SpeedieConsulting

Just reading a very interesting post over at Social Media Explorer about US online advertising spends for the next 5 years based on research carried out by Forrester research which you can find here: http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,55668,00.html.

The main bit of interest to me is the current spend in the Financial Services Sector, which showed the following:

Search Marketing $11.00

Display Advertising $10.00

Email Marketing $3.20

Social Media $0.20

Mobile Marketing $0.75

Total IM Budget $25.15

Percentage of Total Marketing Spend 3%

Forrester Estimates (in Millions)

Two things jump out of this at me.  Firstly, The huge gap in spend for email marketing.  Most lead generators will drive a huge amount of traffic and leads from sending out emails, so I think someone is missing a trick there.  There is still huge amounts to be made from email marketing to drive leads.

The second thing was that for all the hype about social media, finance companies in the US anyway don’t seem to be investing in it to the same degree as search marketing which seems to be the core foundation of online marketing, yet social media reach must be huge.  It will go to show that the innovative early adopters will reap the rewards.

Are you looking at what you will do next year and where your advertising pennies will go.  Maybe this will give you pause for thought about the kinds of things you should be looking at.

Are you currently looking for new ways to add revenue to your website or email lists?  With Protectyourbubble on the AffiliateWindow network, you have a great opportunity to add a range of niche insurance offerings that compliment your existing website.

With products such as

Home Emergency Cover – Always a great peace of mind product at this time of year

Gadget Insurance – Again with Christmas coming gadget cover could be that extra special present this year

Life Insurance – Christmas is a good time to be thinking about family

and many more besides…

Current Commission Rates include:

Travel Annual Insurance £6.00
Travel Single Trip Insurance £2.50
Home Emergency £17.50
Car Insurance £17.50
Home Insurance £24.50
Gadget Insurance £11.50
Car Hire Insurance £8.00
Life Insurance £50 per customer complete setup application
Income Protection Insurance £15.00

The programme comes with a huge array of creatives including HTML emails so sign up now and you could be sending our emails this afternoon to your lists.

Visit Affiliate Window today and signup with the Protectyourbubble affiliate programme

Welcome to the November issue of Insights – Online Marketing ideas for Insurance and Mortgage Brokers. In this issue we will be looking at:

• Is 2010 the year of the Internet for your business?
• Coming Soon: Affiliate Marketing Network
• Coming Soon: Insurance Marketing Radio

Is 2010 the year of the Internet for your business?
With many companies planning their marketing for 2010, now is a great time to look at your Web presence.

Do you have multiple projects on the go that you really never get round to doing? Does your marketing efforts online look disparate and half baked because you get 5 minutes a week to look at this stuff and then it never seems to get finished.

The keys to any successful Internet marketing campaign is consistency and focus.

Whatever techniques you employ, you will need to do those consistently for them to have the major impact you want them to. The second key is focus. Pick 2 or 3 techniques and build them into your routine so they become consistent, then and only then going looking for new ideas.

Need some ideas?

How about writing articles? Articles can be uploaded onto your website, posted to your blog, syndicated across the web or even posted to your social media profiles. This is one technique that can be used in multiple ways.

Talking of blogs, if you set up your blog correctly, you can automatically update all of your social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more…) each time you add a blog post. Saving you a huge amount of time but maximising the effort.

In that way, once setup, you no longer have to remember to send out tweets or upload status updates on your social media sites when you make a post.

Thinking of ways to get the biggest bang for your buck usually involves finding a way to automate processes.

Here are some useful resources:

TwitPress – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitpress/
Ping.FM – http://ping.fm/
SocialOoomph – http://www.socialoomph.com/
Facebook Fan Pages – http://whyfacebook.com/2008/03/05/on-facebook-profiles-are-personal-pages-are-for-business/
Linking Facebook and Twitter – http://www.ajvaynerchuk.com/how-to-link-twitter-to-facebook-a-twitter-tutorial/
Lining your LinkedIn and Facebook page – http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=6394109615

2010 should also be the year for a spring clean making sure your site is up to date and accurate. Check to make sure all the links are working. Refresh your copy if legislation has changed.

