-building.
As tech gets smarter, we'll see it taking over more repetitive or low-stakes tasks, which will free up workers in the insurance world to complete higher-level work. According to Deloitte's 2022 Insurance Industry Outlook, 74% of insurance provider CIOs say they’re focusing on bringing more AI into their processes. In other words, insurance professionals will increasingly make fewer decisions alone; instead, data and analytics will support and guide them. And in the process, agents are getting more time back to invest in customer relationships.
Sure, you can automate emails and use online scheduling tools — but tech is going so much further. The industry is investing in everything from AI-powered underwriting to telematics, often improving the quality of service in the process.
The bottom line is that with tech on their side, agents and advisors have more time to do what they do best: build relationships and sell their products and services.
3. Don't assume “digital-first” customers don't want an agent’s expertise.
As insurance products modernize and AI and automation make underwriting, pricing, and the entire sales cycle shorter and more accurate, it's important to remember that this doesn't take away the important role of the intermediary. Even consumers who want a digital-first experience still value the guidance of a trusted professional as they're making decisions to protect their futures. Believing digitization is here to work with you, not against you, is key to agents securing their roles within the digital landscape.
Legacy insurance agents and those fresh faces looking to jump into a new career in insurance shouldn't worry! The digital era isn't going anywhere, but it's here to make our lives easier. Lean in and let it work for you, knowing that human connection and advisorship will always be core to the insurance transaction.
This article was originally published in Property Casualty 360.
Independent agents are taking over the scene — 62% of property and casualty premiums in the U.S. were written by independent agents in 2021 — so competition is fiercer than ever. Independent agents who want to stand out need to build up their personal brands online to reach customers and keep relationships strong. When agents use their personal social networks to find prospects, build relationships, and grow their thought leadership, they’re using one of the most powerful strategies available to them: social selling.
Social selling might be a familiar strategy for captive agents who have their carriers’ built-in marketing support, but independent agents must create their business (and relationships) from scratch. More and more, those relationships are built over social media. That’s the challenge for agents in this new landscape, but it’s also the big opportunity. People buy from people, and building personal relationships is what insurance agents have always done best. They just need to translate those rapport-building skills into modern digital spaces with a few key strategies.
Adopt social selling as a go-to strategy.
Social selling unifies sales and marketing, transforming social media into a revenue driver by giving agents an avenue to showcase their thought leadership, engage with potential and existing customers, and build trust and relationships in the process. It is similar to offline selling: Build trust with customers, get to know them, and explain how your product helps solve their problems. But it proves even more powerful — 78% of social sellers outsell their peers who don’t use social media.
To get ahead in social selling, agents must harness the power in their relationships and personal networks. Research shows that content shared by employees gets eight times more engagement than content shared by a brand. A social selling strategy can not only help agents reach more people, but also can also help them humanize their own work and brand.
For independent agents, personal branding can make all the difference. Agents shouldn’t be afraid to be unique and show their authentic selves on social media. From sharing personal photos to comments on client posts, the more clients see agents as personal friends and unique people, the more engaged they will be.
Why does letting personality show matter for agents? Credibility has become increasingly important for customers, with 88% of consumers citing authenticity as a key factor in deciding what brands they like and support. Clients want to know they can trust their agents, especially when making decisions that majorly affect their families and lives, so social selling content should reflect authenticity and relatability.
Understand and accept agents’ evolving roles in the changing landscape of digital insurance.
The sales process has gone digital in many ways, but that does not change the value of human guidance from an insurance advisor — the role of the trusted insurance advisor isn’t going anywhere.
Human connection remains a meaningful part of the insurance transaction. When people’s lives change, their relationships with their agents matter, and the work that agents have put into fostering trust and strong relationships will pay off.
Social media is a crucial tool in keeping intermediaries connected in this digital age and agents need to be comfortable using modern social media marketing and sales strategies.
Don’t go it alone — look for trusted support resources.
When independent agents are active in social selling, they shouldn’t go it alone. The resources agents have been consulting for years often have active blogs and social accounts from which they can source content. Many carriers and insurance industry thought leaders also offer curated social content that is ready to share and can typically be personalized by the agent.
A social selling strategy powered by a thoughtful content mix can help independent agents not only reach more people, but also reinforce the thought leadership and trust-building they’ve been demonstrating to clients outside of social media for years.
Find the right tools.
Curating content, creating a regular cadence of posting, monitoring multiple social channels — there are a lot of moving pieces in an independent agent’s social selling strategy. Social selling is just one of the many things an independent agent has in their sales repertoire. This makes it so important to have technology built for social selling specifically. The less time agents spend on the organizational aspects of social selling, the more time they have to build customer relationships, communicate authentically and, ultimately, build trust online.
This article was originally published in Insurance Journal.
Most insurance companies were setting out on a digital transformation journey with an expected time frame of about three to five years before COVID-19. Then the pandemic accelerated the need for digitization and shortened that time frame drastically—to about six months, in most cases.
Insurance marketing teams were already using digital marketing prior to the pandemic. But as the pandemic created a world mostly void of face-to-face customer interactions, they had to ramp up digital campaigns and touchpoints significantly—and quickly. Marketers had no choice but to mold ad-hoc digital marketing strategies onto existing department structures.
One problem with charging existing teams with new strategies is that they won’t always have the expertise necessary to pull them off. In-house teams might be used to handling copy and visual, as these have been and will continue to be staples of marketing for a long time. As a result of accelerated digitization across the industry, however, managing CRMs, digital marketing platforms and data are now also critical elements of insurance marketing responsibilities.
Can your team support that, or do you need to expand and restructure?
After more than a year of working this way, it’s time for insurance company leaders to take a deep breath and a step back. They need to critically evaluate the function and structure of their marketing departments to determine if they’re well-positioned to fully embrace modern approaches now and into the future. The tips listed below can help insurance company leaders create marketing departments best suited for pulling off excellent digital marketing strategies.
- Combine your brand and business unit marketing teams.
The traditional marketing department structure at insurance companies separates brand marketers and business unit marketers into two or more teams. The brand team is responsible for building and strengthening brand identity and recognition and typically measures its marketing success in recall and impression metrics.
The business unit teams, on the other hand, are responsible for supporting each line of business in the company, like property/casualty, life insurance, etc. These teams produce insurance marketing materials that generally aim to drive direct sales of a given product or service. A large part of measuring success for these teams comes down to conversion metrics.
When these teams operate separately, they can too easily become misaligned around goals. Building the brand, especially on digital channels like social media, can also have a direct impact on conversions. Brand marketers need to think with a conversion mindset, and business unit marketers need to consider how traditionally brand-centric tools, like social media, actually can help grow the business. Essentially, you want to centralize your marketing team so every marketer can collaborate and communicate across the business and unify around shared goals.
- Democratize digital marketing.
Marketers shouldn’t be the only team members able to drive your digital insurance marketing efforts. Agents, in particular, can have a huge impact on the business when they do marketing from their own social media business accounts. This approach, known as social selling, humanizes the brand and creates stronger connections between prospects and agents. It can help move prospects closer to conversion and continue nurturing customer relationships once they do convert.
If employees are posting brand-related content on social media, however, marketers will need a way to oversee their activity to ensure all electronic communication stays compliant and consistent with brand messaging standards. A content management platform can help. Look for a platform outfitted with permission settings, user roles and governance features to help you democratize content and eliminate any bottlenecks that could stall your social media marketing efforts.
- Keep growing your team.
If you’re looking to expand the expertise of your team and bring on more marketers, a natural assumption might be to hire professionals with direct insurance marketing experience. But remember that growth is the imperative behind your digital transformation in the first place, and if you really want to expand, that means expanding the perspectives on your teams as well. Hiring only marketers with industry experience can make your company seem indistinguishable from the rest as content will often look and feel the same.
Instead, consider hiring people with different backgrounds and experiences, even from outside the industry, to shake things up with new perspectives. People from retail or consumer-brand backgrounds, for example, can invigorate your digital marketing strategy with fresh, new ideas and expose your team to different best practices that can help you stand out from the competition. Look into other industries that really seem to understand consumers and consumer behaviors.
- Embrace agility.
Traditional marketing department structures at insurance companies can seem rigid and unable to change easily. But if the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that agility in the face of the unexpected is one key to a strong business.
Structure your team in a way that enables you to pivot quickly when necessary—not just in the face of a global pandemic but also with constantly changing consumer preferences. Build a team that can constantly react to the ever-changing market with new digital tactics. And make sure your marketing team is supported by the right tools and marketing technology infrastructure to support such efforts.
Invest in digital platforms that can automate campaign, content and message delivery across channels to keep your reaction nimble and responsive. The last thing you want is to spend weeks trying to get your marketing materials out, only to find they’re now irrelevant due to some market trend.
- Make data-informed decisions.
When it comes to essential infrastructure for insurance companies today, remember the importance of data. Data and analytics are critical, and you need the right technology to capture, compile and disseminate data from disparate systems. The insights you can glean from well-organized data analysis can help your insurance marketing team make the best-informed decisions and provide the room to experiment and test messaging based on the most current information.
The pandemic has forced the hand of many insurance marketing executives. Prioritizing digital marketing efforts is imperative today, but if companies want to see the most return from these investments, they need the right marketing structures to support them. Then, properly designed teams with the right tools and technologies in their arsenals can continue responding to changes as they come, constantly evolving digital marketing strategies and driving success.
This article was originally published in Carrier Management.
Insurance companies have long viewed social media efforts in a brand marketing light, leveraging social media for creative messaging and building corporate recognition. This is still a worthwhile endeavor, but it’s time for insurance marketers to add another level to their social media strategies: performance marketing.
Performance marketing focuses on social media as a conversion tool, driving lead generation and sales rather than vanity metrics alone. Instead of tracking a post’s comments or reach, marketers can track how many readers click through to customized landing pages, for instance.
This switch can be challenging for stakeholders to understand and accept at first. Larger organizations may have separate marketing teams for different product lines supporting the overall brand.Within those teams, employees may have separate roles for organic and paid social media. For a successful performance marketing strategy, all teams need to share a vision and commitment to driving conversions through social media.Not every post has to convert readers into leads, but it should be part of the journey to getting them there.
If you’re at the beginning of this cultural shift toward thinking about social media from a more performance-driven angle that puts conversion metrics front and center, try these techniques to move the conversation in the right direction:
1. Prioritize internal team education.
Digital marketing is constantly changing — and changing fast. Marketing leaders must give teams the opportunity, time, and space to learn about the latest trends, tools, and social media marketing strategies. The more extensive their knowledge, the more comfortable they’ll be applying out-of-the-box thinking to social media in general.
One excellent resource is Facebook Blueprint, which offers free classes and certifications around marketing on Facebook. Be sure to complement dedicated social media training with analytics training to ensure that everyone knows how to measure the success of social media efforts. Google Analytics Academy is an excellent resource for getting a grip on basic analytics and then diving into more advanced learnings from there. These courses help everyone get on the same page and more fully understand the breadth of possibilities available onFacebook and other social media platforms.
2. Emphasize that everyone has a role to play.
Regardless of title or job description, everyone in your organization should work toward the same sales goals and understand that both brand marketing and performance marketing are needed to achieve those objectives.
Marketers should coordinate with all departments to ensure that everyone understands their roles and responsibilities when it comes to both building the brand and converting sales. When creating social media marketing campaigns, marketers should also seek out insights from the specific departments to which campaigns will be driving traffic in order to determine the right content, messaging, and metrics for each campaign.
What’s more, agents who are also sharing branded content on social media should understand how their efforts intertwine with other content to lead users down the sales funnel and closer to conversions. By including all stakeholders in the performance marketing strategy, marketers can help everyone view themselves as extensions of the sales team and increase the focus on driving conversions.
3. Combine social branding with tactical messaging.
Every social media marketing campaign should be cohesive, featuring consistent themes, verbiage, and images. Plus, all the promises made in branding copy should be highlighted in more tactical performance marketing content. In essence, the brand messaging sets the tone, and the performance messaging closes the deal by delivering on the promises.
How does this work? Let’s say your insurance company has launched a social media branding campaign highlighting how easy it is to work with your business instead of with your competitors. The performance marketing aspect of the campaign includes a white paper that outlines your specific value propositions and client testimonials to back them up. You link to the whitepaper landing page from the social media branding campaign posts, viewers input their contact information into a form on the landing page to download the whitepaper, and your sales team gets direct access to primed leads. Brand and performance marketing work together to drive sales.
Social media is harder than it was only a decade ago. Platforms have changed their algorithms to make organic content less visible, and social media marketing strategies that rely only on brand messaging and vanity metrics alone won’t cut through the noise. Instead, financial marketers need to use performance marketing efforts that offer real, tangible value to drive sales.
This was originally published in PropertyCasualty 360.
