August 18, 2008 by Steve.
International Risk Management Institute, Inc. (IRMI) has made access to the Glossary of Insurance and Risk Management Terms available on its public Web site, www.IRMI.com.
There is absolutely no cost to access definitions of the 3,000-plus insurance terms it contains. Previously, this resource was only available to those who purchased it.
In addition to definitions of more than 3,000 risk management and insurance terms, the IRMI Glossary translates 860 acronyms and abbreviations, making it one of the most comprehensive and up to date insurance and risk glossaries available.
The IRMI Glossary provides quick answers to questions involving unfamiliar terminology used in insurance policies, submissions, proposals, and risk management reports. It also cross-references to specific sections in IRMI for occasions when more information is needed on selected topics.
The risk and insurance community can contribute by suggesting improvements in existing definitions or suggesting new terms and definitions to include. If your definition is accepted, you will be listed in a special contributors section on IRMI.com, and this listing will include a valuable link to your Web site.
The index to the IRMI Glossary is also available to put on other Web sites in the risk and insurance community. This allows organizations to easily add a glossary feature for their Web site visitors to use, and also include more than 3,000 key terms on a Web site to assist with search engine rankings.
The IRMI Glossary is listed in the Free Resources section of www.IRMI.com on the left-hand side.
Posted in Events, Cool Tools, General, Agency Management Systems | Print | No Comments »
August 11, 2008 by Steve.
Seminars, education forums, and other events are an excellent way to market the services and value your agency provides. Creating an “add this event” link on your Web site is a simple way to help your clients or prospects automatically update their Outlook calendars with the event details.
It’s simple. First, create a new event in your Outlook calendar. Include the event name, specific location information (put in the location line), the time, and any other information you want to include in the notes section. Then click on File|Save As. In the “Save as type” drop-down list, choose the vCalendar (*.vcs) file format. Name your file something relevant (e.g. Workers Comp-Seminar.vcs) and then upload that file to your Web server.
On your Web site (or in an e-mail you send) just point a link to the URL where the file resides on your Web server. When your readers click on the link, the file will open and—voila—Outlook adds it to their calendars.
You may want to include simple instructions. And be sure to test it before you post the link on your site or in an e-mail.
Posted in Cool Tools, General | Print | No Comments »
August 4, 2008 by Steve.
The percentage of U.S. households with broadband Internet connections has grown from 12% in 2002 to 49% today, and 112 million U.S. adults now have high-speed Web access at home, according to a study by Scarborough Research.
The study, based on a panel of 220,000 adults 18 and older, found significant regional variation in broadband penetration. San Francisco topped the list, with 62% of adults living in households with broadband Web access, followed by Boston and San Diego at 61%. At the bottom of the list was Roanoke/Lynchburg, Va., at 29% and Charleston/Huntington, W.Va., at 33%. Most of the markets with low broadband penetration are in the South and Southwest.
Not surprisingly, adults with broadband access are more likely to use the Internet, including for shopping. For instance, 10% of those with broadband access have spent $2,500 or more online in the past year, compared with 8% of all adults. That means adults with broadband at home are 23% more likely to have spent at least $2,500 online in the past year. They are 20% more likely than average to have spent between $1,000 and $1,500 and 12% more likely to have spent between $500 and $1,000, the survey shows.
They also use the Internet in other ways, being 30% more likely than the average American to have downloaded podcasts during the past month, 29% more likely to have downloaded or watched TV programs, and 27% more likely to have downloaded or listened to audio clips.
Posted in Marketing, General | Print | No Comments »
July 29, 2008 by Steve.
Google is by far the most used search engine. The biggest drawback is that it is text-based. Enter Viewzi, (www.viewzi.com), a new type of search site that offers results as visual images. The company is hoping to radically change how people find information on the Web.
Viewzi draws its flexibility from its “views,” each of which is essentially a customized search aggregator. After entering a search term, Viewzi tries to figure out what you’re looking for, and presents the results in an appropriate view. At launch there are 16 views, including MP3 Search View, Celebrity Photo View, Video View, Album View, 3D Photo Cloud, and the curious Weather View. Each view draws results from different sources, ranging from Flickr to Amazon to Weather.com.
These views help you focus your search on sites that are most relevant. If you enter a search for a song title, you will get the MP3 search view, which lists links to the song. One of the benefits of this search engine is that results are displayed visually. And the Web Screenshot View thumbnail images of relevant Web sites are displayed. You simply flip through the results provided and click on the image to go to the actual Web site.
In practice, Viewzi does a pretty good job at determining which view corresponds to a search term, though it isn’t perfect. The biggest problem is that many of the views are pure eye candy, offering little in the way of useful information.
Posted in Cool Tools, General | Print | No Comments »
July 18, 2008 by Steve.
Kurt Turner is an independent agent in Shelbyville, Ky. He noticed that the best part of company meetings is talking with other agents during breaks. So, he started an insurance community forum site called InsuranceGossip.com, where agents and others in the insurance business can exchange ideas, get marketing sales ideas and tips, and ask/answer questions.
The site is agent-focused and not currently designed for others in the industry. Anyone can browse the site and read the questions and answers. Once you register, you can post (or answer) comments or questions. Different categories have been created to focus discussions on certain topic areas. Access to the site is free and there is currently no advertising.
Posted in Marketing, Cool Tools, General, Agency Management Systems | Print | No Comments »
July 14, 2008 by Steve.
