With inflation still looming, clients and prospects remain cautious about spending and investments. This is especially evident in how today’s investors choose which financial advisors to work with (and how your brand acquires new prospects). As clients’ financials become even more vulnerable during market volatility, they need to know that their financial advisors are ready to build plans to help them meet their financial goals.

Current and potential investors are looking for trustworthy advice—and building strong relationships is key to that. To truly cultivate financial advisor and client relationships that will lead to client acquisition and retention, bank financial advisors can be very effective through social selling.

The importance of social selling for financial advisors

Social selling is precisely what it sounds like: using social media to sell a product or service. It’s leveraging social to build personal relationships, showcase thought leadership, engage with prospects, interact with existing clients and ultimately build trust and rapport that will eventually lead to more accounts opened.

It’s understandable that people might feel afraid and confused during market volatility, which is what makes social selling a critical trust-building opportunity. With social selling, financial advisors meet investors online in meaningful ways.

Marketers now recognize the modern power of social media, and in today’s market your financial advisors can use social to reassure clients. When 73 percent of clients who work with financial advisors feel more prepared for a recession, it’s essential that financial brands proactively discuss the value of advice. But to do that successfully, advisors need to be at the center of the conversation.

However, a social media brand presence does not equal a solid social selling strategy. You need your advisors to meet prospects throughout the buying journey, which requires investing in comprehensive social selling campaigns to connect with investors and build trust. When deciding who handles their investments, people don’t choose institutions; they choose people. So, help your advisors build those relationships online.

How to build trust with potential clients using social selling

This should go without saying, but prospective clients are already getting financial advice on social media. In fact, Gen Z is five times more likely to get financial advice on social media channels than people age 41 and over.

To stay visible and competitive, your brand’s financial advisors can use social selling to become financial micro-influencers in their local communities. At its core, social selling is about the human element of one person’s relationship with another. Not just client to bank.

Here are four ways to empower financial advisors to build impactful relationships with clients and new prospects:

1. Post consistently

If an advisor is new to using social selling, don’t worry. The first key to using social media to build trust and relationships is simple: consistency. Advisors should post often to stay top-of-mind with investors and build algorithmic preference. Consistency ensures that advisors are providing value to clients and prospects on a regular basis.

And remember, every post counts. Not every post will get the engagement marketers hope for (or even the same amount), but each post should feel intentional and authentic to the advisors publishing it. Also, when your advisors post, they need to make sure there is a goal and specific audience for each one.

2. Upload quality content to favor the algorithm

Consistent posts are crucial, but you also have to ensure that advisors are posting high-quality content. One hot tip is to include a video or image (social media posts with images tend to garner more engagement). Also schedule posts for the ideal time for target audiences. After all, it doesn’t matter how great a post looks if no one sees it.

Marketing teams can also help intermediaries craft copy that opens the door to conversations with their audiences, such as asking open-ended questions, soliciting responses, or featuring polls that can be answered on the spot. Social posts are at the top of any new client’s journey, so helping your social sellers craft posts with interactive elements will lead to more engagement and conversions.

3. Source content from trusted third parties

To facilitate advisors’ trust-building with clients and prospects, it is critical to ensure they only share information from credible third-party sources. There’s a lot of bad financial advice and misinformation out there. If the audience suspects that an advisor is full of baloney, the brand risks losing a lot of trust.

Social content libraries can help ensure social sellers have access to trustworthy, fact-checked third-party content. It’s essential that financial advisors add personal commentary to make third-party content more authentic and personable.

4. Encourage authenticity

It seems simple to say, but trust hinges on authentic relationships. Today’s investors want to work with real people who connect with them on a human level. That’s why it’s so important to instruct and encourage advisors to be themselves when social selling. Suggest that they put some of their personality into their social selling posts, talk about things that are important to them, or ask their networks questions. (If this keeps you up at night from a risk perspective, know that approval tools can help ensure compliance.)