Connect & Convert on Social
How to Integrate Social Selling Into Your Insurance Organization’s Digital Marketing Strategy
Risk is a double-edged sword for insurance agencies and carriers. The insurance industry certainly thrives because it deeply understands risk. But being knee-deep in risk makes many carriers reluctant to adopt new marketing methods such as social selling. This is an epic missed opportunity (which you, as an insurance marketer, understand and probably have to navigate daily).
Social selling isn’t as new as it seems at first glance; insurance agents have always relied on relationship-building for sales. Social selling is just another way for them to build trust with customers. The only difference? The connections happen online via social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn rather than in person. And those digital connections can become the foundations for long-term relationships and sales.
So, how can you integrate social selling into your carrier’s marketing strategies? Start with these three steps: overcome reluctance to change, invest in bonds with sales, and deploy a comprehensive social selling program.
Let’s get into it.
1. Getting Leadership Onboard
Change doesn’t happen overnight (just look at the timeline of digital transformation in the insurance industry). It also doesn’t happen without some kind of catalyst. This is your chance to lead marketing change. Insurance marketers who want to launch a social selling program need to educate their teams and leaders about what social selling is and why it’s so essential.
“What is social selling?” is a crucial first question to answer to get buy-in. Step one is to advocate and share resources with colleagues and carrier leadership that explain what social selling is and its benefits. If you tell them that social selling will allow agents to get more face time with customers, humanize your brand, and bring in leads, they might just be willing to hear the rest of your plan.
Decision makers at the carrier level might be more willing to fund social selling programs once they gain a deeper understanding of them. Be patient but persistent about building a culture that supports the overall strategy.
2. Reshaping the Traditional Insurance Sales-Marketing Relationship
More so than other digital marketing strategies, social selling requires sales and marketing teams to work together. When properly executed, social selling helps both teams make a more significant impact during the customer journey and, ultimately, can increase the number of leads agents generate. The sales team is essential to your social selling dream team because it understands what makes agents tick and how to get them invested in the program.
Results matter to a sales team, so one way to get this kind of relationship moving is by using metrics to show that social selling isn’t just another to-do on the growing task list. It can increase profits (and agent commission or bonuses!). For instance, you could share that associates who regularly post content are 45% likelier to exceed their quotas, and their companies are 57% likelier to generate leads.
Show your sales team how social selling can keep their prospects. Once bought in, the sales team will serve as an essential conduit to agents, demonstrating that social selling can keep prospects warmed up and engaged. Social selling isn’t just for prospects either; it’s an important way to stay in touch with current customers, supporting retention and referrals. Think about it this way: Net promoter scores are significantly higher among insurance customers who’ve interacted with their providers in the last year than those who did not. Staying in touch matters to the bottom line. The benefits are measurable, so use that to your advantage when getting sales buy-in.
3. Choosing the Right Social Selling Platform
Another way to seamlessly integrate social selling into an existing digital marketing strategy is using the right social selling tool. Digital platforms can make social selling at scale streamlined and intuitive. Show sales, leadership, and any other decision makers how the right platform can make it easy to support intermediaries, showcase thought leadership, and build trust and relationships that will lead to sales.
A solid social selling platform will manage your social channels, ensure compliance, curate relevant content, and boost the effectiveness of your social efforts. Seek technology that understands your industry’s nuances and the impact intermediaries can make through social selling. The right solution should create efficiencies for you, your team, leadership, and users.
4. Executing Social Selling Campaigns
At this point, you might be wondering how to start a social selling program effectively within your organization. Once carrier leadership, sales, and the rest of your teams are on board with social selling, it’s time to construct and deploy a full-scale social selling program.
Here’s what it looks like at a high level: First, your social sellers must create authentic content to post (with your help, of course!). The content should have a human angle to it and feel very real. Generally speaking, social sellers should distribute different types of content, including images, videos, and links to articles, to keep their audiences engaged and excited.
You can help social sellers by using customizable content libraries that make relevant and timely content easily accessible. Train intermediaries on when to post, how to use the platform and libraries, and what kind of engagement you’re hoping to achieve.
Don’t forget: Once agents have shared content, it’s time to engage in the social conversation. There’s a reason intermediary-owned social content enjoys higher levels of engagement than brand-owned content: that content usually has more organic back-and-forth between parties.
Finally, remember that social selling programs perform best when they’re integrated. Paid and organic social posts have a symbiotic relationship; a strategy that doesn’t leverage both simply isn’t effective. While organic content creates richness and humanizes your brand, paid ads help your agents get in front of customers they haven’t met yet. Combined into a comprehensive social selling plan, these strategies can have a significant effect on ROI.
Paving the Way to Success With High-Quality Social Selling
Social selling as part of a larger digital marketing strategy isn’t a radical concept, even in insurance marketing; it’s a proven method that produces solid returns over time. Without a doubt, social selling takes time and energy from people outside your marketing bubble. However, by gaining leadership buy-in, building closer bonds between your team and sales, and strategically rolling out to agents, there is so much more to gain than to lose. The more comfortable everyone becomes with social media, the more likely they’ll see it as a welcome addition to the sales and marketing playbook.
Are you interested in learning how to get your team excited about social selling? Want to know how it can expand your marketing reach and develop richer relationships with customers? Request a demo of Denim Social today.
How to Integrate Social Selling Into Your Insurance Organization’s Digital Marketing Strategy
Risk is a double-edged sword for insurance agencies and carriers. The insurance industry certainly thrives because it deeply understands risk. But being knee-deep in risk makes many carriers reluctant to adopt new marketing methods such as social selling. This is an epic missed opportunity (which you, as an insurance marketer, understand and probably have to navigate daily).
Social selling isn’t as new as it seems at first glance; insurance agents have always relied on relationship-building for sales. Social selling is just another way for them to build trust with customers. The only difference? The connections happen online via social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn rather than in person. And those digital connections can become the foundations for long-term relationships and sales.
So, how can you integrate social selling into your carrier’s marketing strategies? Start with these three steps: overcome reluctance to change, invest in bonds with sales, and deploy a comprehensive social selling program.
Let’s get into it.
1. Getting Leadership Onboard
Change doesn’t happen overnight (just look at the timeline of digital transformation in the insurance industry). It also doesn’t happen without some kind of catalyst. This is your chance to lead marketing change. Insurance marketers who want to launch a social selling program need to educate their teams and leaders about what social selling is and why it’s so essential.
“What is social selling?” is a crucial first question to answer to get buy-in. Step one is to advocate and share resources with colleagues and carrier leadership that explain what social selling is and its benefits. If you tell them that social selling will allow agents to get more face time with customers, humanize your brand, and bring in leads, they might just be willing to hear the rest of your plan.
Decision makers at the carrier level might be more willing to fund social selling programs once they gain a deeper understanding of them. Be patient but persistent about building a culture that supports the overall strategy.
2. Reshaping the Traditional Insurance Sales-Marketing Relationship
More so than other digital marketing strategies, social selling requires sales and marketing teams to work together. When properly executed, social selling helps both teams make a more significant impact during the customer journey and, ultimately, can increase the number of leads agents generate. The sales team is essential to your social selling dream team because it understands what makes agents tick and how to get them invested in the program.
Results matter to a sales team, so one way to get this kind of relationship moving is by using metrics to show that social selling isn’t just another to-do on the growing task list. It can increase profits (and agent commission or bonuses!). For instance, you could share that associates who regularly post content are 45% likelier to exceed their quotas, and their companies are 57% likelier to generate leads.
Show your sales team how social selling can keep their prospects. Once bought in, the sales team will serve as an essential conduit to agents, demonstrating that social selling can keep prospects warmed up and engaged. Social selling isn’t just for prospects either; it’s an important way to stay in touch with current customers, supporting retention and referrals. Think about it this way: Net promoter scores are significantly higher among insurance customers who’ve interacted with their providers in the last year than those who did not. Staying in touch matters to the bottom line. The benefits are measurable, so use that to your advantage when getting sales buy-in.
3. Choosing the Right Social Selling Platform
Another way to seamlessly integrate social selling into an existing digital marketing strategy is using the right social selling tool. Digital platforms can make social selling at scale streamlined and intuitive. Show sales, leadership, and any other decision makers how the right platform can make it easy to support intermediaries, showcase thought leadership, and build trust and relationships that will lead to sales.
A solid social selling platform will manage your social channels, ensure compliance, curate relevant content, and boost the effectiveness of your social efforts. Seek technology that understands your industry’s nuances and the impact intermediaries can make through social selling. The right solution should create efficiencies for you, your team, leadership, and users.
4. Executing Social Selling Campaigns
At this point, you might be wondering how to start a social selling program effectively within your organization. Once carrier leadership, sales, and the rest of your teams are on board with social selling, it’s time to construct and deploy a full-scale social selling program.
Here’s what it looks like at a high level: First, your social sellers must create authentic content to post (with your help, of course!). The content should have a human angle to it and feel very real. Generally speaking, social sellers should distribute different types of content, including images, videos, and links to articles, to keep their audiences engaged and excited.
You can help social sellers by using customizable content libraries that make relevant and timely content easily accessible. Train intermediaries on when to post, how to use the platform and libraries, and what kind of engagement you’re hoping to achieve.
Don’t forget: Once agents have shared content, it’s time to engage in the social conversation. There’s a reason intermediary-owned social content enjoys higher levels of engagement than brand-owned content: that content usually has more organic back-and-forth between parties.
Finally, remember that social selling programs perform best when they’re integrated. Paid and organic social posts have a symbiotic relationship; a strategy that doesn’t leverage both simply isn’t effective. While organic content creates richness and humanizes your brand, paid ads help your agents get in front of customers they haven’t met yet. Combined into a comprehensive social selling plan, these strategies can have a significant effect on ROI.
Paving the Way to Success With High-Quality Social Selling
Social selling as part of a larger digital marketing strategy isn’t a radical concept, even in insurance marketing; it’s a proven method that produces solid returns over time. Without a doubt, social selling takes time and energy from people outside your marketing bubble. However, by gaining leadership buy-in, building closer bonds between your team and sales, and strategically rolling out to agents, there is so much more to gain than to lose. The more comfortable everyone becomes with social media, the more likely they’ll see it as a welcome addition to the sales and marketing playbook.
Are you interested in learning how to get your team excited about social selling? Want to know how it can expand your marketing reach and develop richer relationships with customers? Request a demo of Denim Social today.
Read this guide if you’re asking yourself:
- Is my social media policy current and comprehensive?
- How do I ensure social media compliance during M&A?
- What do I need to consider for direct messaging compliance?
In this guide we will help you think about your all important social media policy and thoughtfully consider how changes in social media tech and even your bank’s structure may impact compliance.
Which roles do you fill when building your bank's marketing dream team? This guide will show you the following:
- Who does what
- The right structure to execute strategy
- How compliance software can help
Enjoy!
It’s no surprise that social media can help drive results for your mortgage business. In fact, the question for most marketers at mortgage lending institutions isn’t IF they should be doing more social media marketing - it’s HOW. Download to learn how to:
- Scale your social selling program
- Plan your content strategy
- Train your loan officers
Like many community banks, Dart Bank wanted to keep customer relationships a top priority. This meant being more available to customers and meeting them where they are. In modern terms, that means on social media.
When Dart Bank learned about how Denim Social supports social selling for loan officers, they knew it was the perfect fit to keep their team engaged at every step of the journey. They wanted to empower their loan officers to create and grow authentic relationships online, never missing an opportunity to connect.
Shelter Insurance® sought to launch a social selling program that would not only create posting efficiency, but also make it easy for agents to establish subject matter expertise via high quality social media content. They also saw an opportunity to empower digitally savvy agents to cultivate leads online to drive business results in a compliant social selling program.
Before launching the program, it was essential that agents understood the pillars of social selling. Together with the Denim Social team, Shelter Insurance® developed a best-in-class program communication, onboarding and training process for agents.
Social selling is just what it sounds like: using social media to sell a product or service. It’s leveraging social to build personal relationships, showcase thought leadership, engage with prospects, interact with existing customers, and ultimately build trust and rapport that will eventually lead to sales.
It enables intermediaries – like insurance agents – to add value to the customer journey where there wouldn’t otherwise be an opportunity.
This guide will help financial services marketers understand why social media should be a core component of their marketing strategy and showcase how the collective reach of their intermediaries’ social media presence can be harnessed to more deeply connect with prospective clients, position producers as thought leaders in their communities, and, ultimately, build trust with clients that translates to positive business results.
It’s called social selling and it works.
The spring 2023 buying season has arrived and with it – you guessed – uncertainty. Spring has long been make-it or break-it season for lenders and loan officers, and despite present conditions, the same holds true this year. But 2023 holds unique challenges and opportunities.
As the season opens, there are a few key considerations the Denim Social team sees as critical for mortgage marketers.
Paid social is one of the most effective ways to introduce people who aren’t yet following your producers, agents, loan officers, or advisors to your financial institution at the right place and the right time.
Paid social is complementary to organic. While organic social builds first-degree connections and facilitates awareness, engagement, and branding, paid social allows you to reach larger, more tailored audiences.
