Along with the usual resolutions that pertain to fitness, travel, de-stressing, etc., I’m sure many of you have also resolved to work on your marketing strategies and, more specifically, your company blog. When speaking with my coworkers and other disability insurance agents about blogging, the number one reservation I hear is that it’s hard to find engaging and relevant content.
While I don’t necessarily count myself as an expert blogger, or even a master of DI knowledge, I do think I have a knack for transforming otherwise “boring” material into something a bit more reader-friendly. Trust me, whether you’re looking to present statistical facts, true stories, product information or insight into how you can help consumers, there are plenty of resources at your disposal to help you find content.
If you’re looking to jumpstart your blogging resolutions, or if you’re just in need of some new ideas to share with your consumers, here are some of my favorite ways to gather content and craft both timely and evergreen material.
- Read insurance websites – Personally, I make sure to check and read material daily from LifeHealthPro.com, InsuranceNewsNet.com and BenefitsPro.com. The writers for these sites are industry experts with year’s experience writing for agents and consumers. I look to these sites for all things news-related and for insight into carrier and product changes. Use these sites to gather information that you can then present in layman’s terms to your clients.
- Check industry forums – If you’re not using sites like ProducersWeb.com and Insurance-Forums.net, you’re missing out on some very detailed, interesting conversations happening across the industry. These sites bring together professionals from various financial and insurance backgrounds to offer insight, advice, ongoing dialogue, opinions and real-world experiences with their peers. Along with staying up-to-date on the insurance industry, you can exchange ideas, write and post your own content and comment and engage with writers of other articles and blogs. You can also change your settings on ProducersWeb to notify you anytime content is written in a particular field of interest so you don’t have to check the site every day.
- Check Insurance Library – InsuranceLibrary.com is a consumer resource that allows users to ask questions regarding any insurance topic. In return, licensed professionals provide detailed answers for free. The benefit for agents is that consumers can click on an answer and gain access to an agent’s name and contact information, while also garnering points for each answer, which then places them on a leaderboard for consumers to view. Personally, I tend to use the site to see what types of questions consumers are asking so that I can address their common issues in a blog.
- Send out a survey – Utilize free resources like SurveyMonkey.com to ask your clients and/or friends and family what type of information they’d like to read or know more about. It takes two seconds to write a few questions, and another minute to post the link to your personal or public Facebook or Twitter account. Your friends and family will be most likely to help you out, and it’s likely their questions would be similar to any prospect client’s.
- Set Yahoo as your home page – Sometimes I’m in the mood to write something more surface level and topical, so I’ll scour through Yahoo for a pop-culture reference that I can assimilate into a blog topic. For example, I’ve written pieces about DI and Star Wars and DI and Santa Claus. It’s important to note that trending topics might also be good ideas for more in-depth articles that need thorough investigation, which I found when writing about DI and transgender clients.
If you find yourself with writer’s block when you sit down to write a blog, don’t stress. There are plenty of ways you can stimulate your mind and the creative juices, you just have to look for them—or use the ideas listed above.
If you have any other ideas for finding content that you’d like to share, please feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments below. Good luck with your writing resolutions!
