Who influences you? You likely have many different influences in your life: friends, family members, a trusted colleague, or someone you deeply respect in your industry. Each person you know and trust can shape your understanding of the brands that surround you. These influencers can shift your attention to a new brand or shift your thinking about one that you thought that you knew. How can you use the power of influencers to shape your insurance brand and turn it into a powerful tool for your agency?
What is Influencer Marketing?
Gone are the days when branding meant creating an advertisement and sending it out to the public at large. These days, your customers engage with your brand in a huge assortment of ways. They may read your blogs, take your courses, and Tweet about you on social media. Some of your customers are quieter and interested in your brand simply because they’d like to purchase your insurance or read about insurance options. Others are influencers: people who have a following in your industry and who use their expertise and authority in the field to influence what people think about your brand and others. By understanding and working with brand influencers, you can shape prospective clients’ concept of your brand in a new way.
Using Influencer Marketing
When you use influencer marketing, you can look for key experts and allies in your niche. If you’re focused on sports insurance, look at who’s creating the dialogue in that field on social media and elsewhere. Are there sports writers or commentators who have strong opinions on insurance issues? Are there sports medicine professionals who hold a lot of sway? Don’t worry if the influencer is a little bit outside your industry. They may give you an opportunity to move your marketing in a different and positive direction.
When you’re looking at who to approach to partner with or collaborate with on a business project, look at the habits and history of these key industry influencers. What is their reputation in the industry? Do they have respect, or is their influence more notorious than positive? What audience do they speak to? Is this the audience that you’d like to reach? If you feel like this is a fit, you can move forward in discussions about collaborating with these influencers. You might choose to co-brand a product, seek an endorsement, or ask them to use their influence to help a campaign go viral.
Remember the little influencers as well — your supporters. That vast network you have may be able to mobilize public opinion in their own smaller ways, and when they do so they can help your marketing efforts go viral. They become a tide of influencers, not just a single one.
Are you trying to increase your influence in your field? The American Agents Alliance can help you get started. We’re an alliance of national insurance agents who can help you with preferred market access, professional designation and affinity discounts, and industry-specific insurance. Contact us today to learn more about the benefits of membership.