BOK Financial is a financial services partner for consumers, businesses and wealth clients with more than 150 users on the Denim Social platform.
In addition to building brand credibility and establishing loan officer expertise, Denim Social enables their mortgage loan officers to cultivate relationships in social media and organically source leads.
As financial marketers look to the coming year, most are wondering, “what’s next?” While no one can say for sure, our team of experts here at Denim Social are keeping a pulse on what’s new in digital marketing for financial institutions on social media. This guide will not only educate you on the latest trends, but help you make the case for increased investment in social selling and digital marketing strategies at your institution.
Evolve Bank & Trust (“Evolve”) is an $700M+ asset institution with nearly 40 Home Loan Centers (HLC) and nearly 500 employees nationwide. See how Denim Social helped Evolve activate Home Loan Center Facebook pages over the course of just a few months.
Whether you’re in banking, wealth management, insurance or mortgage, relationships are the bedrock of your business.
Considering clients in these industries are handing over the keys to their personal kingdoms, it’s no surprise that trust and connection matter. That’s why successful sales strategies for these industries are focused on building long-term, trusted relationships.
To truly unleash the potential of social, financial institutions need to use social media as a sales tool. It’s called social selling and it works.
The power of social media is undeniable. The ability of banks to engage with and influence customers and prospects via interactive digital channels is an essential tool and a cornerstone of marketing. Gone are the days when it was “nice to have” a presence on platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Today, these pathways are helping banks to build relationships that were historically cultivated by tirelessly walking up and down Main Street, shaking hands and leaving behind business cards.
In this case study by Denim Social and American Bankers Association, we take a look at how banks are using social media to ramp up digital engagement and build sales.
As any marketer worth their salt will tell you, analytics should drive your social strategy. The key to success is understanding how to link social media efforts to ROI metrics. Read this guide to learn how to gain insights that matter, optimize your strategy and prove your social success.
AnnieMac is one of the fastest-growing mortgage loan providers in the U.S., serving clients in 42 states. Learn how Denim Social helped their team to streamline its brand’s social media strategy and activate social selling for hundreds of loan officers in just four months.
As mortgage demand surges to historic highs, home purchase and refinance markets remain hot. This is excellent news for loan officers, but it also means the environment is more competitive than ever.
So how can marketers ensure that their loan officers stand out? The answer is social media.
Read this guidebook from Denim Social to learn how you can help your loan officers build strong relationships, stand out from the crowd and win more business using social media.
Every Mortgage Marketer Should Ask Themselves
Compliance is complicated, but don’t let it stop your lending team from making the most of social media. Think you’re ready to start social selling? Ask yourself these five questions!
Every Financial Services Marketer Should Ask Themselves
Compliance is complicated, but don’t let it stop your lending team from making the most of social media. Think you’re ready to start social selling? Ask yourself these five questions!
Stronger Customer Relationships on Instagram
Financial Services companies should be marketing and advertising on Instagram. We break down why, and help you create a strategy to reach new customers- while continuing to build trust in your brand.
How 6 Financial Marketers Are Creating Value in Social Media
Ever wonder what everyone else is doing in social media? We talked to six leading financial marketers about how they’re succeeding today and planning for the next big thing.
Get their insights on strengthening your social strategies, unlocking the power of employee networks and creating next-level content that drives engagement.
Download this guidebook to learn how 3 mortgage lenders are using social media to:
- Position themselves in a place the community is already looking ... their social media
- Empower loan officers to engage in local conversations
- Turn their institution's loan officers into the voice of their brand
- Build trust within the community
ABA Study: The Current State of Social Media
See what nearly 430 bank marketers had to say when asked questions such as:
COVID-19 & Bank Social Media
Times are different and how you connect with customers and potential customers has changed drastically. In a socially distant world, learn to still build lasting relationships.
Download and learn the guiding principles for using social media to serve both your customers and communities in the midst of a pandemic.
How to Integrate Social Selling Into Your Insurance Organization’s Digital Marketing Strategy
Risk is a double-edged sword for insurance agencies and carriers. The insurance industry certainly thrives because it deeply understands risk. But being knee-deep in risk makes many carriers reluctant to adopt new marketing methods such as social selling. This is an epic missed opportunity (which you, as an insurance marketer, understand and probably have to navigate daily).
Social selling isn’t as new as it seems at first glance; insurance agents have always relied on relationship-building for sales. Social selling is just another way for them to build trust with customers. The only difference? The connections happen online via social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn rather than in person. And those digital connections can become the foundations for long-term relationships and sales.
So, how can you integrate social selling into your carrier’s marketing strategies? Start with these three steps: overcome reluctance to change, invest in bonds with sales, and deploy a comprehensive social selling program.
Let’s get into it.
1. Getting Leadership Onboard
Change doesn’t happen overnight (just look at the timeline of digital transformation in the insurance industry). It also doesn’t happen without some kind of catalyst. This is your chance to lead marketing change. Insurance marketers who want to launch a social selling program need to educate their teams and leaders about what social selling is and why it’s so essential.
“What is social selling?” is a crucial first question to answer to get buy-in. Step one is to advocate and share resources with colleagues and carrier leadership that explain what social selling is and its benefits. If you tell them that social selling will allow agents to get more face time with customers, humanize your brand, and bring in leads, they might just be willing to hear the rest of your plan.
Decision makers at the carrier level might be more willing to fund social selling programs once they gain a deeper understanding of them. Be patient but persistent about building a culture that supports the overall strategy.
2. Reshaping the Traditional Insurance Sales-Marketing Relationship
More so than other digital marketing strategies, social selling requires sales and marketing teams to work together. When properly executed, social selling helps both teams make a more significant impact during the customer journey and, ultimately, can increase the number of leads agents generate. The sales team is essential to your social selling dream team because it understands what makes agents tick and how to get them invested in the program.
Results matter to a sales team, so one way to get this kind of relationship moving is by using metrics to show that social selling isn’t just another to-do on the growing task list. It can increase profits (and agent commission or bonuses!). For instance, you could share that associates who regularly post content are 45% likelier to exceed their quotas, and their companies are 57% likelier to generate leads.
Show your sales team how social selling can keep their prospects. Once bought in, the sales team will serve as an essential conduit to agents, demonstrating that social selling can keep prospects warmed up and engaged. Social selling isn’t just for prospects either; it’s an important way to stay in touch with current customers, supporting retention and referrals. Think about it this way: Net promoter scores are significantly higher among insurance customers who’ve interacted with their providers in the last year than those who did not. Staying in touch matters to the bottom line. The benefits are measurable, so use that to your advantage when getting sales buy-in.
3. Choosing the Right Social Selling Platform
Another way to seamlessly integrate social selling into an existing digital marketing strategy is using the right social selling tool. Digital platforms can make social selling at scale streamlined and intuitive. Show sales, leadership, and any other decision makers how the right platform can make it easy to support intermediaries, showcase thought leadership, and build trust and relationships that will lead to sales.
A solid social selling platform will manage your social channels, ensure compliance, curate relevant content, and boost the effectiveness of your social efforts. Seek technology that understands your industry’s nuances and the impact intermediaries can make through social selling. The right solution should create efficiencies for you, your team, leadership, and users.
4. Executing Social Selling Campaigns
At this point, you might be wondering how to start a social selling program effectively within your organization. Once carrier leadership, sales, and the rest of your teams are on board with social selling, it’s time to construct and deploy a full-scale social selling program.
Here’s what it looks like at a high level: First, your social sellers must create authentic content to post (with your help, of course!). The content should have a human angle to it and feel very real. Generally speaking, social sellers should distribute different types of content, including images, videos, and links to articles, to keep their audiences engaged and excited.
You can help social sellers by using customizable content libraries that make relevant and timely content easily accessible. Train intermediaries on when to post, how to use the platform and libraries, and what kind of engagement you’re hoping to achieve.
Don’t forget: Once agents have shared content, it’s time to engage in the social conversation. There’s a reason intermediary-owned social content enjoys higher levels of engagement than brand-owned content: that content usually has more organic back-and-forth between parties.
Finally, remember that social selling programs perform best when they’re integrated. Paid and organic social posts have a symbiotic relationship; a strategy that doesn’t leverage both simply isn’t effective. While organic content creates richness and humanizes your brand, paid ads help your agents get in front of customers they haven’t met yet. Combined into a comprehensive social selling plan, these strategies can have a significant effect on ROI.
Paving the Way to Success With High-Quality Social Selling
Social selling as part of a larger digital marketing strategy isn’t a radical concept, even in insurance marketing; it’s a proven method that produces solid returns over time. Without a doubt, social selling takes time and energy from people outside your marketing bubble. However, by gaining leadership buy-in, building closer bonds between your team and sales, and strategically rolling out to agents, there is so much more to gain than to lose. The more comfortable everyone becomes with social media, the more likely they’ll see it as a welcome addition to the sales and marketing playbook.
Are you interested in learning how to get your team excited about social selling? Want to know how it can expand your marketing reach and develop richer relationships with customers? Request a demo of Denim Social today.
Read this guide if you’re asking yourself:
- Is my social media policy current and comprehensive?
- How do I ensure social media compliance during M&A?
- What do I need to consider for direct messaging compliance?
In this guide we will help you think about your all important social media policy and thoughtfully consider how changes in social media tech and even your bank’s structure may impact compliance.
Which roles do you fill when building your bank's marketing dream team? This guide will show you the following:
- Who does what
- The right structure to execute strategy
- How compliance software can help
Enjoy!
It’s no surprise that social media can help drive results for your mortgage business. In fact, the question for most marketers at mortgage lending institutions isn’t IF they should be doing more social media marketing - it’s HOW. Download to learn how to:
- Scale your social selling program
- Plan your content strategy
- Train your loan officers
Like many community banks, Dart Bank wanted to keep customer relationships a top priority. This meant being more available to customers and meeting them where they are. In modern terms, that means on social media.
When Dart Bank learned about how Denim Social supports social selling for loan officers, they knew it was the perfect fit to keep their team engaged at every step of the journey. They wanted to empower their loan officers to create and grow authentic relationships online, never missing an opportunity to connect.
Shelter Insurance® sought to launch a social selling program that would not only create posting efficiency, but also make it easy for agents to establish subject matter expertise via high quality social media content. They also saw an opportunity to empower digitally savvy agents to cultivate leads online to drive business results in a compliant social selling program.
Before launching the program, it was essential that agents understood the pillars of social selling. Together with the Denim Social team, Shelter Insurance® developed a best-in-class program communication, onboarding and training process for agents.
Social selling is just what it sounds like: using social media to sell a product or service. It’s leveraging social to build personal relationships, showcase thought leadership, engage with prospects, interact with existing customers, and ultimately build trust and rapport that will eventually lead to sales.
It enables intermediaries – like insurance agents – to add value to the customer journey where there wouldn’t otherwise be an opportunity.
This guide will help financial services marketers understand why social media should be a core component of their marketing strategy and showcase how the collective reach of their intermediaries’ social media presence can be harnessed to more deeply connect with prospective clients, position producers as thought leaders in their communities, and, ultimately, build trust with clients that translates to positive business results.
It’s called social selling and it works.
The spring 2023 buying season has arrived and with it – you guessed – uncertainty. Spring has long been make-it or break-it season for lenders and loan officers, and despite present conditions, the same holds true this year. But 2023 holds unique challenges and opportunities.
As the season opens, there are a few key considerations the Denim Social team sees as critical for mortgage marketers.
Paid social is one of the most effective ways to introduce people who aren’t yet following your producers, agents, loan officers, or advisors to your financial institution at the right place and the right time.
Paid social is complementary to organic. While organic social builds first-degree connections and facilitates awareness, engagement, and branding, paid social allows you to reach larger, more tailored audiences.
BOK Financial is a financial services partner for consumers, businesses and wealth clients with more than 150 users on the Denim Social platform.
In addition to building brand credibility and establishing loan officer expertise, Denim Social enables their mortgage loan officers to cultivate relationships in social media and organically source leads.
As financial marketers look to the coming year, most are wondering, “what’s next?” While no one can say for sure, our team of experts here at Denim Social are keeping a pulse on what’s new in digital marketing for financial institutions on social media. This guide will not only educate you on the latest trends, but help you make the case for increased investment in social selling and digital marketing strategies at your institution.
Evolve Bank & Trust (“Evolve”) is an $700M+ asset institution with nearly 40 Home Loan Centers (HLC) and nearly 500 employees nationwide. See how Denim Social helped Evolve activate Home Loan Center Facebook pages over the course of just a few months.
Whether you’re in banking, wealth management, insurance or mortgage, relationships are the bedrock of your business.
Considering clients in these industries are handing over the keys to their personal kingdoms, it’s no surprise that trust and connection matter. That’s why successful sales strategies for these industries are focused on building long-term, trusted relationships.
To truly unleash the potential of social, financial institutions need to use social media as a sales tool. It’s called social selling and it works.