I’ve been reading quite a bit lately about how to create a customer experience that will WOW clients and keep them coming back for more. When I ask agents what they do to create these types of experiences for their clients, most have a difficult time answering. While most agents say they provide “good customer service,” many can’t define what that actually means for their agency.
For whom should you try to create these exceptional experiences? In my view, you should try to create WOW experiences for a small subset of your current clients.
Take the airline industry as an example. Most airlines have received a lot of “heat” lately due to increased fees, delays, and the hassle of traveling. Because I travel quite a bit, I follow what’s happening in that industry. I’ve noticed that many people are complaining because they’ve had difficult experiences with one airline or another. By contrast, when I started thinking about my travel experiences, I realized that they are generally pretty good. I normally fly American Airlines or Southwest out of Nashville. Both of these airlines treat me differently than they treat the occasional traveler. Let me give you one example.
Last December, my family and I went to Costa Rica for a vacation. We flew on American Airlines. The afternoon before we were scheduled to leave, I received a call from Carol at the Admirals Club in Nashville. She informed me that our morning flight to Dallas had been cancelled. Taking a later flight would cause us to miss our connection to Costa Rica. She told me that she had already rebooked the entire family on a flight connecting through Miami in first class (our original class of service). We ended up arriving in Costa Rica an hour earlier than originally scheduled.
Carol monitored the situation and was proactive in helping a good customer (me) get to the destination with the least amount of travel interruption. I could provide you with several other examples of times American Airlines personnel went out of their way to help me in difficult situations.
Does American treat all customers this way? No, and they can’t. American (and Southwest) has learned that they should focus additional attention on their very best customers. Agents need to do the same. Just like the airlines (or any business for that matter), agents need to identify their very best clients and then create customer experiences that will continue to WOW them.
For airlines, it is very easy to segment their customers by number of miles flown. The more you fly, the more personal attention you receive. For agents, it’s harder to determine your best clients. Revenue is one indicator but, in my opinion, only one indicator. Your measure probably should be a combination of revenue, number of policies (the more policies the better), who they know, and any other indicator that makes sense in your organization.
The next step is to design experiences that are appropriate for each level or type of client. If Pareto’s 80/20 rule is true, the top 20% of your existing clients generate 80% of your revenue. What are you doing to make sure they know you appreciate them?
Posted in Marketing, General, Opinion | Print | No Comments »
July 3, 2008 by Steve.
Search Engine Optimization—getting your agency to show up on a Google search result—is more of an art than a science. While there are many complicated and time-consuming steps an agency can take to improve their search result placement, using Google’s Local Business Center (www.google.com/local/add) is a simple step anyone can take. Doing so will help customers find you using Google Maps.
If you already have a Google account, sign in with your e-mail and password. If you don’t have a Google account, sign up for one and follow the instructions to create a free listing for your agency.
The street address you enter will be shown in the Google and Google Maps search results. Once you’ve submitted your business information, you’ll need to verify the listing before it goes live. A post office box can be used to register. You can verify using a touch-tone phone, SMS, or a PIN that will be sent via regular mail to your business address. Once the listing is verified, your information will normally appear in the Google results. There’s no charge for Local Business Center listings. Google doesn’t accept payment to include listings or sites in their search results.
Posted in Marketing, Cool Tools, General, Benefits Management Systems | Print | No Comments »
June 25, 2008 by Steve.
A-cappella.com Inc., a small online seller of CDs, DVDs, sheet music, and books for unaccompanied singing groups, discovered the power of viral marketing on the Internet and YouTube this past Christmas—and it’s only just recovered from a “blizzard,” in the description of one A-cappella.com staffer, of orders that ensued.
A 1998 video of the Indiana University a cappella group Straight No Chaser singing “The 12 Days of Christmas” that had been on YouTube for nearly a year suddenly took off in November and was registering 400,000 views a day. Viewers who were taken with the group’s performance began googling the name to find the DVD for purchase. And there was only one place they could buy it: The tiny A-cappella.com, based in Southwest Harbor, ME, which handles an average of 60 orders a day.
Shoppers placed hundreds of orders a day for the Straight No Chaser DVD, and the company, which was caught unawares, quickly sold out the 30 DVDs it had on hand. The orders kept coming, even when the company told shoppers it was out of stock and wouldn’t have more until mid-January.
By the time the company fulfilled all orders, it had sold 5,300 copies of the DVD—not much by most Internet retailing standards, but huge for the company that employs only two full-time people. “We’ve never sold that many of anything,” says Doug Gray, president. “If we sell 100 of an item in a year, we consider that a good seller.”
Gray has no problem explaining the popularity of the group: “It’s 10 young men, well dressed, behaving very nicely, and having fun singing. It appeals to a lot of people.” Still, he is at a loss to explain why the video suddenly caught YouTubers’ fancy. “It had been up there for close to a year, so there’s no telling who started e-mailing the link to friends and how it suddenly became so popular,” he says. “We’ve all tried to figure it out, but I don’t think we’ll ever know what started it.”
As of the end of February, the video of “The 12 Days of Christmas” had been viewed nearly 7.5 million times and other Straight No Chaser videos had been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. The frenzy of interest has had another effect. While the performers in Straight No Chaser have changed as singers graduate and others take their place, Gray says the group of young men in the 1998 video are getting back together to create a new DVD.
Posted in Marketing, General | Print | No Comments »