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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Marketing Smackdown: Email vs. Text Messaging

Some people are saying email marketing is dead. That it's being replaced by text messaging. And to a certain extent, they may be right. But I also think they're wrong, and here's why.
You need an email address for pretty much everything on the Internet today, from signing up for Facebook to purchasing something online. This is not going to change any time soon. As long as people have email addresses, email marketing will have a place in the digital agency marketing mix. Not every email you send will be read, but by consistently being in consumer's inboxes, you are more likely to get noticed.

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9 Mistakes to Avoid Making on Facebook

 You've decided to use Facebook as a way to connect and engage with your customers online. There are many great things you can do on Facebook: share a side of your agency your customers don't normally get to see, connect with your business partners in a new way by liking their pages, share your insurance knowledge and expertise.
However, there are some things to avoid doing as you might actually drive followers away.

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