The power of social media is undeniable. The ability of banks to engage with and influence customers and prospects via interactive digital channels is an essential tool and a cornerstone of marketing. Gone are the days when it was “nice to have” a presence on platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Today, these pathways are helping banks to build relationships that were historically cultivated by tirelessly walking up and down Main Street, shaking hands and leaving behind business cards.
In this case study by Denim Social and American Bankers Association, we take a look at how banks are using social media to ramp up digital engagement and build sales.
As any marketer worth their salt will tell you, analytics should drive your social strategy. The key to success is understanding how to link social media efforts to ROI metrics. Read this guide to learn how to gain insights that matter, optimize your strategy and prove your social success.
AnnieMac is one of the fastest-growing mortgage loan providers in the U.S., serving clients in 42 states. Learn how Denim Social helped their team to streamline its brand’s social media strategy and activate social selling for hundreds of loan officers in just four months.
As mortgage demand surges to historic highs, home purchase and refinance markets remain hot. This is excellent news for loan officers, but it also means the environment is more competitive than ever.
So how can marketers ensure that their loan officers stand out? The answer is social media.
Read this guidebook from Denim Social to learn how you can help your loan officers build strong relationships, stand out from the crowd and win more business using social media.
Every Mortgage Marketer Should Ask Themselves
Compliance is complicated, but don’t let it stop your lending team from making the most of social media. Think you’re ready to start social selling? Ask yourself these five questions!
Every Financial Services Marketer Should Ask Themselves
Compliance is complicated, but don’t let it stop your lending team from making the most of social media. Think you’re ready to start social selling? Ask yourself these five questions!
Stronger Customer Relationships on Instagram
Financial Services companies should be marketing and advertising on Instagram. We break down why, and help you create a strategy to reach new customers- while continuing to build trust in your brand.
How 6 Financial Marketers Are Creating Value in Social Media
Ever wonder what everyone else is doing in social media? We talked to six leading financial marketers about how they’re succeeding today and planning for the next big thing.
Get their insights on strengthening your social strategies, unlocking the power of employee networks and creating next-level content that drives engagement.
Download this guidebook to learn how 3 mortgage lenders are using social media to:
- Position themselves in a place the community is already looking ... their social media
- Empower loan officers to engage in local conversations
- Turn their institution's loan officers into the voice of their brand
- Build trust within the community
ABA Study: The Current State of Social Media
See what nearly 430 bank marketers had to say when asked questions such as:
COVID-19 & Bank Social Media
Times are different and how you connect with customers and potential customers has changed drastically. In a socially distant world, learn to still build lasting relationships.
Download and learn the guiding principles for using social media to serve both your customers and communities in the midst of a pandemic.
How to Integrate Social Selling Into Your Insurance Organization’s Digital Marketing Strategy
Risk is a double-edged sword for insurance agencies and carriers. The insurance industry certainly thrives because it deeply understands risk. But being knee-deep in risk makes many carriers reluctant to adopt new marketing methods such as social selling. This is an epic missed opportunity (which you, as an insurance marketer, understand and probably have to navigate daily).
Social selling isn’t as new as it seems at first glance; insurance agents have always relied on relationship-building for sales. Social selling is just another way for them to build trust with customers. The only difference? The connections happen online via social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn rather than in person. And those digital connections can become the foundations for long-term relationships and sales.
So, how can you integrate social selling into your carrier’s marketing strategies? Start with these three steps: overcome reluctance to change, invest in bonds with sales, and deploy a comprehensive social selling program.
Let’s get into it.
1. Getting Leadership Onboard
Change doesn’t happen overnight (just look at the timeline of digital transformation in the insurance industry). It also doesn’t happen without some kind of catalyst. This is your chance to lead marketing change. Insurance marketers who want to launch a social selling program need to educate their teams and leaders about what social selling is and why it’s so essential.
“What is social selling?” is a crucial first question to answer to get buy-in. Step one is to advocate and share resources with colleagues and carrier leadership that explain what social selling is and its benefits. If you tell them that social selling will allow agents to get more face time with customers, humanize your brand, and bring in leads, they might just be willing to hear the rest of your plan.
Decision makers at the carrier level might be more willing to fund social selling programs once they gain a deeper understanding of them. Be patient but persistent about building a culture that supports the overall strategy.
2. Reshaping the Traditional Insurance Sales-Marketing Relationship
More so than other digital marketing strategies, social selling requires sales and marketing teams to work together. When properly executed, social selling helps both teams make a more significant impact during the customer journey and, ultimately, can increase the number of leads agents generate. The sales team is essential to your social selling dream team because it understands what makes agents tick and how to get them invested in the program.
Results matter to a sales team, so one way to get this kind of relationship moving is by using metrics to show that social selling isn’t just another to-do on the growing task list. It can increase profits (and agent commission or bonuses!). For instance, you could share that associates who regularly post content are 45% likelier to exceed their quotas, and their companies are 57% likelier to generate leads.
Show your sales team how social selling can keep their prospects. Once bought in, the sales team will serve as an essential conduit to agents, demonstrating that social selling can keep prospects warmed up and engaged. Social selling isn’t just for prospects either; it’s an important way to stay in touch with current customers, supporting retention and referrals. Think about it this way: Net promoter scores are significantly higher among insurance customers who’ve interacted with their providers in the last year than those who did not. Staying in touch matters to the bottom line. The benefits are measurable, so use that to your advantage when getting sales buy-in.
3. Choosing the Right Social Selling Platform
Another way to seamlessly integrate social selling into an existing digital marketing strategy is using the right social selling tool. Digital platforms can make social selling at scale streamlined and intuitive. Show sales, leadership, and any other decision makers how the right platform can make it easy to support intermediaries, showcase thought leadership, and build trust and relationships that will lead to sales.
A solid social selling platform will manage your social channels, ensure compliance, curate relevant content, and boost the effectiveness of your social efforts. Seek technology that understands your industry’s nuances and the impact intermediaries can make through social selling. The right solution should create efficiencies for you, your team, leadership, and users.
4. Executing Social Selling Campaigns
At this point, you might be wondering how to start a social selling program effectively within your organization. Once carrier leadership, sales, and the rest of your teams are on board with social selling, it’s time to construct and deploy a full-scale social selling program.
Here’s what it looks like at a high level: First, your social sellers must create authentic content to post (with your help, of course!). The content should have a human angle to it and feel very real. Generally speaking, social sellers should distribute different types of content, including images, videos, and links to articles, to keep their audiences engaged and excited.
You can help social sellers by using customizable content libraries that make relevant and timely content easily accessible. Train intermediaries on when to post, how to use the platform and libraries, and what kind of engagement you’re hoping to achieve.
Don’t forget: Once agents have shared content, it’s time to engage in the social conversation. There’s a reason intermediary-owned social content enjoys higher levels of engagement than brand-owned content: that content usually has more organic back-and-forth between parties.
Finally, remember that social selling programs perform best when they’re integrated. Paid and organic social posts have a symbiotic relationship; a strategy that doesn’t leverage both simply isn’t effective. While organic content creates richness and humanizes your brand, paid ads help your agents get in front of customers they haven’t met yet. Combined into a comprehensive social selling plan, these strategies can have a significant effect on ROI.
Paving the Way to Success With High-Quality Social Selling
Social selling as part of a larger digital marketing strategy isn’t a radical concept, even in insurance marketing; it’s a proven method that produces solid returns over time. Without a doubt, social selling takes time and energy from people outside your marketing bubble. However, by gaining leadership buy-in, building closer bonds between your team and sales, and strategically rolling out to agents, there is so much more to gain than to lose. The more comfortable everyone becomes with social media, the more likely they’ll see it as a welcome addition to the sales and marketing playbook.
Are you interested in learning how to get your team excited about social selling? Want to know how it can expand your marketing reach and develop richer relationships with customers? Request a demo of Denim Social today.
Read this guide if you’re asking yourself:
- Is my social media policy current and comprehensive?
- How do I ensure social media compliance during M&A?
- What do I need to consider for direct messaging compliance?
In this guide we will help you think about your all important social media policy and thoughtfully consider how changes in social media tech and even your bank’s structure may impact compliance.
Which roles do you fill when building your bank's marketing dream team? This guide will show you the following:
- Who does what
- The right structure to execute strategy
- How compliance software can help
Enjoy!
It’s no surprise that social media can help drive results for your mortgage business. In fact, the question for most marketers at mortgage lending institutions isn’t IF they should be doing more social media marketing - it’s HOW. Download to learn how to:
- Scale your social selling program
- Plan your content strategy
- Train your loan officers
Like many community banks, Dart Bank wanted to keep customer relationships a top priority. This meant being more available to customers and meeting them where they are. In modern terms, that means on social media.
When Dart Bank learned about how Denim Social supports social selling for loan officers, they knew it was the perfect fit to keep their team engaged at every step of the journey. They wanted to empower their loan officers to create and grow authentic relationships online, never missing an opportunity to connect.
Shelter Insurance® sought to launch a social selling program that would not only create posting efficiency, but also make it easy for agents to establish subject matter expertise via high quality social media content. They also saw an opportunity to empower digitally savvy agents to cultivate leads online to drive business results in a compliant social selling program.
Before launching the program, it was essential that agents understood the pillars of social selling. Together with the Denim Social team, Shelter Insurance® developed a best-in-class program communication, onboarding and training process for agents.
Social selling is just what it sounds like: using social media to sell a product or service. It’s leveraging social to build personal relationships, showcase thought leadership, engage with prospects, interact with existing customers, and ultimately build trust and rapport that will eventually lead to sales.
It enables intermediaries – like insurance agents – to add value to the customer journey where there wouldn’t otherwise be an opportunity.
This guide will help financial services marketers understand why social media should be a core component of their marketing strategy and showcase how the collective reach of their intermediaries’ social media presence can be harnessed to more deeply connect with prospective clients, position producers as thought leaders in their communities, and, ultimately, build trust with clients that translates to positive business results.
It’s called social selling and it works.
The spring 2023 buying season has arrived and with it – you guessed – uncertainty. Spring has long been make-it or break-it season for lenders and loan officers, and despite present conditions, the same holds true this year. But 2023 holds unique challenges and opportunities.
As the season opens, there are a few key considerations the Denim Social team sees as critical for mortgage marketers.
Paid social is one of the most effective ways to introduce people who aren’t yet following your producers, agents, loan officers, or advisors to your financial institution at the right place and the right time.
Paid social is complementary to organic. While organic social builds first-degree connections and facilitates awareness, engagement, and branding, paid social allows you to reach larger, more tailored audiences.
BOK Financial is a financial services partner for consumers, businesses and wealth clients with more than 150 users on the Denim Social platform.
In addition to building brand credibility and establishing loan officer expertise, Denim Social enables their mortgage loan officers to cultivate relationships in social media and organically source leads.
As financial marketers look to the coming year, most are wondering, “what’s next?” While no one can say for sure, our team of experts here at Denim Social are keeping a pulse on what’s new in digital marketing for financial institutions on social media. This guide will not only educate you on the latest trends, but help you make the case for increased investment in social selling and digital marketing strategies at your institution.
Evolve Bank & Trust (“Evolve”) is an $700M+ asset institution with nearly 40 Home Loan Centers (HLC) and nearly 500 employees nationwide. See how Denim Social helped Evolve activate Home Loan Center Facebook pages over the course of just a few months.
Whether you’re in banking, wealth management, insurance or mortgage, relationships are the bedrock of your business.
Considering clients in these industries are handing over the keys to their personal kingdoms, it’s no surprise that trust and connection matter. That’s why successful sales strategies for these industries are focused on building long-term, trusted relationships.
To truly unleash the potential of social, financial institutions need to use social media as a sales tool. It’s called social selling and it works.
The power of social media is undeniable. The ability of banks to engage with and influence customers and prospects via interactive digital channels is an essential tool and a cornerstone of marketing. Gone are the days when it was “nice to have” a presence on platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Today, these pathways are helping banks to build relationships that were historically cultivated by tirelessly walking up and down Main Street, shaking hands and leaving behind business cards.
In this case study by Denim Social and American Bankers Association, we take a look at how banks are using social media to ramp up digital engagement and build sales.
As any marketer worth their salt will tell you, analytics should drive your social strategy. The key to success is understanding how to link social media efforts to ROI metrics. Read this guide to learn how to gain insights that matter, optimize your strategy and prove your social success.
AnnieMac is one of the fastest-growing mortgage loan providers in the U.S., serving clients in 42 states. Learn how Denim Social helped their team to streamline its brand’s social media strategy and activate social selling for hundreds of loan officers in just four months.
As mortgage demand surges to historic highs, home purchase and refinance markets remain hot. This is excellent news for loan officers, but it also means the environment is more competitive than ever.
So how can marketers ensure that their loan officers stand out? The answer is social media.
Read this guidebook from Denim Social to learn how you can help your loan officers build strong relationships, stand out from the crowd and win more business using social media.
Every Mortgage Marketer Should Ask Themselves
Compliance is complicated, but don’t let it stop your lending team from making the most of social media. Think you’re ready to start social selling? Ask yourself these five questions!
