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Digital Strategy Resources
Beginner's Guide to Building Your Digital Presence
About This Guide
It’s no secret that being online is vital in today’s digital world. Gone are the days of looking through the phone book to find solutions for your business and personal life. If you want to be found - you must be online. We encourage all our members to have a website and to set up at least one social media channel. This generally leads to the questions - “where do I start? What do I do?” Which is why we created this guide.
The internet and all it’s potential can be a little overwhelming and it’s important not to get bogged down in the sheer weight of trying to figure out everything on your own. We are here to assist. This guide is designed to help you take the first steps to creating your Digital Presence as an Insurance Agency. We will cover the basics of what is important in a website, how to populate and set up your social media accounts, and how to use LinkedIn as a powerful prospecting tool.
All recommendations are targeted at Independent Insurance Agents, so there is no guess work of “Is this right for my industry?”. Yes, this is how Insurance Agents are creating their digital presence with great success. However, these are only recommendations. We encourage everyone to use this as a starting point and then develop their own online strategy that highlights their goals and unique agency model.
What does it mean to have a Digital Presence?
A Digital Presence is how your business appears online and the impression it makes. This includes your website, social media accounts, review sites, search engines, etc. - anywhere your brand and reputation can be found by clients and prospects online. Whether a prospect visits your website, or a client interacts with a social media post, or your Google My Business page comes up as a search result, in all cases it is customers and prospects interacting with your digital presence. The impression your digital presence makes through branding, content, and design is a vital part of finding new leads and retaining existing clients.
What is a Digital Strategy?
A Digital Strategy focuses on how you use technology to improve your business. Having a sound digital presence is one factor of an overall digital strategy as it focuses on the use of online technologies to give your business a competitive edge. However, your digital strategy does not end there - having an agency management system and leveraging other technologies to improve your business’s performance, as well as the process of evaluating new technologies you may wish to implement in the future, are all part of your digital strategy. If you are looking for assistance with creating and implementing a digital strategy, Chicagoland SIA offers on-going Agency Development assistance, recommendation and discounts on agency driven technologies, and offers mentorship on implementing technologies to help your agency grow and evolve in the digital landscape.
Download the Guide
More Resource Guides
Beginner's Guide to Digital Analytics
Learn how to evaluate your digital strategy using digital analytic tools. In this guide we explore setting up Google Analytics and understanding the data.
Beginner's Guide to Content Marketing and Content Creation
Do you create original content? This guide explores setting up a Content Marketing Strategy, the importance of original content, along with some tips to make your content work for you.
Other Resources
Beyond the Dec Page
Watch to our video series Beyond the Dec Page, where we visit all aspects of operating an Independent Insurance Agency (other than writing policies). Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube Channel to keep up to date on new content
Licensed to Talk Insurance
Listen to our podcast for conversations on managing, growing your agency, including topics on digital strategies, marketing, sales and more.
“Joining Chicagoland SIA is one of the most important decisions to have a fast start. It’s excellent and caring staff have since assisted my agency greatly to survive and thrive. In addition to that, belonging to a circle of agents make you feel stronger. I strongly believe that is very important in today's environment.” Chris Kuo, Agent
Aegis and Associates
CSIA Member since 2009
“Since entering a partnership with SIAA in 2009, our agency binds coverage for over 80% of the clients we quote. My only regret, is not knowing about it sooner. A first class organization with first class leaders.” Darren Engar
Illinois Insurance Services
CSIA ISM since 2009
“SIAA has been a great partner for our agency for many years. It has allowed us access to many carriers that we would not otherwise have. Due to our association with SIAA the carriers provide us with superior service and work with us to grow our agency. In addition, we are able to obtain much better pricing with our management system and our comparative rater, this allows us to run our agency more efficiently. Finally, the over-rides that are available to us as a member are outstanding, we would never be able to negotiate that on our own. I feel it would be much harder to be an independent agency without our relationship with SIAA and our master agency.” John Miller
Merit Insurance Group
“Kemper began their relationship with Chicagoland SIA in late November of 2008. Since that point, Chicagoland SIA has become one of our largest agencies in Illinois and our Midwest Region. We have found the staff and organization as a whole to be very professional, outgoing and operate with the utmost of honesty and integrity. They are a credit to the growth, future, and well being of the Independent Agency system as we know it today.” Todd Berg
Marketing - Kemper