When people interact with your advisors through social selling, they’ll see how much reliable value those advisors provide to their lives and will be more likely to trust your brand with their livelihoods. Authenticity is even more crucial when it comes to attracting prospects at the top of the funnel who haven’t gotten the chance to meet (and befriend) advisors yet.

While the current economic climate poses many potential challenges, remember that gaining and keeping investors’ trust is the key to acquiring and retaining clients (even in tough times). Lean on social selling to tell the bank brand’s story, build thought leadership online for intermediaries, and gain more followers who convert into new clients. Let them get to know your institution and your intermediaries, and they’ll want to work with you, too.

*This article was originally published in ABA Banking Journal.

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Risk is a double-edged sword for insurance agencies and carriers. The insurance industry certainly thrives because it deeply understands risk. But being knee-deep in risk makes many carriers reluctant to adopt new marketing methods such as social selling. This is an epic missed opportunity (which you, as an insurance marketer, understand and probably have to navigate daily).

Social selling isn’t as new as it seems at first glance; insurance agents have always relied on relationship-building for sales. Social selling is just another way for them to build trust with customers. The only difference? The connections happen online via social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn rather than in person. And those digital connections can become the foundations for long-term relationships and sales.

So, how can you integrate social selling into your carrier’s marketing strategies? Start with these three steps: overcome reluctance to change, invest in bonds with sales, and deploy a comprehensive social selling program.

Let’s get into it.

1. Getting Leadership Onboard

Change doesn’t happen overnight (just look at the timeline of digital transformation in the insurance industry). It also doesn’t happen without some kind of catalyst. This is your chance to lead marketing change. Insurance marketers who want to launch a social selling program need to educate their teams and leaders about what social selling is and why it’s so essential.

“What is social selling?” is a crucial first question to answer to get buy-in. Step one is to advocate and share resources with colleagues and carrier leadership that explain what social selling is and its benefits. If you tell them that social selling will allow agents to get more face time with customers, humanize your brand, and bring in leads, they might just be willing to hear the rest of your plan.

Decision makers at the carrier level might be more willing to fund social selling programs once they gain a deeper understanding of them. Be patient but persistent about building a culture that supports the overall strategy.

2. Reshaping the Traditional Insurance Sales-Marketing Relationship

More so than other digital marketing strategies, social selling requires sales and marketing teams to work together. When properly executed, social selling helps both teams make a more significant impact during the customer journey and, ultimately, can increase the number of leads agents generate. The sales team is essential to your social selling dream team because it understands what makes agents tick and how to get them invested in the program.

Results matter to a sales team, so one way to get this kind of relationship moving is by using metrics to show that social selling isn’t just another to-do on the growing task list. It can increase profits (and agent commission or bonuses!). For instance, you could share that associates who regularly post content are 45% likelier to exceed their quotas, and their companies are 57% likelier to generate leads.

Show your sales team how social selling can keep their prospects. Once bought in, the sales team will serve as an essential conduit to agents, demonstrating that social selling can keep prospects warmed up and engaged. Social selling isn’t just for prospects either; it’s an important way to stay in touch with current customers, supporting retention and referrals. Think about it this way: Net promoter scores are significantly higher among insurance customers who’ve interacted with their providers in the last year than those who did not. Staying in touch matters to the bottom line. The benefits are measurable, so use that to your advantage when getting sales buy-in.

3. Choosing the Right Social Selling Platform

Another way to seamlessly integrate social selling into an existing digital marketing strategy is  using the right social selling tool. Digital platforms can make social selling at scale streamlined and intuitive. Show sales, leadership, and any other decision makers how the right platform can make it easy to support intermediaries, showcase thought leadership, and build trust and relationships that will lead to sales.

A solid social selling platform will manage your social channels, ensure compliance, curate relevant content, and boost the effectiveness of your social efforts. Seek technology that understands your industry’s nuances and the impact intermediaries can make through social selling. The right solution should create efficiencies for you, your team, leadership, and users.

4. Executing Social Selling Campaigns

At this point, you might be wondering how to start a social selling program effectively within your organization. Once carrier leadership, sales, and the rest of your teams are on board with social selling, it’s time to construct and deploy a full-scale social selling program.