Every Financial Services Marketer Should Ask Themselves
Compliance is complicated, but don’t let it stop your lending team from making the most of social media. Think you’re ready to start social selling? Ask yourself these five questions!
Stronger Customer Relationships on Instagram
Financial Services companies should be marketing and advertising on Instagram. We break down why, and help you create a strategy to reach new customers- while continuing to build trust in your brand.
How 6 Financial Marketers Are Creating Value in Social Media
Ever wonder what everyone else is doing in social media? We talked to six leading financial marketers about how they’re succeeding today and planning for the next big thing.
Get their insights on strengthening your social strategies, unlocking the power of employee networks and creating next-level content that drives engagement.
Download this guidebook to learn how 3 mortgage lenders are using social media to:
- Position themselves in a place the community is already looking ... their social media
- Empower loan officers to engage in local conversations
- Turn their institution's loan officers into the voice of their brand
- Build trust within the community
ABA Study: The Current State of Social Media
See what nearly 430 bank marketers had to say when asked questions such as:
COVID-19 & Bank Social Media
Times are different and how you connect with customers and potential customers has changed drastically. In a socially distant world, learn to still build lasting relationships.
Download and learn the guiding principles for using social media to serve both your customers and communities in the midst of a pandemic.
How to Integrate Social Selling Into Your Insurance Organization’s Digital Marketing Strategy
Risk is a double-edged sword for insurance agencies and carriers. The insurance industry certainly thrives because it deeply understands risk. But being knee-deep in risk makes many carriers reluctant to adopt new marketing methods such as social selling. This is an epic missed opportunity (which you, as an insurance marketer, understand and probably have to navigate daily).
Social selling isn’t as new as it seems at first glance; insurance agents have always relied on relationship-building for sales. Social selling is just another way for them to build trust with customers. The only difference? The connections happen online via social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn rather than in person. And those digital connections can become the foundations for long-term relationships and sales.
So, how can you integrate social selling into your carrier’s marketing strategies? Start with these three steps: overcome reluctance to change, invest in bonds with sales, and deploy a comprehensive social selling program.
Let’s get into it.
1. Getting Leadership Onboard
Change doesn’t happen overnight (just look at the timeline of digital transformation in the insurance industry). It also doesn’t happen without some kind of catalyst. This is your chance to lead marketing change. Insurance marketers who want to launch a social selling program need to educate their teams and leaders about what social selling is and why it’s so essential.
“What is social selling?” is a crucial first question to answer to get buy-in. Step one is to advocate and share resources with colleagues and carrier leadership that explain what social selling is and its benefits. If you tell them that social selling will allow agents to get more face time with customers, humanize your brand, and bring in leads, they might just be willing to hear the rest of your plan.
Decision makers at the carrier level might be more willing to fund social selling programs once they gain a deeper understanding of them. Be patient but persistent about building a culture that supports the overall strategy.
2. Reshaping the Traditional Insurance Sales-Marketing Relationship
More so than other digital marketing strategies, social selling requires sales and marketing teams to work together. When properly executed, social selling helps both teams make a more significant impact during the customer journey and, ultimately, can increase the number of leads agents generate. The sales team is essential to your social selling dream team because it understands what makes agents tick and how to get them invested in the program.
Results matter to a sales team, so one way to get this kind of relationship moving is by using metrics to show that social selling isn’t just another to-do on the growing task list. It can increase profits (and agent commission or bonuses!). For instance, you could share that associates who regularly post content are 45% likelier to exceed their quotas, and their companies are 57% likelier to generate leads.
Show your sales team how social selling can keep their prospects. Once bought in, the sales team will serve as an essential conduit to agents, demonstrating that social selling can keep prospects warmed up and engaged. Social selling isn’t just for prospects either; it’s an important way to stay in touch with current customers, supporting retention and referrals. Think about it this way: Net promoter scores are significantly higher among insurance customers who’ve interacted with their providers in the last year than those who did not. Staying in touch matters to the bottom line. The benefits are measurable, so use that to your advantage when getting sales buy-in.
3. Choosing the Right Social Selling Platform
Another way to seamlessly integrate social selling into an existing digital marketing strategy is using the right social selling tool. Digital platforms can make social selling at scale streamlined and intuitive. Show sales, leadership, and any other decision makers how the right platform can make it easy to support intermediaries, showcase thought leadership, and build trust and relationships that will lead to sales.
A solid social selling platform will manage your social channels, ensure compliance, curate relevant content, and boost the effectiveness of your social efforts. Seek technology that understands your industry’s nuances and the impact intermediaries can make through social selling. The right solution should create efficiencies for you, your team, leadership, and users.
4. Executing Social Selling Campaigns
At this point, you might be wondering how to start a social selling program effectively within your organization. Once carrier leadership, sales, and the rest of your teams are on board with social selling, it’s time to construct and deploy a full-scale social selling program.
Here’s what it looks like at a high level: First, your social sellers must create authentic content to post (with your help, of course!). The content should have a human angle to it and feel very real. Generally speaking, social sellers should distribute different types of content, including images, videos, and links to articles, to keep their audiences engaged and excited.
You can help social sellers by using customizable content libraries that make relevant and timely content easily accessible. Train intermediaries on when to post, how to use the platform and libraries, and what kind of engagement you’re hoping to achieve.
Don’t forget: Once agents have shared content, it’s time to engage in the social conversation. There’s a reason intermediary-owned social content enjoys higher levels of engagement than brand-owned content: that content usually has more organic back-and-forth between parties.
Finally, remember that social selling programs perform best when they’re integrated. Paid and organic social posts have a symbiotic relationship; a strategy that doesn’t leverage both simply isn’t effective. While organic content creates richness and humanizes your brand, paid ads help your agents get in front of customers they haven’t met yet. Combined into a comprehensive social selling plan, these strategies can have a significant effect on ROI.
Paving the Way to Success With High-Quality Social Selling
Social selling as part of a larger digital marketing strategy isn’t a radical concept, even in insurance marketing; it’s a proven method that produces solid returns over time. Without a doubt, social selling takes time and energy from people outside your marketing bubble. However, by gaining leadership buy-in, building closer bonds between your team and sales, and strategically rolling out to agents, there is so much more to gain than to lose. The more comfortable everyone becomes with social media, the more likely they’ll see it as a welcome addition to the sales and marketing playbook.
Are you interested in learning how to get your team excited about social selling? Want to know how it can expand your marketing reach and develop richer relationships with customers? Request a demo of Denim Social today.
In today's digital age, social media platforms have become essential tools for professionals in various industries to connect with clients, share valuable insights, and build their brand. Instagram, with its visual appeal and highly-engaged user base, is no exception. For financial professionals, leveraging Instagram can be a powerful way to showcase expertise, establish credibility, and build stronger relationships. In this blog post, we will discuss the best practices for building your Instagram business profile as a financial professional that will give your social selling a boost.
Choose a Professional Username and Profile Picture
Start by selecting a username that reflects your name or your financial business's name. Keep it simple and easy to remember. Use a high-quality profile picture, such as a professional headshot or your company logo. This picture will be the first impression potential followers have of you.
Optimize Your Bio
Craft a concise and informative bio that clearly defines your role and expertise. Use relevant keywords, such as "Financial Advisor," "Mortgage Loan Officer,” or "Insurance Agent." Include a brief but captivating description of the value you provide to your customers. Highlight any unique selling points or specializations.
Content Strategy
Determine your content niche. Share content that aligns with your expertise, such as investment tips, financial planning advice, or market insights. Develop a content calendar to ensure consistency. Aim for a mix of educational, inspirational, and personal posts. Use high-quality images and graphics to enhance your posts. Visual appeal is essential on Instagram!
Engage Your Audience
Respond promptly to comments and direct messages. Engaging with your followers builds a sense of trust and connection. You want your followers to engage with your posts, so do the same for them! Like, comment, and share to help increase visibility.
Use Hashtags Wisely
Research and use relevant hashtags to increase the discoverability of your posts. Utilize both industry-specific and popular hashtags. Best practice is to use 5-10 hashtags per post as they relate to the content.
Collaborate and Network
Collaborate with influencers or other professionals in your industry. Guest posts or shoutouts can expand your reach. Attend industry events and share your experiences on Instagram. It’s all about taking those in-person relationships online, too.
Educate and Inform
Share informative and educational content that empowers your audience. Explainer videos, infographics, and step-by-step guides can be especially valuable. Stay up-to-date with the latest financial news and trends, and share your unique insights with your followers. Always provide value!
Analytics and Optimization
Regularly analyze your Instagram Insights to understand which content performs best and when your audience is most active. Use this data to refine your content strategy and posting schedule for optimal engagement.
Promote Your Services
While Instagram is a platform for sharing valuable content, don't forget to promote your services subtly. Share client success stories or case studies to showcase your expertise in action.
Stay Compliant
Ensure that your posts comply with industry regulations and guidelines. Be transparent about any potential conflicts of interest. Luckily, platforms like Denim Social that are built for the financial services industry can help with that!
In conclusion, Instagram can be a valuable tool for financial professionals to connect with clients and prospects. By following these best practices, you can build a strong and trustworthy online presence that sets you apart in the competitive world of finance. Remember that consistency and authenticity are key to establishing a successful Instagram business profile for financial professionals. See our Denim Social guide to building stronger customer relationships on Instagram here!
Instagram stands out as the shining star of social media platforms. While Facebook still reigns supreme and TikTok grows, Instagram is quickly catching up fast with more than 2 billion users worldwide.
With users under age 34 making up nearly 60 percent of this user population, financial services marketers looking to reach younger generations should take note. And with an estimated sum of $68 trillion in wealth expected to transfer from Baby Boomers to Millennials in the next couple of decades, Millennials are a worthwhile target.
Studies predict that, after inheriting wealth, 80% or more young heirs will seek out a new financial advisor. Considering that 9 in 10 accounts follow at least one business on Instagram and 8 in 10 users find new products and services in the app, it’s a safe bet that Instagram will be a place to influence many Millennials. Wise financial services marketers will meet them where they are with strong Instagram marketing strategies, and the following tips can help:
1. Focus on paid ads
Instagram is a visual platform for sharing photos and videos, so it’s important for brand pages to populate their profiles with organic posts. While this presence is important, organic content isn’t what will move the needle on business goals. Financial services aren’t exactly visually interesting, and organic posts tend to have low reach as they only show up in the feeds of a brand’s current followers. Without the ability to include hyperlinks in captions, they also won’t drive any traffic back to your site. If you want to build the type of following needed to generate new business, including paid advertising in your Instagram marketing strategy is your ticket.
With Instagram advertising, institutions and advisors can target ads to land with exactly the right audience — even outside their follower base — and include links in posts to drive more traffic to the brand. With a specific call to action that directs consumers to learn more about a topic, Instagram ads offer a straight-line path to giving customers the valuable information they desire — in their own time and at their own place. What’s more, Instagram advertising is seamlessly integrated directly into Instagram feeds and stories, creating a smoother user experience all around.
2. Connect with consumers on a local level
Instagram marketing on the corporate brand level is a great starting point, but advertising on behalf of your individual advisors can take your strategy to the next level. Think of it this way: If a consumer sees a well-known brand on social media, they might recognize the name, but they won’t feel an intrinsic connection beyond initial familiarity. In contrast, they’ll feel familiarity and an immediate connection when they see a post from an advisor in their own community. Consumers want to build relationships with brands, and a shared community is a great starting point.
Of course, most advisors and other financial services employees are not experts on how to market the business on Instagram. And marketers know they must keep all social media marketing for their financial institutions compliant to avoid heavy regulatory reprimands. To keep posts compliant, save employees time, and help them build relationships with consumers in their physical communities, financial services marketers can set up and run ads on their behalf.
3. Micro-target content to your audience
As big-name brands like Amazon continue to elevate the digital customer experience with seamless customer service, purchasing, and delivery, customer expectations are higher than ever before. When customers evaluate a financial institution, they compare it not only to other organizations in the industry, but also to tech giants in any industry that give them exactly what they need when they need it.
They expect a high level of personalization and convenience, and Instagram marketing with paid advertising can help you give it to them. Match basic behavioral and geographic data to potential customers on Instagram to target ads, and then track clicks, engagements, and post-click actions. These data points don’t indicate much on their own, but together they offer a rich story about what consumers want. Continually refine your strategy with these data points in mind to deliver the kind of highly personalized experiences your audiences want on Instagram.
With a large Millennial user base that engages actively with brands online and the ability to target highly personalized ads to exactly the right audiences, Instagram is a must-have in any financial services marketing strategy. To learn more about how Instagram marketing can work to drive your business forward, download our guide to building stronger customer relationships on Instagram for free today.
Make the most of your social media pages and posts by optimizing your images and including essential information about your business on each platform. By giving customers an optimal digital experience, you can broaden reach and provide better customer service through your digital platforms.
