Marketing Tips for LinkedIn

The third social network of what many consider to be the big three, LinkedIn may not be as popular as Facebook or Twitter, but it has its own niche as the social network for business.
Because it is for business, how you use LinkedIn will differ slightly from how you might use Facebook or Twitter. If you're looking for ways to use LinkedIn to market your agency, there are several things you should be doing that will impact your marketing results from LinkedIn.

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4 Areas to Audit on Your Insurance Website

Your website is your agency online. For some visitors it will be their first impression of your agency. For others it will be their only impression. If your website doesn't function the way it should, that first impression could be one you wish you could do over. A regular audit of your website will help you identify what areas need to be updated as well as what areas may no longer be functioning the way it should.
Here are the four areas you should review on an annual (or as often as quarterly if you can) basis to make sure your website is updated and working for you the way it should.

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Inbound Marketing vs Outbound Marketing

 Marketing is changing. Now, I know that’s easy to say, but every day there are more and more studies done on the two different types of marketing. Some people refer to these two types as “new age marketing” and “old marketing.” The proper terms are inbound marketing and outbound marketing.

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What is Keyword Research?

Articles on search engine optimization often talk about keyword research (or keyword analysis). But what exactly is it?
Keyword research is the process of identifying which keywords or keyword phrases people are likely to use on Google and other search engines when searching insurance.

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What is Facebook EdgeRank?

The first thing that someone sees when they log into Facebook is the newsfeed. The newsfeed is compiled of status updates, photos, RSVPs, and many other things. You might think that the newsfeed just updates the most recent posts from all of your friends, pages you like, and promoted ads and pages. Instead, Facebook calls every action that happens an “Edge.” Whenever someone posts a status update, tags a photo, etc., they generate an Edge. Facebook decided to create an algorithm to predict how interesting each story will be to each user. EdgeRank ranks each Edge that is connected to each user and decides how high on his or her newsfeed it should be displayed.

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Website Smackdown : Insurance Website Builder vs. WordPress

You have many options for your insurance agency website. A common question agents ask me is whether they should use WordPress (or a similar content management system) for their website or go with a product that is focused on the insurance industry like ITC’s Insurance Website Builder.
Before we break down the differences between Insurance Website Builder and WordPress, I want to cover a brief history about the Insurance Website Builder system. In 2003 (the first year of WordPress’s initial release), I was developing websites for multiple insurance agencies. I noticed that each website included the exact same features and decided to develop a content management system dedicated to building insurance agency websites. In 2005 after two years of development, we launched Insurance Website Builder.
From that point, the rest is history. Even though they were developed independently, at the core of both Insurance Website Builder and WordPress is a basic content management system. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Let’s break it down.

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Why You Should Inventory Your Digital Agency Marketing

Once a year you should take an inventory of your digital marketing resources, assets, and anything else you use to connect with your customers online. This inventory will help you determine what works for your agency, what doesn't and what areas may need more attention and effort to get it working the way it should. The more complete your inventory, the better you will be able to understand your resources and make strategic decisions about your digital agency marketing.

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A Hit Parade of Twitter Mistakes

If you're new to using social media for business and still trying to figure out how Twitter works, you can easily end up spending too much time on the social network. It's also easy to make mistakes that could cost you followers.
To help you avoid the awkward learning phase and start building a Twitter following, I've put together this hit parade of Twitter mistakes to avoid.

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Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Hit Publish on Your Next Blog Post

 Have you started blogging?
Whether you've been blogging for years or are thinking about finally giving it the old college try this year, there are a few questions you should ask yourself before you publish each post you write.

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Using distribution lists for email marketing? You’re doing it wrong

 Recently, I talked with a prospective (now) customer about how many distribution lists AgencyBuzz supports. I asked about his current email marketing strategy and why a large amount of mailing lists was important to him. What he said shocked me. He had a distribution list for almost everything: auto prospects, home prospects, auto customers, home customers, auto lost, home lost (these were repeated for each line of business his agency offered), age groups, cities, primary agents, referral sources, and many more. I admire his organization as many agencies that do email marketing do not even categorize their lists and simply send untargeted, mass email blasts.
However, this setup can cause long-term problems. Each time a contact changes status, someone has to manually move the contact from one list to another. This manual list maintenance is time consuming and can be an error-prone strategy. I want to suggest a better way.

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