Here’s what it looks like at a high level: First, your social sellers must create authentic content to post (with your help, of course!). The content should have a human angle to it and feel very real. Generally speaking, social sellers should distribute different types of content, including images, videos, and links to articles, to keep their audiences engaged and excited.

You can help social sellers by using customizable content libraries that make relevant and timely content easily accessible. Train intermediaries on when to post, how to use the platform and libraries, and what kind of engagement you’re hoping to achieve.

Don’t forget: Once agents have shared content, it’s time to engage in the social conversation. There’s a reason intermediary-owned social content enjoys higher levels of engagement than brand-owned content: that content usually has more organic back-and-forth between parties.

Finally, remember that social selling programs perform best when they’re integrated. Paid and organic social posts have a symbiotic relationship; a strategy that doesn’t leverage both simply isn’t effective. While organic content creates richness and humanizes your brand, paid ads help your agents get in front of customers they haven’t met yet. Combined into a comprehensive social selling plan, these strategies can have a significant effect on ROI.

Paving the Way to Success With High-Quality Social Selling

Social selling as part of a larger digital marketing strategy isn’t a radical concept, even in insurance marketing; it’s a proven method that produces solid returns over time. Without a doubt, social selling takes time and energy from people outside your marketing bubble. However, by gaining leadership buy-in, building closer bonds between your team and sales, and strategically rolling out to agents, there is so much more to gain than to lose. The more comfortable everyone becomes with social media, the more likely they’ll see it as a welcome addition to the sales and marketing playbook.

Are you interested in learning how to get your team excited about social selling? Want to know how it can expand your marketing reach and develop richer relationships with customers? Request a demo of Denim Social today.

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Customer relationship-building is one of the greatest value drivers for insurance agents. A benchmark analysis from McKinsey & Co. found agents with deeper customer relationships have higher product density than those lacking in relationships — often cross-selling three or more products per customer.

With that in mind, it’s essential that agents understand how to best leverage their humanity and personality to truly connect with their audiences. In today’s age, this extends to how agents present themselves and connect online.

When prospective clients meet an agent for the first time, they’re asking themselves, “Is this person likable? Can I trust them?” Clients want to feel an authentic connection that gives them peace of mind and assures them that someone has their best interests at heart.

This desire for connection isn’t limited to the insurance industry. In fact, 88% of consumers say that authenticity is a key factor when deciding the brands they like and support, and that trust is vitally important to entering working relationships. That desire for trust grows exponentially when it comes to insurance sales because the business is built around protecting clients’ futures.

Insurance agents have a head start on this — their businesses have always been rooted in authenticity. But as digital transformation in the insurance industry continues, it’s more important than ever that agents assert themselves through authenticity on social media. It’s no different from what agents and other insurance professionals have been doing in person for years. It’s about conveying expertise, building trust, and showcasing industry knowledge — except now it’s within the digital universe. Social media provides a new platform for staying top of mind with customers and prospects alike.

So, how should agents be more authentic on social media? Same as they would offline — with relationships.

Good selling starts with genuinely listening to clients and being authentic, no matter what. Insurance agents are there to identify clients’ life needs and build a solution to protect them against loss. They must genuinely care about clients’ needs to find the right solutions and demonstrate that level of care to earn trust.

Here’s how agents can bring that energy to social media:

View social media as an opportunity to provide value. Marketers and agents alike already know that authenticity is important to customer acquisition. That same authenticity should show up in social media activity.

Agents should still be themselves, just on digital channels. After all, in the insurance business, agents are selling a promise that a consumer may or may not ever see delivery on. If the client never has an accident, they’ll never make a claim.

This means a lot of time can pass between a point of sale and delivery of promise.

With the rise of social media, however, there is a growing opportunity to deliver value in the long term. Whether it’s sharing thought-leadership articles, checking in with clients on social media, or providing digital tools to help educate clients, the digital landscape provides ample opportunity to reinforce proof of agent value on an ongoing basis. Including both paid and organic social media marketing for insurance agents in the mix of sales practices is critical.