IMAGE SIZING:
Profile picture: 176 x 176px (desktop), 196x 196px (smartphones)
Cover photo: 820 x 312px (desktop), 640 x 360px (smartphones)
Keep the main content of your image centered. On a desktop the photo will display as 840x312px, but on mobile will size down to 640x360px.
Facebook post image: 1200 x 630px
The ideal width for a Facebook post image is 1200px, but height can vary based on what type of device the image display is optimized for. We recommend keeping it at the recommended size to keep consistency on all devices.
When creating a Facebook Ad graphic, any text should not take up more than 20% of the photo. You can find a cheat sheet here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/tools/text_overlay.
Facebook Video: 1280 x 720px
The optimal length for a short-form video on Facebook is 15 seconds to 1 minute; for a long-form video, it is 3 minutes. The maximum file size is 10GB.
Facebook Link Image: 1200 x 630px
Make sure to claim ownership of your links for the ability to change the link preview photo. You can find more info on that here: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/528858287471922?id=708699556338610.
Carousel Post: 1080 x 1080px
Carousel posts are a great way to display multiple services or features that you offer to your customers. When placing a Facebook ad you can link each carousel photo to a different link, making it easy for people to navigate to your specific products.
Facebook Story: 1080 x 1920px
Make the most of your stories by using all of your space and creating a fullscreen experience.
IMPORTANT PAGE INFORMATION:
Page name:
This is where you can name your Facebook Page, but be sure to keep it shorter than 75 characters.
Page username:
Customize your page URL by adding a username, making it easier for people to locate and navigate people from other digital platforms. Your Facebook URL can include up to 50 characters.
Page call to action:
Facebook gives you a variety of choices on calls to action. For example, if you’d like customers to contact you by email, you can set up a “Send Email” button with your email address connected and ready to go.
IMAGE SIZING:
Profile picture: 400 x 400px
Upload your business logo here to personalize your profile. If this page is for an individual, this is where you will upload their headshot.
Cover Photo: 1584 x 396px
Having a personalized business cover photo will make your profile look more professional and give you the opportunity to provide page visitors with more of the look and feel of your business. This can include an image related to your business or a graphic with information on services you provide or your business slogan.
LinkedIn post photo: 1200 x 628px (mobile), 1200 x 1200px (desktop)
When targeting an audience on both desktop and mobile, make sure that you optimize for mobile to give people the best experience.
LinkedIn Link Photo: 1200 x 628px (mobile), 1200 x 1200px (desktop)
Providing an image with your link preview can help give viewers a better idea of article content and improve your click thru rates.
LinkedIn Link Video: 4096 x 2304px maximum, 256 x 144 pixels minimum
The optimal video length for LinkedIn is 30-90 seconds and the maximum file size is 5GB.
IMPORTANT PAGE INFORMATION
Page name:
This is where your business name is located, as well as your company industry, location, and number of followers.
Page description:
Add your business slogan, mission, or a short description that tells people what your company, products, and services can do for them.
X (Formerly Known as Twitter)
IMAGE SIZING
Profile picture: 400 x 400px
Upload your business logo or headshot to personalize your profile.
Cover photo: 1500 x 500px
Be sure to center your content to give your followers an optimized experience on mobile.
Twitter post photo: 1600 x 900px
Allow your followers to see the entirety of the photo in their feed by adhering to this sizing guideline. The maximum file size is 5MB.
X video: 1280 x 720px (desktop, recommended), 720 x 720px (mobile)
The optimal video length for Twitter is 20-45 seconds and the maximum file size is 512MB.
IMPORTANT PAGE INFORMATION
Underneath your profile photo, your company name and username will be displayed.
Write a short bio to tell people more about your business.
IMAGE SIZING
Profile photo: 110 x 110px
Your profile picture will be small, so be sure your image is sized correctly and centered. This is a great place for your company logo.
Profile thumbnail: Displays as 161 x 161px
This is a preview of your large image post, but looks best when the photo posted is square.
Highlight Cover: 1080 x 1920px
Your cover photos should have centered images to give your highlight reel a balanced look. You can also name your highlights, but be concise as they can only be 15 characters long.
Instagram Feed Photo: 1080 x 1080px (square), 1080 x 1350 (portrait), 1080 x 566 (landscape)
The recommended width for all Instagram feed photos is 1080px, but the height can vary. To optimize for your feed display within your profile, we recommend using the sizing listed above to keep your image square.
Instagram Feed Video: 1080 x 1080px (square), 1080 x 1350 (portrait), 1080 x 566 (landscape)
The optimal length for an Instagram video is 30-60 seconds and the max file size is 650MB.
Instagram Feed Ad Photo: 1080 x 1080px
Your ad photo will display the same as a normal feed photo, but with a link attached. When creating an ad in Ads Manager, you’ll be able to upload a separate photo for Instagram to keep your photos optimized for the user experience.
Instagram Story: 1080 x 1920px (portrait), 1080 x 601 (landscape)
Make the most of your stories by using all of your space and creating a fullscreen experience. The maximum length of the story is 60 seconds.
Instagram Reels & Live: 1080 x 1920px
Reels can be used to offer tutorials, demos, or service features. These will be saved under your profile page for viewers to go back and watch at their leisure. The maximum length for Reels is 90 seconds. For Live, this can be used for announcements, events, or other Q&A sessions. These can also be saved for later viewing, and can last up to 4 hours.
Known as the professional social networking platform, LinkedIn is a powerful tool for social selling, allowing your team to foster strategic customer relationships and build credibility. An important part of your online brand, your LinkedIn profile is a key source of information for people looking to learn more about you.
A strong LinkedIn profile creates opportunities for meaningful connections and interactions with other professionals. But how do you make LinkedIn a successful part of your marketing strategy? Well, for starters, you need to build trust. Use the following best practices to do just that.
1.) Add professional profile and cover photos. According to LinkedIn, a professional headshot makes your profile 21x more likely to be viewed, and profiles with photos get a 40% better message response rate. For best results, upload JPEG or PNG images sized as follows:
- Profile photo: 400x400 pixels
- Cover photo: 1584x396 pixels
Pro Tip: Bookmark our Up-to-Date Social Media Sizing & Resource Guide to optimize your images on every social media platform.
2. Write a compelling headline and summary. Your headline and summary should clearly and succinctly state who you are and why someone should connect with you.
- Headline: More than simply your job title, your headline should answer these two questions:
- Who do you help?
- How do you help?
- Summary: Use the following framework to write a compelling professional summary:
- Paragraph 1: In three sentences or less, what is your value prop to your prospective customers? Reiterate your purpose from your headline.
- Paragraph 2: In three sentences or less, how do you help customers achieve results?
- Paragraph 3: In three sentences or less, what is your call-to-action for the prospective customer?
Pro Tip: In your headline and summary, be sure to include keywords prospective customers might search for.
3. Engage frequently and consistently. Every week, apply consistent effort to LinkedIn to build credibility and keep content relevant and valuable for customers. Below is checklist of activities we recommend performing on a weekly basis:
- Post relevant content: Check your content library or search for trending topics in the LinkedIn search bar. You can find some great recent inspiration from others in your field.
- Post/schedule content at the right time: Generally, the best time to post on LinkedIn is Tuesday through Thursday between 10 and 11 a.m. Content posted in the evenings and on weekends tends to get less engagement. Check out this guide in our Help Center for more information on when to post on various social media channels.
- Seek recommendations from customers and share success stories: What’s better than telling your networks how great you are? Someone else saying it for you! Positive testimonials, endorsements and reviews go a long way in building your credibility.
- Check likes, follows, shares, hashtags and comments. Be sure to engage and respond as appropriate. Set weekly or monthly goals for growth and track progress.
- Grow your network: Join relevant groups in your industry to gain customer insights about needs and interests, follow influencers and connect with others.
Pro tip: Add a 30-minute weekly recurring event on your calendar to go through the above checklist.
LinkedIn should be an essential part of your team’s social selling strategy. Stay visible and build trust with consistency and an optimized profile.
Looking for a quick reference for all of this information? Check out this infographic.
“If you build it, they will come.”
While this advice may work in fictional baseball movies, it’s a bad strategy for building your Facebook business page following.
Successfully growing your page likes and follows requires ongoing attention, but it pays off.
More followers indicates greater popularity and trust in your brand and also means more eyeballs on your content.
Follow these tips to start growing your following today.
1. Share meaningful content. Before posting anything on your page, make sure it provides value to your audience. When you do this consistently, your existing followers will share it with their friends, attracting more followers. As you plan your content strategy, think about the topics you can speak to with authority. Then look for gaps in the content already being shared with your audience. Where these two intersect is a great place to focus your thought leadership efforts.
2. Be consistent. It goes without saying that consistency in voice, tone and style should be inherent in any marketing message. As you work to grow your Facebook page following, it’s also important to aim for consistency in when and how often you post content. When your content quality, quantity or schedule isn’t consistent, it can confuse your audience. Staying on a schedule will improve the experience you deliver and build your business’s credibility and reputation. Use a tool like Denim Social’s Analytics to test and monitor when engagement is at its highest, and design your content schedule accordingly.
3. Invite friends. One of the quickest, most efficient ways to start driving awareness and growing your audience is to invite your friends to follow your page. Remember, your friends have friends, and they might be interested in following your business and your new page.
4. Run ads. A surefire way to grow your following is to run Facebook ads. Ads are an effective tool for promoting your page, boosting your posts, getting more leads, increasing conversions and performing a number of other actions. Keep in mind, however, that it may not always be in your best interest to grow your following just for the sake of a bigger number. You want to attract people who are interested in your products and services (and, in turn, more likely to engage with your content). Using audience targeting strategies will help you reach the right consumer with the right message.
A Facebook business page is an easy and effective way to grow your brand awareness and credibility. Although it’s not as simple as set-it-and-forget-it, if you follow the tips outlined above, you will be well on your way to growing your Facebook fan base. If you need help engaging your audience on social media, get in touch with us today.
Where Are the Biggest Opportunities to Use Social Media in Financial Services?
Denim Social's Guide To Social Selling For Financial Services shows that most financial professionals — 83% of those surveyed — have a social media presence. It’s a great place to start, but having a profile is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what benefits financial institutions can enjoy from social media. Smart financial marketers and their teams should be optimizing their social selling efforts on every network to get the most out of what social media has to offer.
Customers are active in many other places online, so why not meet them there? After all, 79% of people look to social media for financial advice. By meeting customers where they are on the main 4 networks, financial institutions can stay top of mind and grow real, authentic connections. Let’s dive into what Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook have to offer and how financial services marketers can best use each platform.
1. Instagram
As far as major social media platforms in financial services go, Instagram tops the list. While many financial professionals might not at first think of the photographic and visual network as prime business territory, its popularity makes it an excellent place to strengthen real relationships.
Instagram is one of the best ways to get in front of younger audiences, which is a worthwhile goal, considering that many Millennial customers will likely be on the search for new financial services providers as Baby Boomers pass their wealth on to the next generations. What's more, 90% of Instagram users follow at least one business account and 80% use the platform to discover new products.
Even better, getting started on Instagram is a breeze. Instagram ads also allow hyperlinks, so you can lead readers right from their feeds to your website with specific calls to action to learn more. Lead them to a personalized and well-designed landing page on your site, for instance, and you'll be drawing each follower who clicks through one big step closer to conversion.
2. LinkedIn
The majority of financial services providers already use LinkedIn, and there are many ways to make it perhaps the most successful social selling platform out of all the networks. Employees at institutions of all sizes and financial industries can use this professional network to cultivate thought leadership and educate their customers.
For financial services marketers, a brand profile is a necessary starting point. Getting the most out of the platform, however, requires activating your employees in a social selling strategy. They can share relevant content, such as videos and published articles from trusted media outlets, as well as engage with customers and prospects one-on-one via direct messaging to establish themselves as experts and build trusting relationships. People want to engage with other people, not with general brand pages. It’s no wonder that employees on social media can garner 10x the engagement of brand pages alone.
3. Twitter
Like LinkedIn, Twitter is also a great place for agents, loan officers, and advisors to share their expertise. Understandably, financial services marketers might be intimidated by the fast-paced nature of the platform and fear they don’t have enough resources to keep up. However, with the proper social media management tools, maintaining compliant engagement on Twitter is totally possible — and worth it.
One of the greatest benefits of social media marketing for financial services is the ability to provide more value to customers. Twitter makes this incredibly easy to do. Marketers can follow all relevant news media outlets and keep an eye out for any articles that might benefit their clients or prospects. For example, an explainer piece on recent changes in tax legislation may be helpful come tax season. Retweeting such helpful resources educates followers on financial topics and builds trust in the brand and its employees.
There’s no single best social media platform for marketing. Each one has a unique opportunity to reach and engage current and future customers. If you’re already on social media, it’s time to level up your social media marketing strategy by diving into Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook in more depth. No matter the size of your financial institution, extending your social media strategy to encompass these platforms can help grow your audience, build trust, and maintain solid customer relationships.
