Andy Neary explains the top marketing mistake benefit advisors make: creating content about what advisors want to discuss rather than what prospects are searching for. He illustrates with coaching examples (writing about healthcare system 'misalignments' vs. answering prospect queries like 'why are my health insurance costs going up?') and recommends producing searchable, prospect-focused pieces such as comparisons of fully insured vs. self-funded plans and explainers on direct primary care.
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In today's video, I'm going to talk about the number one mistake I see benefit advisors making when it comes to how they leverage their marketing to draw prospects in. And here's that mistake. When they use content to attract their prospects, they're spending too much time talking about the things they want to talk about and not necessarily the items their prospects are looking for. Let me give you a few examples. Last week I was working with a client and he wanted to create an article about the misalignments in the health care system. And if you are a benefit advisor, you understand the misalignments in the health care system and what they are doing to cause health insurance rates to increase, right? Sounds pretty simplistic, pretty basic. However, here's the problem. If you write an article about the misalignments in health care, the question you have to ask yourself is, is this a piece of content my prospects are looking for? And the answer is no. I can guarantee none of your prospects are walking to Google or going to Google and typing in, why is the health care system misaligned? You know what they're looking for is why are my health insurance costs going up? Why can I not control my health insurance costs? What are the reasons my health insurance costs are going up? If you talk about that, those are items they're looking for, they're asking, they're searching for. Now, you can still talk about the misalignments in the health care system, but if your entire topic is misalignments in the healthcare system, that is not content they're looking for. So you've got to put yourself in the buyer's shoes. I just got off a coaching call with another client. We're talking about content and the content he should be focusing on to draw his prospects in. And we focused on two very simple pieces of content that are going to do very well for him. Number one, the comparison and the differences between fully insured and self funded plans and the pros and cons of both. And what is direct primary care. You see when you think about the first piece of content, the difference between fully insured plans and self funded plans. Here's what he is going to do that is going to be really effective. Number one, he is going to give a comparison of both which people are asking and they're looking for. But he's also going to lay out the pros and cons of both. Now you might be sitting there telling me, Andy, why would I list pros and cons of both if I really promote self funded plans? Makes all the sense in the world. Here's why that's important. If you create a piece of content that is very biased and all it talks about is why self funding is the only answer, your prospects are going to listen and watch that content knowing you're coming from a biased angle. And that may actually lose a little credibility for you. However, if you come at it with an unbiased approach and you just compare both fully insured and self funded plans and you just lay out the pros and cons of each because they both have a few and you let them know. Although you believe self funding is the better way to go.
Letting them know that it's not a fit for everybody builds credibility for your prospect and it is great content they're searching for. Same goes for direct primary care and the example we use today when I helped them build the messaging. Most prospects don't know what direct primary care is, so the first question that would pop in their head when you bring that phrase up is the heck is direct primary care Perfect. Your content should be focused around what is direct primary care. So that's what I wanted to share with you today is when you are creating content for your prospects, whether that be social media, social media content, email content, website content, articles, blogs, you name it, you have to think of topics that are very searchable. And it starts by realizing it often isn't content you want to talk about, it is the content your prospects are looking for. And if you create that kind of content, you and your agency are going to become very searchable. Which means when they go searching for that information, guess who pops up. So take it for what it is. Use it. But I promise you, if you start creating more content that your prospects are looking for, your marketing is going to be a heck of a lot more effective.