This won’t replace traditional tools like phone, email and in-person meetings, but having a mix of organic and paid content alongside them will complement other relationship-building efforts, keep agents top of mind, and continually provide value to clients and prospects.

Lean into the power of real-life experience. There’s a good chance that agents live and work in the communities they serve. Agents should use that advantage with prospective clients when building their authentic brands. Showing on social media what’s happening in their communities and their offices will help foster a sense of belonging and drive interest among followers.

Need more marketing ideas for insurance agents? Look to everyday experiences. If an agent runs into someone at a local event, they should take a selfie and tag the person on Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn. If a client drops off cookies, the agent should post a photo and a heartfelt message about what it meant to the team. Social media followers will connect with those real-life moments far more than they would with a branded post.

Embrace storytelling. Too often, social media marketing for insurance agents consists only of market statistics or limited-time promotions. While this type of content can absolutely be useful and helpful, it’s not enough on its own. Think about the brands you follow: Would statistics and discounts be enough to get you engaged?

Social media is about creating a narrative, not just posting facts or promotions.

Agents should share the true picture of what it’s been like to grow a practice. Tell client stories about how they’ve benefited from your insurance products (with permission and privacy in mind, of course). When agents share authentically, they build trust with clients and prospects.

Be themselves. If agents are only professional and stuffy, audiences won’t connect. Agents and marketers alike shouldn’t be afraid to let a little personality shine through on social media. Thought leadership can create credibility and demonstrate expertise, and it’s always better received when served up by a real-life person.

That’s what social selling is all about.

Posting is only one part of the strategy. Agents should also comment on and engage with clients’ posts as appropriate. Two-way communication is critical to building authenticity. Think about it as if you were having an in-person conversation; there would be plenty of back-and-forth throughout the discussion. Did a client become a grandparent? Their agent should congratulate them. Social selling is all about creating conversation, just like in real life.

Engagement provides the added benefit of personalization. Customers don’t want to feel like marketing collateral. When agents engage with them honestly and authentically, they’re well on their way to creating deep, lasting consumer relationships.

Building authenticity through social media is similar in principle to building authenticity in real life; it’s just using a different medium to do so. When intermediaries share personal stories and helpful content with clients in a way that reflects their true personalities, they’ll build lasting relationships both online and offline that will serve as the foundation of future sales.

*This article was originally published in Insurance Journal.

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The insurance industry is abuzz with discussion around digital transformation, with tech topics dominating this year’s Global Insurance Symposium and InsurTech New York agendas. Digitization, automation, and the direct-to-consumer business were on everybody’s lips, and one sentiment was clear: The role of the trusted advisor will always be necessary to the industry because human connection remains central to the insurance transaction.

That said, the way insurance agents interact with customers must evolve alongside technology.

Digitization is meeting people's needs in areas ripe for automation, but it’s also replacing some of the more mundane tasks that agents have traditionally handled. Agents don’t need to sit at their desks to sign papers anymore, but they do need to promptly answer their social media direct messages. This is all part of meeting customers’ changing needs.

While digital evolution is intimidating for many industry veterans, there is ample opportunity for carriers, marketers, and agents who are open to adopting new technology. And those who embrace change can shape the role of the advisor in the future. From investing in social selling to outsourcing your work (to AI!), here are some of the ways I see digital changes boosting your relevance and success:

1. Prioritize social selling in the prospecting, sales, and retention mix.

What's the biggest change coming to insurance agents? The way they connect with prospects. As the digital age continues, social media needs to be a larger piece of the communication pie. This doesn’t mean tossing out other communication methods, like phone calls, virtual appointments, emails, or in-person meetings. But it does mean agents should be incorporating social selling into their digital marketing and sales strategies.

Social selling is more than just being present on social media. It means giving intermediaries the reins to not only help humanize your brand, but also build personal connections through their own social networks. Why is this so important? Because people buy from people — even in this digital age. Those people are on social media, and when the intermediary is too, they're more likely to sell there. Stats back this up: Almost 80% of social sellers outsell their peers who aren't on social at all.

