Years ago, paying for any advertising was standard. You'd take out an ad in the newspaper or put together a flyer and deliver it door to door. You may still do these things, but you also recognize that organic marketing ideas have taken over much of insurance marketing today. For example, the SEO on your website is designed to draw in prospective customers who search for insurance businesses in your area. If your marketing focus is on organic traffic, how does paid content fit into your insurance marketing plan?
What is Paid Content?
To get traffic to come to your website, you've optimized it so that the keywords your prospects might search for are embedded in your site. You work on increasing the interest you get from search engines by adding content frequently, tagging your photos, and doing everything you can to diligently get your insurance company's information onto the front page of Google.
However, those who use paid content can move to the head of the line. According to Hubspot,
"Paid search allows you to pay to have your website displayed on the search engine results page when someone types in specific keywords or phrases."
This is like the priority treatment at a concert: you're paying to jump the SEO queue.
Paid content is becoming more prominent on social media sites. You can post about your latest insurance seminar and use organic methods to promote your event, or you can pay to have your content in someone else's feed.
How Does Paid Content Impact Your Organic Marketing?
If you're using your resources to create blog posts, add engaging posts to your social media accounts, and improve your SEO, paid content may seem unfair. Paid content competes aggressively with your organic content. Your customers only have so much time to search online, read blogs posts, or scroll their Facebook feed.
However, businesses that use paid content to leap onto a lead's social media feed or to the top of the search results, could be spending money in vain if their content is poor. According to Sprout Social, "To ensure brands get their money’s worth whether it’s paid or organic, content has to have a purpose and be engaging."
According to Marketing Profs, "It is essential to see the two practices as less of a faceoff and more of a complementary fit." Why is this the case? Paid traffic might bring a lot of people in the door, but it's not as good at building those long-term, high-value relationships. You get those through long-term work, not through short-term advertising campaigns.
"It is essential to see the two practices as less of a faceoff and more of a complementary fit."
Should You Use Paid Content?
Is it worthwhile to put yourself on the list of recommended links, high in the search results, or as a sponsored post on Facebook? It certainly can be if you are wise about the ways that you use paid content. Paid content can be helpful to your business if:
You have successful posts or campaigns that have been proven to convert, and you want to put more eyes on these campaigns.
Any new material you create is designed to be valuable, not just to advertise your insurance business.
You're willing to test different types of paid content to see what actually turns leads into customers.
You see paid traffic as a complement to existing traffic, not as a substitute for your organic traffic.
At American Agents Alliance, we want to help you develop your independent insurance business. Whether you're looking for insurance marketing ideas or you want to broaden your network, talk with us, and we'll connect you with our many membership benefits.
