What if you depend on a firm like mine, Smart’s Publishing, to provide your insurance agency newsletter? Should you ask us to write your insurance agency blog for you too? For the most part, the answer is no, but we can help, and I’ll explain how shortly.
We take a lot of pride in the editorial excellence of our product, but our content is not written for blogs. It’s written from a third-party objective point of view, with no personal dimension. The effect of this is to emphasize the authority of the insurance agency whose name is on the masthead. Maybe your agency. It’s not someone’s personal opinion or his or her take on the matter. It’s verifiable information, factually reported.
Does that mean that if you have a newsletter you don’t need a blog? Personally, I think most insurance agencies want at a minimum to project the level of authority that a newsletter provides. But I also think it would be great if someone in the agency would write a blog. An agency should have both, if possible. The blog takes a subject, maybe even the same subject as a newsletter does, and adds a personal dimension to it. This is a good idea for a several reasons.
- Adding a personal dimension to content makes it more compelling. For one thing, people like to read what people they know have to say, especially people who have informed opinions about specific topics, such as insurance, in your case.
- You can greatly improve your search engine rankings by regularly posting content that uses popular keyword terms. By using words and phrases in your posts that people enter as search terms, you increase your chances of a higher ranking in the search engines.
- Your blog can be syndicated. You can get additional exposure for your blog and your agency when your posts appear on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
- If people subscribe to your blog, you have a better chance of staying top of mind with them.
Writing a blog is hard work. It takes time, inspiration and requires staying on schedule. Purchasing a turnkey insurance agency newsletter is certainly easier, but let me make a suggestion. If you’ve got an idea for a blog post, content from the Smart’s Content Warehouse could make things easier for you.
Here’s an example: Suppose you just read a story, like one that appeared in the Los Angeles Times not long ago, about a woman who had surgery on her shoulder but was billed for the amputation of her foot. When she tried to prove that the amputation never happened, the mere fact that she still had two feet did not put an end to the matter. She was the victim of identity theft and she continued to suffer consequences to her health and her credit for a long time.
In your blog post you could talk about this case in your words and the frightening lesson it can teach us. But then you would need to flesh out the story with information about what protections are available to people and a list of things we can do to avoid getting in this kind of situation ourselves. This is where Smart’s Content Warehouse could help you out. A quick check of the topics in the Life & Health section of the Smart’s Content Warehouse will turn up an article called “Avoiding Medical Identity Theft.” Purchase a license to it for $29 and adapt freely from it, including the photo that goes with it, to fill out your post.
Of course if you’re inspired to blog, you’re going to need more resources than this, plus a certain amount of creative juice. But it may be comforting to know that there are professional writers available to help you out when you need it.
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