A recently released search marketing survey noted an interesting, but not surprising, correlation between search advertising and natural search. 
Those companies that engaged in paid search campaigns also saw an increase in web site traffic from traditional search, that is, web site visits coming form keyword searches launched in Google or another search engine.1
All the search engines, Google, Yahoo, MSN (Live Search) and Ask, etc., provide a paid search alternative. Paid search is really a simple concept. Rather than relying on a search engine to score your web site pages for relevance to a particular search term (organic search), you pay to have your page summary (advertisement) appear in the paid search area, usually on the right hand side of the search results page. You can set your budget for the month and decide what a click is worth to you by bidding on the words you want. This kind of advertising is often called Pay-Per-Click (PPC) since you pay only if your ad is clicked upon.
There are some advantages to PPC over organic search. With PPC the tedious, ongoing, and expensive trial and error approach of page optimization (for search engines) can be minimized. Learning if organic search optimization tactics work often takes months, because the search engines will re-index your web site on their schedule, not on the schedule of your sales campaign. This is true even if you resubmit your site to the search engines.
With PPC you will see your results right away and can increase or decrease spending, suspend the campaign, or make changes to your key words or ad copy. PPC allows you to focus on niche business, specialty coverage or consumer needs. For example, you might bid on words like 'business income insurance', 'special events insurance', 'disaster recovery planning', 'earthquake insurance homeowner', and so on. You can be narrow in your keyword selection and run several campaigns at one time to test keyword combinations.
Just because PPC is a World Wide Web option doesn't mean your search ads need to be viewed by web surfers in Europe. You can easily narrow down your potential viewing audience to cities or regions.
Your search ads will appear in more than just search results, an important aspect for local agencies. Through a feature called contextual placement, your ads can also appear on web sites that permit display of sponsored ads. Most often, the placements are based on a match between site content that displays on a particular page and your chosen ad words.
Launching and managing a campaign takes very little time, there is virtually no up front investment and you have complete control over your spending day-to-day. You will need an effective 'landing page' that will accomplish the goal of your PPC campaign. Simply dropping an ad word clicking visitor off at your agency web site home page won't pay off.
A landing page can be part of your existing web site or a micro web site can be used for PPC purposes. A landing page should contain a call to action that engages the visitor and furthers your agency's objectives. Use landing page for soliciting quotes, permission to review programs and needs or use free PDF guides as a way capture opt-ins for future email marketing campaigns like a prospect newsletter (e.g., http://www.insuranceagencymobileweb.com). Guides with topics like "Managing Insurance Costs", "The Most Common Mistakes in (fill in the blank) Insurance Programs", etc., can be emailed after the site visitor provides some basic contact information (For an example of such a form go to: http://www.insuranceagencymobileweb.com/book.contactus.php).
Because PPC is easy and so affordable, we think all insurance agencies should be at least dabbling in it. In our experience, Google AdWords is the easiest to use and is a good place to start. Google provides excellent how-to documentation on their web site at https://adwords.google.com/select/Login.
1. Source: Marketing Sherpa, Search Marketing 2006 Benchmark Guide
Remember the good old days when insurance agents gave out their home phone numbers in case of emergency? There weren't many emergency calls placed to those numbers but the reassurance of 
knowing the contact option was available was huge and a big selling point for doing business locally. It still is.
Fast forward to 2007 and we find ourselves in an environment where, particularly in a larger town (or on our web sites), we may not be so willing to share our home or cell phone number. Many larger agencies might want to spread the 'on-call' duty around to a rotation of employees. Publishing personal phone numbers for multiple employees is not a good idea in and of it self and comes with the additional challenge of letting insurance agency customers know who is on call at a given moment.
Inexpensive and easy to implement technology provides a way around this. VOIP services and virtual receptionist options allow you to inexpensively set up a special emergency number just for those middle of the night large losses. A web interface is usually provided that allows you to instantly make changes and route calls to any number. Google's Grand Central, currently in beta but available for use and very reliable*, provides similar options and is currently free.
Nobody wants a wake up call in the wee hours but those agencies that promote their emergency number get enormous brand credit for doing so, in exchange for very few sleep interruptions. And the testimonials that result for those infrequent emergency calls can be more compelling than any your insurance agency is likely to receive for any other reason.
posted by cfluent at 4:17 PM
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