Digital marketing can be expensive for any industry niche. To maximize the return on investment of marketing efforts, marketers must clearly define and understand audiences. Without this understanding, time and money are wasted, ultimately diluting even the most creative marketing campaign. The concept of audience targeting is not new, yet it has gained in importance in recent years. Focusing on the right audience improves search visibility and helps get a company’s message into the right hands. Today, SEO for insurance brokers depends on accurate audience targeting, allowing agencies to direct their efforts at the people most likely to make insurance purchasing decisions. Here’s how to leverage the power of audience targeting.
What is Audience Targeting?
In the early days of the internet, digital marketers were not particularly concerned about finding the ideal audiences for their messages. Instead, they concentrated on what is referred to as the “shotgun” approach – casting information far and wide in the hopes it would reach the right people. This tactic eventually proved both costly and ineffective, and new strategies were devised.
The primary approach now is audience targeting or identifying consumers based on specific factors like:
- Geographical location
- Demographics like age, race, income level, and gender
- Personal preferences
- Interests and hobbies
- Income levels and ownership (homes, vehicles, watercraft). These audiences can be especially important in SEO for insurance brokers, pointing to the potential need for insurance products and services.
- Values and motivations for purchasing products or services from companies
Using audience targeting, digital marketers and SEO professionals can tailor information for these segmented groups, helping to spur lead generation and maximizing return on investment (ROI).
Harnessing Data to Identify Insurance Target Audiences
Leading SEO service providers and digital marketers rely on data collection and analysis for many aspects, including both SEO campaigns as well as marketing initiatives. Collecting data, then carefully analyzing it, can reveal patterns that are crucial for success in the online landscape. Audience targeting is best conducted by gathering any and all available data about consumers, including where they live, what their preferences are, and how they are arranged demographically.
In SEO for insurance brokers, available data can come from many sources such as online databases like Google Webmaster Tools, website analytics services, proprietary third-party tools like SEMrush, and even social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter.
Audience Targeting Strategies that Produce Results
Digital marketing professionals pore over data in order to identify target audiences, then carefully analyze the best ways to reach those audiences. There are several key considerations – proven strategies – that can take businesses to the next level of both search visibility and customer engagement. These key considerations include:
- Understanding the competition – take a look at what competitors in your market space are doing, particularly if they are reaching audiences your own data analysis has not identified. You may not be able to see specific tactics competitors are using, but should be able to get a general idea of their approach.
- Reinforcing product and service value – many insurance firms make the mistake of filling their websites with details designed to let consumers understand the features of a given product. However, the product’s/service’s value is a far more important aspect. Consumers tend to make purchasing decisions based on the benefits a given product or service can provide, and it is imperative this information is included in any digital marketing or web content initiative.
- Tailoring the message to specific audiences – digital marketing is usually comprised of several different campaigns, allowing broader reach to specific audiences. Each campaign must be tailored to the unique needs and desires of that audience. For insurance, targeting first-time homebuyers, small businesses, or those looking to purchase a new car may all need different insurance information. By understanding those target audiences, your campaigns can be more impactful – helping to fulfill a particular need.
A cost-effective way of determining if marketing efforts are reaching the right audiences is by using social media as a test platform. Social ads geared toward specific markets – new homebuyers, people making a certain income, or those living in discrete geographic regions, as examples – do not cost much, yet allow marketers to see if those ads are generating leads. Social media typically offers analytic tools that can help marketers understand the impact of specific campaigns and audiences.
Conclusion
SEO for insurance brokers is a complex and multi-step process. To get the most out of this process, targeted audiences are the foundation upon which a cost-effective and productive SEO campaign is built. With this powerful strategy, your clients will be able to reach new people and to drive business growth in an organic and authentic way.
