Why engaging content will attract new customers

08/08/2013

Creating online content that showcases your skills is a great way to attract new business

The explosion of social media, with its online business communities, apps, content hubs and websites, means the way in which businesses communicate today has changed dramatically.

No longer do sales messages focus purely on products, and websites have moved away from being essentially online versions of company brochureware.

Broker top tips: Building online content

Decide what industry issues you want to talk about, where you will add value for your customers and identify where you will get information feeds from. This could be demystifying complex subjects, providing user guides, online calculators and answering common questions.
Ask how can you put yourself in the shoes of your customers and see the world from their perspective?
Create content that's interesting and of value to your audience
Add your own market commentary, for instance giving customers tips on how customers can reduce their risk exposure
Add articles in different formats, whether that's filming experts within your business and posting them on your website, or by approaching industry experts, such as interviewing insurers and trade bodies
Reach out to your insurer network to generate content; all insurers will provide content which you can repurpose, share and use with your customers.
Share your insight with others and publicise your content on Twitter.

As a result, detailed information about insurance, once only available from sales teams, is accessible to everyone, with sales invited into the buying process at a much later stage. This shift makes online content more valuable than ever. Brokers looking to make an impression in this space now have to develop valuable content to attract, engage and convert customers.

Adding value

Creating compelling content online is not just about re-telling the news. It's about delivering the right message that has value to the right people at the right time. Obviously, a good starting point is to write content for your own website, but it must be of value to your customers — for example, an article on risk management in a specific industry sector or how upcoming legislation will impact your customers.

"You need to bring in your audience and engage them, building trust and credibility with content," said John Paul, Head of Commercial Broker Marketing at Zurich.

"Creating new content to talk about knowledgably, and demonstrating your expertise to your customers through online dialogue, is absolutely vital to developing sustainable online relationships and promoting your brand.

"This sounds straightforward, but can be a challenge for companies big and small, due to the time it takes to plan, write and produce online content. At Zurich, we produce new articles to publish every week via Insider — our new content hub which provides a mix of industry insight from Zurich experts across all lines of business and commentary of industry issues from experts, such as the Economist Intelligence Unit. We welcome and actively encourage brokers to share this content with customers, re-use on their own websites and tweet."

By moving your business forward using content to engage and encourage visitors to your website, you will be more effective in showcasing your core offering alongside the content you are producing.

Measuring success

Once you've brought in your audience and engaged them with content, you could use a variety of web tools such as Google Analytics to see where your visitors are coming from and what they are viewing when they get there.

We welcome and actively encourage brokers to share Insider content with customers, re-use on their own websites and tweet John Paul, Head of Commercial Broker Marketing at Zurich

And as more and more traffic is coming from smartphones and tablets, it is important to understand how your customers are accessing your website and think about making your website more mobile friendly.