A Consultation E-Mail on Marketing and Personal Branding
For context: What you’re about to read is an actual e-mail I sent to a brand manager when I was asked for a general strategy and proposal. Keep in mind they already had some assets set up — a website, business Facebook Page, LinkedIn and Yelp.
Although this is for an insurance broker, I believe that a similar strategy applies to solopreneurs or salespeople of almost any kind. In fact, if you’re building your personal brand at all I do believe that this is the bare minimum you should have in place. It’s a general, ‘starting point’ strategy which I thought would be useful for others who are starting to build their digital presence to read.
Dear John Smith,
I hope you’re having a great weekend. For someone in the real estate, insurance or otherwise self-employed I believe there are a few staples that are needed for a solid digital presence. Keep in mind, this is primarily based on organic marketing and if it seems like I’m suggesting that a personal brand is developed, it’s because I am. That’s really what this — building a reputation that people will recognize online which over time will lead (hopefully) lead to more clients.
I’ll outline a few things I believe should be set in place and a general strategy for content development and distribution.
Website: you already have this covered which is great. I think the main pages needed are on point and it looks like you have good calls to action and a blog page for original content. You’re covered here.
Email Service Provider: I’m not sure if you have anything hooked up here, but something like SendGrid or Mailchimp would be very helpful. This will help you manage your email contacts, send e-mail newsletters, remarket to your current client base. Both platforms are relatively easy to use. Be sure to link your contact pages to a created list and set up some sort of confirmation email as well.
Facebook Page and Ads Account: It looks like you already have a business Facebook page, so you’re good there. The ads account may come in handy in the near future.
Instagram Page: Believe it or not, I think that having an Instagram page for an insurance broker would actually be beneficial. The key is in your messaging, you won’t find much benefit from posting the way an everyday user posts from a business perspective, however, if you’re able to take any information that your target audience may find useful and update it into the captions. With that said, don’t think you can’t add in personal content — I actually think this is beneficial from a branding standpoint — the point is to make it very clear who you are trying to reach in the content that’s promoted.
LinkedIn: As of the date of this email I do not believe that a business page on LinkedIn is crucial — the personal page will do just fine. I don’t believe that LinkedIn has figured out their business pages yet and I posted on your personal page will yield far more organic reach.
Guides, Whitepapers, Handbooks: It’s important that a branded guide be created. This will act as an offer for website visitors to receive in exchange for an email address that is then included in your email lists.
I noticed you have a Yelp page setup, which is great. I don’t have much to say about Yelp as it’s something that we do not manage but I recognize it’s importance in the marketplace and for Search Engine Optimization.
Content Strategy
Posting to Social Media: After reviewing your platforms it seems as if you have the general idea of the type of content that should be posted, however, a major flaw here is that the articles being posted do not link back to your website. If you are receiving clicks on these posts, you can basically consider it lost traffic at this point.
A hack might be to copy these articles to your site, of course with proper citations. At least this way, a visitor is landing on your site and you may be able to capture their information with a pop-up sign up form on the page.
Guides or Handbooks: You mentioned when we met that a checklist with the “20 Questions You Need to Ask Your Insurance Agent” might be something you’d want to create. I agree with this, in addition to guides such as “2018’s Essential Guide to Medicare / Medical” and other simliar topics should be created.
I strongly recommend that some of these guides be gated, and only available for download with the exchange of an email address. You can create a landing page on your current Squarespace website or you can use something like Instapage to help create these.
Email Marketing: Regular e-mail updates to your current client base as well as potential clients that you’ve obtained via traffic to the site and email-gated content. A weekly update may seem like a lot, but I do think that this is necessary. Email has been the #1 sales converter regardless of the industry that we work.
I’d suggest that the messages to your current client base and potential clients are different however the content strategy can be about 80/20–80%a majority being value-add content while the other be your call to actions like ‘schedule a consultation’ or anything of that nature.
Recap So Far…
Use your social platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Linked In) as billboards that drive traffic to your site (the theoretical ‘store front’). Use your site to host content with the intention of capturing e-mail addresses or any other data from visitors and potential clients. Once the information is acquired, market to people with regular emails. Simple in theory.
The Content Hack
You mentioned that you may want to incorporate video content in your strategy, and if you do, I’d recommend doing the following:
? Record the video content regularly, with similar topics as previously mentioned.
? Use a service like UpWork to help write articles based on the videos created.
? Use the long form video to be trimmed into multiple bits of valuable information for social media distribution.
? Post long form to Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and your website.
? Use shorter versions for Instagram and ‘filler’ content between long-form videos on other social media platforms.
? Steal still frames from the video for Instagram use if you believe they’re good enough.
Content Distribution
Paid Media: Consider using Facebook Ads to promote the guides. Actually, this is highly recommended as your starting with little/no audience.
Personal Facebook Page: This is a personal preference of mine, but all of the content that’s being produced should also be shared on your personal Facebook page. Organic reach is higher, and most likely your first few clients will come from family and friends and/or referrals from family and friends.
Rinse, wash, repeat. This is definitely a long-term strategy and will take time to really build your reputation or brand in this fashion just as it took time in the past with networking events, sales, and etc. It’s no different in my opinion, but if done correctly can be much more efficient and effective.
I know that I promised an editorial calendar but since you are essentially starting from scratch here I believe that you may benefit from some evergreen content suggestions instead. Here’s what I suggest:
- A hero or profile video with introductions, background, passions, and goals.
- A minimum of 2 original guides to promote via Facebook Ads.
- A minimum of 2 separate email list segments, prospects, and current customers.
- A minimum of 8 e-mails per email segment with the intent of nurturing leads and acquiring referrals from the current customer base.
- A minimum of 4 original blogs per month, ideally derived from 4 original videos per month.