To stay relevant throughout the buyer's journey, marketers will need to help agents cultivate a healthy mix of organic posts and paid social ads. This will not only keep agents (and the insurance carriers they represent) top-of-mind, but also offer value to potential and current leads through thought leadership, insightful tips, and real-world advice.

Agents can also set aside time to respond to comments, engage with followers, and proactively reach out to audiences on social — after all, the whole point of social selling is adding the human touch to the sales process. Building community and rapport with leads will establish agents as trusted experts in the industry.

2. Use tech to free up time to focus on relationship-building.

As tech gets smarter, we'll see it taking over more repetitive or low-stakes tasks, which will free up workers in the insurance world to complete higher-level work. According to Deloitte's 2022 Insurance Industry Outlook, 74% of insurance provider CIOs say they’re focusing on bringing more AI into their processes. In other words, insurance professionals will increasingly make fewer decisions alone; instead, data and analytics will support and guide them. And in the process, agents are getting more time back to invest in customer relationships.

Sure, you can automate emails and use online scheduling tools — but tech is going so much further. The industry is investing in everything from AI-powered underwriting to telematics, often improving the quality of service in the process.

The bottom line is that with tech on their side, agents and advisors have more time to do what they do best: build relationships and sell their products and services.

3. Don't assume “digital-first” customers don't want an agent’s expertise.

As insurance products modernize and AI and automation make underwriting, pricing, and the entire sales cycle shorter and more accurate, it's important to remember that this doesn't take away the important role of the intermediary. Even consumers who want a digital-first experience still value the guidance of a trusted professional as they're making decisions to protect their futures. Believing digitization is here to work with you, not against you, is key to agents securing their roles within the digital landscape.

Legacy insurance agents and those fresh faces looking to jump into a new career in insurance shouldn't worry! The digital era isn't going anywhere, but it's here to make our lives easier. Lean in and let it work for you, knowing that human connection and advisorship will always be core to the insurance transaction.

‍This article was originally published in Property Casualty 360.

For financial institutions entering the fourth quarter of the year, budget is on every leader’s mind. For marketers, now is the time to take a step back and assess how the current year’s budget has served the needs of the institution, and determine how to spend wisely in the future. 

In the financial industry, marketing budgets increased over 10% in the past year with social media spend topping the list. This has many marketers rethinking their budgets for social selling and more. The good news is that social media can be one of the best (and most cost-effective ways) to get the most out of overall marketing and generate real business ROI. No matter how large or small a budget, with the right approach, marketers and social sellers can use social media to make new connections and drive results. 

So, what should you be doing with your social media budget? Here are our team’s top suggestions: 

1. Embrace the season of giving. The last quarter of the year is one of holiday celebrations and an opportunity for financial institutions to connect with customers on a more personal level. It’s the perfect time to spend extra budget – or set a little aside –  for giveaways on social media, charitable drives or donations, or to spread cheer and gratitude for your employees. Social media makes it easy to get the message of giving out to your audience and get them involved. 
2. Reach more people with paid advertising. Take your organic social media content further by targeting it to the right audience. Social media works most effectively when brands use a combination of original content and paid advertising, so incorporating both into any marketing campaign is a smart move that can increase reach and convert interested prospects. It doesn’t take a big expense with the right approach, but it can make a big difference in how far your content takes you. 
3. Invest in your greatest asset: your employees. Consumers trust people more than brands; that’s why empowering loan officers, bankers, agents, or advisors with the resources they need to support their own business along with overall brand goals is vital. Invest in additional trainings for your team or incentivize social selling efforts with dedicated paid budget to the top social sellers every quarter. 
4. Fuel your strategy by investing in the right financial social media solutions. Perhaps the best thing you can do for your budget is to streamline social media marketing needs into one all-inclusive tool. Platforms like Denim Social allow marketers to schedule out posts, curate content libraries, run paid ad campaigns, and design landing pages to hit the right audiences. It’s the most efficient way to build a social selling program, compliantly and to scale. Saving time and effort by investing in the right tools can help businesses meet customers where they are and get them where they need to be. 

