Successful insurance agents aren’t just insurance agents—they’re business owners who must sell not only themselves as qualified professionals, but also their products as cost-effective and indispensable.

Balancing these roles often stretches an insurance agent thin. But over the last few years, a new marketing strategy has evolved that can cut down an insurance agent’s marketing hours by 200%: marketing automation.

Designed to streamline and measure your marketing tactics so you can improve business efficiency and boost revenue growth, marketing automation drives an average 14.5% increase in sales productivity and a 12.2% reduction in marketing overhead. Companies using marketing automation see 53% higher conversion rates and an annualized revenue growth rate 3.1% higher than non-users—and 63% of companies outgrowing their competitors use marketing automation.

Still need convincing? Consider this: The average small business owner dedicates 20 hours a week to marketing. But marketing automation can cut that down to one hour. All you need to do is set up your marketing automation tasks and schedule. Here are a few pointers to keep in mind.

What? Marketing automation doesn’t rely on a “set it and forget it” structure. Rather, it significantly cuts back on the time you have to spend on your marketing. It may not utilize robots that tweet live updates on your behalf, but a marketing automation schedule incorporates a number of marketing tasks effectively, including:

• Personal posts, like a quote of the day or holiday well wishes.
• Blog posts.
• Evergreen videos, infographics and articles.
• Curated content from news or other third-party sources.
• Regular LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook posts.

When determining the right balance of content for your business, consider the “5-3-2” rule: For every 10 posts, five should be curated content from other sources, three should be interesting pieces unique to your business and two should be personal posts.

When? Once you have your automated content, decide how often you’ll post. There are no rules for how often you should market via social media, blogs or email. But a good rule of thumb is to post three times a week on social media. For email marketing, send out a campaign no more than once a week and at least once a month. And try publishing a blog post once a week or at least once a month.

How? Insurance agents need to find the tools that work best for them. Look for a marketing automation provider that offers content and marketing tools specifically for insurance agents. These tools will enable you to schedule blog and social posts, automatically update your website with new content and send e-newsletters.

You’ve mastered the art of multitasking in the real world. Isn’t it time you did the same for your marketing?

Craig Faulkner is the founder and CEO of FMG Suite, which offers a complete inbound marketing solution for independent insurance agents.