Connect & Convert on Social
How to Integrate Social Selling Into Your Insurance Organization’s Digital Marketing Strategy
Risk is a double-edged sword for insurance agencies and carriers. The insurance industry certainly thrives because it deeply understands risk. But being knee-deep in risk makes many carriers reluctant to adopt new marketing methods such as social selling. This is an epic missed opportunity (which you, as an insurance marketer, understand and probably have to navigate daily).
Social selling isn’t as new as it seems at first glance; insurance agents have always relied on relationship-building for sales. Social selling is just another way for them to build trust with customers. The only difference? The connections happen online via social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn rather than in person. And those digital connections can become the foundations for long-term relationships and sales.
So, how can you integrate social selling into your carrier’s marketing strategies? Start with these three steps: overcome reluctance to change, invest in bonds with sales, and deploy a comprehensive social selling program.
Let’s get into it.
1. Getting Leadership Onboard
Change doesn’t happen overnight (just look at the timeline of digital transformation in the insurance industry). It also doesn’t happen without some kind of catalyst. This is your chance to lead marketing change. Insurance marketers who want to launch a social selling program need to educate their teams and leaders about what social selling is and why it’s so essential.
“What is social selling?” is a crucial first question to answer to get buy-in. Step one is to advocate and share resources with colleagues and carrier leadership that explain what social selling is and its benefits. If you tell them that social selling will allow agents to get more face time with customers, humanize your brand, and bring in leads, they might just be willing to hear the rest of your plan.
Decision makers at the carrier level might be more willing to fund social selling programs once they gain a deeper understanding of them. Be patient but persistent about building a culture that supports the overall strategy.
2. Reshaping the Traditional Insurance Sales-Marketing Relationship
More so than other digital marketing strategies, social selling requires sales and marketing teams to work together. When properly executed, social selling helps both teams make a more significant impact during the customer journey and, ultimately, can increase the number of leads agents generate. The sales team is essential to your social selling dream team because it understands what makes agents tick and how to get them invested in the program.
Results matter to a sales team, so one way to get this kind of relationship moving is by using metrics to show that social selling isn’t just another to-do on the growing task list. It can increase profits (and agent commission or bonuses!). For instance, you could share that associates who regularly post content are 45% likelier to exceed their quotas, and their companies are 57% likelier to generate leads.
Show your sales team how social selling can keep their prospects. Once bought in, the sales team will serve as an essential conduit to agents, demonstrating that social selling can keep prospects warmed up and engaged. Social selling isn’t just for prospects either; it’s an important way to stay in touch with current customers, supporting retention and referrals. Think about it this way: Net promoter scores are significantly higher among insurance customers who’ve interacted with their providers in the last year than those who did not. Staying in touch matters to the bottom line. The benefits are measurable, so use that to your advantage when getting sales buy-in.
3. Choosing the Right Social Selling Platform
Another way to seamlessly integrate social selling into an existing digital marketing strategy is using the right social selling tool. Digital platforms can make social selling at scale streamlined and intuitive. Show sales, leadership, and any other decision makers how the right platform can make it easy to support intermediaries, showcase thought leadership, and build trust and relationships that will lead to sales.
A solid social selling platform will manage your social channels, ensure compliance, curate relevant content, and boost the effectiveness of your social efforts. Seek technology that understands your industry’s nuances and the impact intermediaries can make through social selling. The right solution should create efficiencies for you, your team, leadership, and users.
4. Executing Social Selling Campaigns
At this point, you might be wondering how to start a social selling program effectively within your organization. Once carrier leadership, sales, and the rest of your teams are on board with social selling, it’s time to construct and deploy a full-scale social selling program.
Here’s what it looks like at a high level: First, your social sellers must create authentic content to post (with your help, of course!). The content should have a human angle to it and feel very real. Generally speaking, social sellers should distribute different types of content, including images, videos, and links to articles, to keep their audiences engaged and excited.
You can help social sellers by using customizable content libraries that make relevant and timely content easily accessible. Train intermediaries on when to post, how to use the platform and libraries, and what kind of engagement you’re hoping to achieve.
Don’t forget: Once agents have shared content, it’s time to engage in the social conversation. There’s a reason intermediary-owned social content enjoys higher levels of engagement than brand-owned content: that content usually has more organic back-and-forth between parties.
Finally, remember that social selling programs perform best when they’re integrated. Paid and organic social posts have a symbiotic relationship; a strategy that doesn’t leverage both simply isn’t effective. While organic content creates richness and humanizes your brand, paid ads help your agents get in front of customers they haven’t met yet. Combined into a comprehensive social selling plan, these strategies can have a significant effect on ROI.
Paving the Way to Success With High-Quality Social Selling
Social selling as part of a larger digital marketing strategy isn’t a radical concept, even in insurance marketing; it’s a proven method that produces solid returns over time. Without a doubt, social selling takes time and energy from people outside your marketing bubble. However, by gaining leadership buy-in, building closer bonds between your team and sales, and strategically rolling out to agents, there is so much more to gain than to lose. The more comfortable everyone becomes with social media, the more likely they’ll see it as a welcome addition to the sales and marketing playbook.
Are you interested in learning how to get your team excited about social selling? Want to know how it can expand your marketing reach and develop richer relationships with customers? Request a demo of Denim Social today.
Retail banks in the U.S. are facing a major customer attrition challenges. According to a recent Bain report, customers make as many as 55 percent of financial-related purchases from their primary bank’s competitors. While primary banks may be able to retain customers’ savings and checking accounts, the report suggests that they’re likely losing out on lucrative sales when it comes to loans, credit cards and investments.
Considering that almost one-third of those who defected from their primary bank did so in response to a direct offer from a competitor, wise marketers will up their customer engagement and outreach efforts to retain more customers. Affordability of products is the top reason for customer defection, which marketers may not have much say in, but it isn’t the only contributing factor. Digitization has also been a major catalyst. Namely, the strong digital products and experiences that some banks offer—and others do not.
Bank marketers who can jump onboard the digitization train to meet customers where they are with engaging, valuable messaging will be much more likely to keep customers coming back again and again for each of their financial needs. The following strategies can help:
1. Put the human element front and center
Traditional banks have an innate advantage over digital direct banks: The human touch. Leveraging this benefit, especially when it comes to increasingly digital customer interactions, can lead to measurable improvements in customer retention.
One way to ensure the human touch remains part of every customer touchpoint is to focus on personalization. A February Insurance Thought Leadership piece revealed that 72 percent of people ignore marketing that’s not highly personalized. So targeting relevant content to the right recipients is essential, especially when digitization can easily strip the human element out of an interaction. Personalizing messaging and services to be relevant and valuable to the specific needs of each customer can bring the human element into focus even in a digital world.
One way to create more relevant, personalized outreach is to practice social selling, or leveraging a bank’s employees on social media. People can relate more to other people than they can to big brand names. When your employees are the ones getting in front of customers virtually, it humanizes the digital customer experience and sets the stage for trusting and loyal relationships to come. What’s more, employees also tend to have further reach and engagement on brand-related social posts than brand pages alone, so they can expand the impact of your messaging exponentially.
2. Create digital pathways to human interactions
When considering how to anchor all digital marketing for financial services around the human element, keep in mind that every pathway should connect prospects and customers directly to a human.
For example, a social media post from an employee could include a link to a landing page on your website where visitors can learn more valuable information on the topic of the post. On that landing page, you can include valuable content, such as a guidebook, behind an information request form. When users submit their names and email addresses, they will receive the content and your sales team members can reach out to them directly with a human-centric, personalized outreach approach.
When prospects and customers know they’re just an email or phone call away from a real person at your organization, they’re likely to turn to you instead of an impersonal digital direct bank for their next financial need.
3. Focus on customer retention just as much as acquisition
Bringing in new prospects gets a lot of attention from financial services marketers, sometimes at the expense of retaining current ones. But focusing on customer retention and continuously improving the digital customer experience will help secure more revenue when it comes to additional services such as loans and credit cards.
Listen to the needs of customers and keep refining your personalization tactics to meet their needs. Every time you get in front of a current customer with relevant, valuable messaging or content, you help build trust in that relationship and increase the chances of that customer coming to you for whatever service they need next.
It’s true that people will always be drawn to brands that offer more affordable products and services. But money isn’t the only reason people look outside of their primary bank to fulfill their financial needs. Banks that differentiate by focusing on digitization alongside the human element will find that it’s easier to keep current customers from looking for greener pastures.
This was originally published on ABA Bank Marketing.
In today's digital age, social media platforms have become essential tools for professionals in various industries to connect with clients, share valuable insights, and build their brand. Instagram, with its visual appeal and highly-engaged user base, is no exception. For financial professionals, leveraging Instagram can be a powerful way to showcase expertise, establish credibility, and build stronger relationships. In this blog post, we will discuss the best practices for building your Instagram business profile as a financial professional that will give your social selling a boost.
Choose a Professional Username and Profile Picture
Start by selecting a username that reflects your name or your financial business's name. Keep it simple and easy to remember. Use a high-quality profile picture, such as a professional headshot or your company logo. This picture will be the first impression potential followers have of you.
Optimize Your Bio
Craft a concise and informative bio that clearly defines your role and expertise. Use relevant keywords, such as "Financial Advisor," "Mortgage Loan Officer,” or "Insurance Agent." Include a brief but captivating description of the value you provide to your customers. Highlight any unique selling points or specializations.
Content Strategy
Determine your content niche. Share content that aligns with your expertise, such as investment tips, financial planning advice, or market insights. Develop a content calendar to ensure consistency. Aim for a mix of educational, inspirational, and personal posts. Use high-quality images and graphics to enhance your posts. Visual appeal is essential on Instagram!
Engage Your Audience
Respond promptly to comments and direct messages. Engaging with your followers builds a sense of trust and connection. You want your followers to engage with your posts, so do the same for them! Like, comment, and share to help increase visibility.
Use Hashtags Wisely
Research and use relevant hashtags to increase the discoverability of your posts. Utilize both industry-specific and popular hashtags. Best practice is to use 5-10 hashtags per post as they relate to the content.
Collaborate and Network
Collaborate with influencers or other professionals in your industry. Guest posts or shoutouts can expand your reach. Attend industry events and share your experiences on Instagram. It’s all about taking those in-person relationships online, too.
Educate and Inform
Share informative and educational content that empowers your audience. Explainer videos, infographics, and step-by-step guides can be especially valuable. Stay up-to-date with the latest financial news and trends, and share your unique insights with your followers. Always provide value!
Analytics and Optimization
Regularly analyze your Instagram Insights to understand which content performs best and when your audience is most active. Use this data to refine your content strategy and posting schedule for optimal engagement.
Promote Your Services
While Instagram is a platform for sharing valuable content, don't forget to promote your services subtly. Share client success stories or case studies to showcase your expertise in action.
Stay Compliant
Ensure that your posts comply with industry regulations and guidelines. Be transparent about any potential conflicts of interest. Luckily, platforms like Denim Social that are built for the financial services industry can help with that!
In conclusion, Instagram can be a valuable tool for financial professionals to connect with clients and prospects. By following these best practices, you can build a strong and trustworthy online presence that sets you apart in the competitive world of finance. Remember that consistency and authenticity are key to establishing a successful Instagram business profile for financial professionals. See our Denim Social guide to building stronger customer relationships on Instagram here!
Connecting with customers and prospects on social media is a natural extension of the financial services industry becoming more digital. Consumers expect the businesses they patronize to be on the same social platforms they use — and they expect those brands to be ready to interact with them. Case in point: A survey of over 500 social media users found that nearly three-quarters follow organizations on social platforms, and the vast majority of them interact with those brands on social.
Social media is the perfect tool for financial institutions to build brand awareness, meet the demand for greater digital engagement, recruit prospective customers, and drive referrals.
While social media is a great way to connect with customers and prospects, it’s not without its risk. It’s essential to use social media tools that will keep your team in compliance.
1. START WITH A SOCIAL SELLING STRATEGY.
There are few limits to how you can connect with customers and prospects on social media, but it needs to be about more than posts from a brand page. Direct messaging is always an option for private communication, but to reach more people at scale, social sellers (i.e., agents, loan officers, financial advisors, intermediaries, etc.) should also be posting original content, resharing educational articles, responding to comments and questions, and liking others’ posts. With so many options, it’s important for marketers to craft a social selling strategy that guides social sellers in their social interactions on behalf of the institution.
A well-thought-out strategy can ensure effective social selling. For instance, rather than posting on channels at random and hoping for the best, social sellers can determine which social media platforms suit them best based on audience engagement and follower counts; then they can focus their efforts there. Consider also equipping intermediaries with a library of branded content they can mix in with their personal posts. This strategy will inform your all-important social media policy moving forward.
2. TURN YOUR STRATEGY INTO A DETAILED POLICY.
In a heavily regulated industry, it’s essential for firms to have a comprehensive social media policy. This is a package of brand messaging in a detailed policy to help ensure consistency when social sellers post on your behalf.