No matter the size or scope of a bank, insurance agency, mortgage lender, or financial firm marketing budget, the end of the year is the best time to assess what’s going right and what might need to change in the coming year. There’s no doubt that social media has a place in every marketer’s budget, and knowing where and how to spend allocated dollars can support business goals and keep financial brands relevant and accessible. Social selling multiplies efforts of money spent on marketing to reach more customers where they are. Marketers that build a smart strategy through a personalized approach on social will be well positioned to get the most out of any budget. 

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Independent agents are taking over the scene — 62% of property and casualty premiums in the U.S. were written by independent agents in 2021 — so competition is fiercer than ever. Independent agents who want to stand out need to build up their personal brands online to reach customers and keep relationships strong. When agents use their personal social networks to find prospects, build relationships, and grow their thought leadership, they’re using one of the most powerful strategies available to them: social selling.

Social selling might be a familiar strategy for captive agents who have their carriers’ built-in marketing support, but independent agents must create their business (and relationships) from scratch. More and more, those relationships are built over social media. That’s the challenge for agents in this new landscape, but it’s also the big opportunity. People buy from people, and building personal relationships is what insurance agents have always done best. They just need to translate those rapport-building skills into modern digital spaces with a few key strategies.

Adopt social selling as a go-to strategy.

Social selling unifies sales and marketing, transforming social media into a revenue driver by giving agents an avenue to showcase their thought leadership, engage with potential and existing customers, and build trust and relationships in the process. It is similar to offline selling: Build trust with customers, get to know them, and explain how your product helps solve their problems. But it proves even more powerful — 78% of social sellers outsell their peers who don’t use social media.

To get ahead in social selling, agents must harness the power in their relationships and personal networks. Research shows that content shared by employees gets eight times more engagement than content shared by a brand. A social selling strategy can not only help agents reach more people, but also can also help them humanize their own work and brand.

For independent agents, personal branding can make all the difference. Agents shouldn’t be afraid to be unique and show their authentic selves on social media. From sharing personal photos to comments on client posts, the more clients see agents as personal friends and unique people, the more engaged they will be.

Why does letting personality show matter for agents? Credibility has become increasingly important for customers, with 88% of consumers citing authenticity as a key factor in deciding what brands they like and support. Clients want to know they can trust their agents, especially when making decisions that majorly affect their families and lives, so social selling content should reflect authenticity and relatability.

Understand and accept agents’ evolving roles in the changing landscape of digital insurance.

The sales process has gone digital in many ways, but that does not change the value of human guidance from an insurance advisor — the role of the trusted insurance advisor isn’t going anywhere.

Human connection remains a meaningful part of the insurance transaction. When people’s lives change, their relationships with their agents matter, and the work that agents have put into fostering trust and strong relationships will pay off.

Social media is a crucial tool in keeping intermediaries connected in this digital age and agents need to be comfortable using modern social media marketing and sales strategies.

Don’t go it alone — look for trusted support resources.

When independent agents are active in social selling, they shouldn’t go it alone. The resources agents have been consulting for years often have active blogs and social accounts from which they can source content. Many carriers and insurance industry thought leaders also offer curated social content that is ready to share and can typically be personalized by the agent.

A social selling strategy powered by a thoughtful content mix can help independent agents not only reach more people, but also reinforce the thought leadership and trust-building they’ve been demonstrating to clients outside of social media for years.

Find the right tools.

Curating content, creating a regular cadence of posting, monitoring multiple social channels — there are a lot of moving pieces in an independent agent’s social selling strategy. Social selling is just one of the many things an independent agent has in their sales repertoire. This makes it so important to have technology built for social selling specifically. The less time agents spend on the organizational aspects of social selling, the more time they have to build customer relationships, communicate authentically and, ultimately, build trust online.

This article was originally published in Insurance Journal.

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