Check all your social media profiles to make sure they are consistent and up to date. Where possible make sure you add links to your business website.

It is also a good time to learn and embrace new techniques.

• Video Marketing
• Social Marketing
• Affiliate Marketing
• Email Marketing

Finding a structure that works for you
As a way to focus the mind, I have created a free PDF which gives you two suggested structures for your web business. Now these are by no means exclusive, you can make your business web presence structure any way you like but this should give you some ideas to get you started.

Download it here: www.speedieconsulting.co.uk/Docs/InternetMarketingStrategyBlueprint.pdf

If you find you want to take advantage of this but really do not know where to start drop us a line.

What our customers think?

“Speedie Consulting are more a business partner than an agency. Their understanding of both insurance and e-marketing make them a rare breed. A real can do attitude runs through the heart of the business and I would strongly recommend them to anyone.”

Stephen Ebbett
Head of Channel and Product Development
Assurant Solutions
http://www.protectyourbubble.com

Coming Soon: Affiliate Marketing Network
We are working hard on putting the final touches to our own finance and insurance affiliate network. The aim is to give smaller brokers and companies the ability to run their own affiliate campaigns with little cost. It will also give them big exposure for their company. There will be a range of options for them to attract more business.

Coming Soon: Insurance Marketing Radio
We are also putting the final touches on the intros for our new radio show. We are finding it increasingly difficult to write the sort of blog posts we really want to. Too many clients and not enough time! So we have decided to run a podcast instead, so within the next few days you will see links to our blog radio show. We are hoping to run this once a week but it might be a bit haphazard to start with as we get used to the technology

We get a lot of requests for building mini sites.  These can be used as link building tools, SEO tools or generally to add more virtual real estate to a business.  We recently created a powerpoint presentation.

Here it is here on Slideshare.  You will also find more articles on this site under related articles below explaining all the benefits of mini sites.

We have recently launched a new service for companies wishing to use Banners are part of their marketing mix.  From Affiliate Programmes, to Adwords, to plain old CPM buying, the banner is alive and well in some circles.

Some of our clients are seeing great success with their banners, that we felt time to get in on the act and have some designed for our own business. So keep your eye out for some Speedie Consulting Banners.

With our new strap line line of “Outsource your Internet Marketing”, now is a great time to get in touch to see how we can help you in 2010.

One of our marketing strategies is that we like to give away stuff.  if you haven’t already heard, we offer a free 52 week email course all about Insurance Marketing online.  To find out more and to sign up, why not visit www.insurance-marketing.co.uk

You will receive your first instalment right away.

And on the subject of email courses,  we can write build and deliver email courses for your business.  Email courses delivered over a period of a few days are a great way to build interest in your business and also to educate your potential customers.

It is also a good tool to get your marketing messages to them automatically and consistently as after they sign up, a system takes over and delivers your messages as you set them up.

To find out how email courses can enhance your business and automate part of your marketing please get in touch.

Does your marketing plan consist of the same old thing?

Some magazine advertising, a bit of local press, radio and a yellow pages listing?

Does your Internet Marketing strategy consist of just having a website?

Before you finalise your budgets for 2010, please get in touch with us for a free consult. We will explain all the options available to you for an Internet strategy that works, such as:

• Why Pay Per Click is a double edged sword;
• What techniques you can pay for once this year and earn the benefits of traffic and leads for years to come;
• How to build your Internet presence to generate multiple sources of business that you control;
• Have more than one first page ranking in Google.

For a limited time we are opening our doors to new clients for 2010. We only really do this once a year, as our current clients are more than happy for us to remain their little secret.

Now we could be yours too!

Outsource your Internet Marketing

Speedie Consultants offer a wide range of Internet Marketing services specifically targeted at Finance and Insurance websites. From large brokers, insurance companies, aggregators and niche players, we can help any sized business attract more customers.

Contact us now!

We have a limited number of free consultancy slots available. These 20 minute slots will go fast. Even if you do not use our services, we will give you more than enough ideas to really turn 2010 into the Year of the Web for your company.

Please complete the contact form to secure your slot.