Education is a very powerful tool, and as marketers, we see how businesses (ourselves included!) view education as not only valuable to our clients and potential customers, but also an opportunity to do something different. It’s not another PPC ad or email in your inbox, but something more tangible than that. 

The insurance industry is unique in the sense that agents and brokers need yearly education in order to maintain their broker license – similar industries include medicine, engineering, and law amongst others. A broker can receive their credentials through carriers and MGAs offering courses, seminars, and the other growing medium of webinars. Since the start of the pandemic we’ve seen a huge push across all industries to shift online with partner programs and broker education is one of them. This has also brought about many providers looking for fresh ways to enhance the broker education experience and lessen the focus of education for the sole purpose of obtaining licensing credits. 

Strive to Develop Thought Leadership

This is a fairly basic concept in content marketing – you want your audience to know just how much of an expert you and your organization are. Whether you know it or not, your RSMs, IT, tool developers, risk managers, underwriters all have valuable knowledge that can be packaged into an accredited webinar, multi-module course, video, PDF, etc. By leveraging internal resources, you can position your organization to be an industry thought leader while also providing immense value to your brokers. 

Thought leadership is the highest converting content online today. However, it’s also the most costly to build. It’s wise to build a content strategy + digital distribution plan that has the longevity to make the most out of your budget.

Demand for Online Education is Here to Stay

As previously mentioned, there’s a shift for everything to be accessible online. Due to the pandemic, brokers were still required to get their licensing credits nationwide, but with many in-person events being cancelled there was a huge demand for online education. Many businesses are shifting to either an indefinite work from home model or hybrid, so organizations that look for opportunities to build online education that is interesting, valuable and interactive will remain top of mind over their competition.  

Creating Valuable Connections with your Brokers – New and Experienced

This is likely the biggest reason why your organization should shift its focus and begin building your online education strategy now. If you’re reading this, your organization likely does some form of marketing and education in hopes that you can connect with your broker partners or enhance their knowledge with your products. Whether that’s through bulletins, contests, interacting on LinkedIn, or providing them with other valuable email content to help their productivity. Online education will offer something more tangible for your brokers (their credits) but also gives them an opportunity to interact with your organization (through Q&As, surveys, cheat sheets, etc). 

This is particularly important for newbies. New brokers or brokers that are learning new lines of business are especially ripe for influence. Many will remember the markets that stood out during their early exposures to learning and development, particularly when it comes to front-line underwriting for new business and renewals.

Opportunities To Have Some Fun

Online education should tie into your marketing campaigns, which can also provide something more unique and fun to your brokers. You can create yearly, multi-course events that brokers look forward to, provide incentives if they complete an interesting, interactive quiz at the end of their course, or even use the online courses as a “VIP only” event where it’s highly sought after. By adding a unique twist to the online course format you can differentiate yourself from the competition. Look to permeate your education strategy throughout your “business as usual”  marketing efforts, this will produce broader broker engagement overall.

“Correlate your education efforts with business impact. By integrating your educational campaigns with your marketing automation platform you are not only able to capture results via a 360° view of the broker but you can correlate the performance with other important metrics; such as new business written in a particular vertical and when, submission quality and more. This will help you understand broker engagement and education needs beyond registration and attendance and will provide longevity and connectivity to your efforts.”  – Jennifer Pugsley, VP, Customer Success

If webinars and online education are in your plans for Q4 or 2022, Goose Digital can help you strategically plan out your online education journey as well as provide the hands to build and execute it via your automation platform. Contact us today to learn more.