Take the plan you mapped out in your strategy and turn it into a documented policy that intermediaries can access easily. Social media and the way people use it continues to evolve, which is why your social media policy should always be a work in progress. Make updates periodically to account for shifts in your approval workflow, changes in messaging, and general social media best practices. As social sellers become savvier, your policy will grow more detailed.
3. MAKE TRAINING AN ONGOING EFFORT.
Intermediaries who are new to social media will require initial training — but it shouldn’t be a one-and-done initiative. Hold regular social selling workshops to keep all social sellers up to date on your social media policy and messaging.
You can also use workshop time to walk your team through any tools you invest in to fuel social media efforts. Denim Social, for example, offers live product demos you can share to show them how to use the technology and get the most benefit.
Demonstrate how the software streamlines the approval process for posts and automatically archives them for future reference. The more they know, the more comfortable they’ll be using such tools to facilitate social selling efforts. The great news is, our customer success team is here to help get your team trained and ready.
Social media opens up a world of opportunity for financial institutions to reach and engage customers and prospects, but that doesn’t mean you should set your team free to do as they please. The right strategy and social media management software can make it a lot easier to avoid mistakes and create a successful social selling strategy. Want to see how Denim Social can help your team up their social media game? Schedule a demo today!
Instagram stands out as the shining star of social media platforms. While Facebook still reigns supreme and TikTok grows, Instagram is quickly catching up fast with more than 2 billion users worldwide.
With users under age 34 making up nearly 60 percent of this user population, financial services marketers looking to reach younger generations should take note. And with an estimated sum of $68 trillion in wealth expected to transfer from Baby Boomers to Millennials in the next couple of decades, Millennials are a worthwhile target.
Studies predict that, after inheriting wealth, 80% or more young heirs will seek out a new financial advisor. Considering that 9 in 10 accounts follow at least one business on Instagram and 8 in 10 users find new products and services in the app, it’s a safe bet that Instagram will be a place to influence many Millennials. Wise financial services marketers will meet them where they are with strong Instagram marketing strategies, and the following tips can help:
1. Focus on paid ads
Instagram is a visual platform for sharing photos and videos, so it’s important for brand pages to populate their profiles with organic posts. While this presence is important, organic content isn’t what will move the needle on business goals. Financial services aren’t exactly visually interesting, and organic posts tend to have low reach as they only show up in the feeds of a brand’s current followers. Without the ability to include hyperlinks in captions, they also won’t drive any traffic back to your site. If you want to build the type of following needed to generate new business, including paid advertising in your Instagram marketing strategy is your ticket.
With Instagram advertising, institutions and advisors can target ads to land with exactly the right audience — even outside their follower base — and include links in posts to drive more traffic to the brand. With a specific call to action that directs consumers to learn more about a topic, Instagram ads offer a straight-line path to giving customers the valuable information they desire — in their own time and at their own place. What’s more, Instagram advertising is seamlessly integrated directly into Instagram feeds and stories, creating a smoother user experience all around.
2. Connect with consumers on a local level
Instagram marketing on the corporate brand level is a great starting point, but advertising on behalf of your individual advisors can take your strategy to the next level. Think of it this way: If a consumer sees a well-known brand on social media, they might recognize the name, but they won’t feel an intrinsic connection beyond initial familiarity. In contrast, they’ll feel familiarity and an immediate connection when they see a post from an advisor in their own community. Consumers want to build relationships with brands, and a shared community is a great starting point.
Of course, most advisors and other financial services employees are not experts on how to market the business on Instagram. And marketers know they must keep all social media marketing for their financial institutions compliant to avoid heavy regulatory reprimands. To keep posts compliant, save employees time, and help them build relationships with consumers in their physical communities, financial services marketers can set up and run ads on their behalf.
3. Micro-target content to your audience
As big-name brands like Amazon continue to elevate the digital customer experience with seamless customer service, purchasing, and delivery, customer expectations are higher than ever before. When customers evaluate a financial institution, they compare it not only to other organizations in the industry, but also to tech giants in any industry that give them exactly what they need when they need it.
They expect a high level of personalization and convenience, and Instagram marketing with paid advertising can help you give it to them. Match basic behavioral and geographic data to potential customers on Instagram to target ads, and then track clicks, engagements, and post-click actions. These data points don’t indicate much on their own, but together they offer a rich story about what consumers want. Continually refine your strategy with these data points in mind to deliver the kind of highly personalized experiences your audiences want on Instagram.
With a large Millennial user base that engages actively with brands online and the ability to target highly personalized ads to exactly the right audiences, Instagram is a must-have in any financial services marketing strategy. To learn more about how Instagram marketing can work to drive your business forward, download our guide to building stronger customer relationships on Instagram for free today.
Make the most of your social media pages and posts by optimizing your images and including essential information about your business on each platform. By giving customers an optimal digital experience, you can broaden reach and provide better customer service through your digital platforms.
IMAGE SIZING:
Profile picture: 176 x 176px (desktop), 196x 196px (smartphones)
Cover photo: 820 x 312px (desktop), 640 x 360px (smartphones)
Keep the main content of your image centered. On a desktop the photo will display as 840x312px, but on mobile will size down to 640x360px.
Facebook post image: 1200 x 630px
The ideal width for a Facebook post image is 1200px, but height can vary based on what type of device the image display is optimized for. We recommend keeping it at the recommended size to keep consistency on all devices.
When creating a Facebook Ad graphic, any text should not take up more than 20% of the photo. You can find a cheat sheet here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/tools/text_overlay.
Facebook Video: 1280 x 720px
The optimal length for a short-form video on Facebook is 15 seconds to 1 minute; for a long-form video, it is 3 minutes. The maximum file size is 10GB.
Facebook Link Image: 1200 x 630px
Make sure to claim ownership of your links for the ability to change the link preview photo. You can find more info on that here: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/528858287471922?id=708699556338610.
Carousel Post: 1080 x 1080px
Carousel posts are a great way to display multiple services or features that you offer to your customers. When placing a Facebook ad you can link each carousel photo to a different link, making it easy for people to navigate to your specific products.
Facebook Story: 1080 x 1920px
Make the most of your stories by using all of your space and creating a fullscreen experience.
IMPORTANT PAGE INFORMATION:
Page name:
This is where you can name your Facebook Page, but be sure to keep it shorter than 75 characters.
Page username:
Customize your page URL by adding a username, making it easier for people to locate and navigate people from other digital platforms. Your Facebook URL can include up to 50 characters.
Page call to action:
Facebook gives you a variety of choices on calls to action. For example, if you’d like customers to contact you by email, you can set up a “Send Email” button with your email address connected and ready to go.
IMAGE SIZING:
Profile picture: 400 x 400px
Upload your business logo here to personalize your profile. If this page is for an individual, this is where you will upload their headshot.
Cover Photo: 1584 x 396px
Having a personalized business cover photo will make your profile look more professional and give you the opportunity to provide page visitors with more of the look and feel of your business. This can include an image related to your business or a graphic with information on services you provide or your business slogan.
LinkedIn post photo: 1200 x 628px (mobile), 1200 x 1200px (desktop)
When targeting an audience on both desktop and mobile, make sure that you optimize for mobile to give people the best experience.
LinkedIn Link Photo: 1200 x 628px (mobile), 1200 x 1200px (desktop)
Providing an image with your link preview can help give viewers a better idea of article content and improve your click thru rates.
LinkedIn Link Video: 4096 x 2304px maximum, 256 x 144 pixels minimum
The optimal video length for LinkedIn is 30-90 seconds and the maximum file size is 5GB.
IMPORTANT PAGE INFORMATION
Page name:
This is where your business name is located, as well as your company industry, location, and number of followers.
Page description:
Add your business slogan, mission, or a short description that tells people what your company, products, and services can do for them.
X (Formerly Known as Twitter)
IMAGE SIZING
Profile picture: 400 x 400px
Upload your business logo or headshot to personalize your profile.
Cover photo: 1500 x 500px
Be sure to center your content to give your followers an optimized experience on mobile.
Twitter post photo: 1600 x 900px
Allow your followers to see the entirety of the photo in their feed by adhering to this sizing guideline. The maximum file size is 5MB.
X video: 1280 x 720px (desktop, recommended), 720 x 720px (mobile)
The optimal video length for Twitter is 20-45 seconds and the maximum file size is 512MB.
IMPORTANT PAGE INFORMATION
Underneath your profile photo, your company name and username will be displayed.
Write a short bio to tell people more about your business.
IMAGE SIZING
Profile photo: 110 x 110px
Your profile picture will be small, so be sure your image is sized correctly and centered. This is a great place for your company logo.
Profile thumbnail: Displays as 161 x 161px
This is a preview of your large image post, but looks best when the photo posted is square.
Highlight Cover: 1080 x 1920px
Your cover photos should have centered images to give your highlight reel a balanced look. You can also name your highlights, but be concise as they can only be 15 characters long.
Instagram Feed Photo: 1080 x 1080px (square), 1080 x 1350 (portrait), 1080 x 566 (landscape)
The recommended width for all Instagram feed photos is 1080px, but the height can vary. To optimize for your feed display within your profile, we recommend using the sizing listed above to keep your image square.
Instagram Feed Video: 1080 x 1080px (square), 1080 x 1350 (portrait), 1080 x 566 (landscape)
The optimal length for an Instagram video is 30-60 seconds and the max file size is 650MB.
Instagram Feed Ad Photo: 1080 x 1080px
Your ad photo will display the same as a normal feed photo, but with a link attached. When creating an ad in Ads Manager, you’ll be able to upload a separate photo for Instagram to keep your photos optimized for the user experience.
Instagram Story: 1080 x 1920px (portrait), 1080 x 601 (landscape)
Make the most of your stories by using all of your space and creating a fullscreen experience. The maximum length of the story is 60 seconds.
Instagram Reels & Live: 1080 x 1920px
Reels can be used to offer tutorials, demos, or service features. These will be saved under your profile page for viewers to go back and watch at their leisure. The maximum length for Reels is 90 seconds. For Live, this can be used for announcements, events, or other Q&A sessions. These can also be saved for later viewing, and can last up to 4 hours.
So you've invested the time, energy, and money into building a website that details all of your financial products and services, and you have a solid social media strategy in place — but do you have any means of connecting the two? A full digital marketing strategy requires a connection point to lead prospects along the digital journey and toward conversion. Landing pages can serve as the bridges you need.
These pages live on your website and hold information geared toward specific audience segments. For example, if an insurance agent is interested in helping first-time homebuyers with homeowners insurance, a social media post on the subject could include a link to a landing page on your website with even more resources for new buyers.
Landing pages are important because no matter how well-built your website homepage is, it simply can’t serve the needs of every consumer — not conveniently, at least. Without landing pages, site visitors arrive on the homepage and are left to dig through the site for specific information on their own. Landing pages, on the other hand, allow visitors to arrive at your site in the exact place they want to be. It’s the best way for financial institution marketers to quickly and easily offer content that meets the specific needs of various target audiences.
Customers want this level of personalization, and they're open to the idea of trading their information for it. In fact, more than three-quarters of consumers in one study said they would be willing to give more personal data in return for more tailored services. When customers submit their contact information through a form to download the content on your landing page, not only are they getting tailored content, but you're getting data that can fuel more personalized outreach directly to primed prospects. And that leads to higher conversion rates.
Start creating landing pages by planning a page for each promotion in your overall marketing campaign or for each of your target audiences. Then, we recommend the following steps to drive conversion:
1. Keep it simple and direct.
Ultimately, the goal of a landing page for financial institutions is to learn more about prospects by gathering their information in the form field. For visitors, the clearer the path to the field, the likelier they will be to share their data. Don’t fill a page with too many images, multiple offers, and other clutter — you’ll just increase the chances of visitors bouncing off the page before taking action. Instead, stick with concise, clear messaging, easy-to-follow directives, strong calls to action, and impactful design elements.
2. Leverage pre-built, fully customizable templates.
Few marketing professionals have the bandwidth or experience to build a whole webpage on their own. Fortunately, software like Denim Social with landing page functionality will offer pre-built, customizable templates that allow you to start with a page already optimized for conversion.
From there, you can easily customize the content, form fields, colors, images, and video on each page to fit your campaign goals. The key here is to keep a consistent style across pages so each one fits under your overall brand umbrella.
3. Scale, scale, scale!
The real beauty of using pre-built, customizable templates is the ability to design, build, and launch landing pages at scale. Denim Social’s code-free interface makes it easy for anyone to populate many templates with customized elements — no web design expertise required. Just personalize, publish, then easily iterate and adjust based on conversion data.
In practice, this looks like building hundreds or even thousands of highly professional landing pages in just minutes. That’s a lot more opportunity for targeted messaging than one broad website homepage on its own.
Landing pages are one of the most effective tools at your disposal to create tailored experiences, capture valuable information, and generate high-quality leads. With the right platform, any marketer can build landing pages at scale and propel more prospects toward conversion.