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.

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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.

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June 16, 2008 by Steve.

Bankrate, Inc. released the findings of a national poll that found that eight out of 10 Americans are concerned about their identity being stolen. Furthermore, more than one-third (34%) of Americans know someone who has been a victim of identity theft.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, there were approximately 800,000 consumer complaints filed in 2007. Of those complaints, 32% involved identity theft. The total dollar amount in reported fraud losses was more than $1.2 billion.

Respondents who reported being concerned about identity theft were more likely to shred documents (82%) versus those who are not concerned (52%). Notably, people who are uneasy about identity theft were much more likely to keep tabs on their credit reports. Fifty-three percent of concerned folks check their credit, versus 30% of the unconcerned. Women (83%) were significantly more likely to destroy sensitive information than men (69%).

The national random-digit-dialed phone study of 1,006 adults 18 or older was conducted for Bankrate by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media. The surveys were conducted from April 4 through April 6, 2008. The sample was weighted by demographic factors including age, gender, race, education, and census region to ensure reliable and accurate representation of adults in U.S. households. The margin of error for the survey is +/- 3 percentage points.

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June 10, 2008 by Steve.

The National Hurricane Center and Google are working together to create a map that homeowners can use to determine if their property is threatened by a dangerous hurricane storm surge.

Storm surge is considered one of the most destructive elements of a hurricane and the greatest threat to the lives of people who ignore evacuation orders in vulnerable coastal areas. Google will use storm surge data that meteorologists have used for years to determine the flooding threat from any category of storm.

People can plug in their addresses to see at what level they are at risk. The program should be available during the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30. Hurricane forecasters use a computerized model called SLOSH (Sea, Lake, and Overland Surges from Hurricanes) that estimates storm surge heights by taking into account the size, internal pressure, forward speed, track, and wind strength of a hurricane.

Hurricane forecasters will also offer a new color-coded graphic on the NHC Web site this year that will indicate storm surge probabilities for threatened areas, similar to forecasts they now offer on wind-speed probabilities. The graphic will indicate the probability of the surge reaching or exceeding five feet within a given number of hours.

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June 5, 2008 by Steve.

Are your clients able to communicate with you any way they want—whether by phone, e-mail, Web, call center, or live access? Instant Messaging (IM) is an option that is becoming easier to implement. Understandably, agencies are often concerned about the practical aspects of IM. How will the conversation be documented? Is it worth the time?

One service worth considering is Provide Support (www.providesupport.com), a software and Web process that provides a “Live Chat” option on your site. You are given code that enables you to add a button on your site that a client can click to start a live chat with someone in your office. You select individuals who become part of a chat rotation. When someone clicks on the Web button, a box pops up on the computer of the next person in the rotation. That person is responsible for the instant message conversation.

The price depends on how many users you add. One user costs $99 annually, three users is $200 annually, and 10 operators is $400 annually. The software provides a transcript of each conversation after the call is finished, along with a management recap at night.

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June 2, 2008 by Steve.

A group of Chicago lawyers sued Craigslist (www.craigslist.org), the popular classified ads Web site, in 2006 because some of its housing notices illegally discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion, and ethnicity. Various ads say “no minorities” or “no children.” Declaring such preferences violates the U.S. Fair Housing Act and would be illegal in a newspaper.

But a three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals found that Craigslist is not the publisher of these ads as a newspaper would be, and thus is not liable for discriminatory housing ads posted on the site. Instead, the Web site is more like an intermediary, carrying information from one person to another and, therefore, not liable for its content, the panel said in a ruling that upholds a lower court decision. The attorneys “cannot sue the messenger just because the message reveals a third party’s plan to engage in unlawful discrimination,” Judge Frank Easterbrook concluded. He suggested the attorneys instead use Craigslist to find landlords with discriminatory ads, and then forward their names to the state’s attorney general for prosecution.

The decision is a victory for the free Internet bulletin board, where every month more than 30 million people post offers to buy, sell, or rent goods and services, including housing. Current housing listings on Craigslist are now posted with this warning: “Stating a discriminatory preference in a housing post is illegal. Please flag discriminatory posts as prohibited.”

The San Francisco-based company is run by fewer than 30 people but offers classified ads and forums for more than 300 cities in the United States alone.

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May 30, 2008 by Steve.

It is becoming increasingly important for everyone in the insurance industry to take a hard look at our ability to attract new talent. Of the approximately 78 million Baby Boomers, about 8,000 turn 60 every day. The industry has a long way to go in order to attract and retain enough people to replace retiring Boomers.

An edited excerpt from a recent e-mail I received highlights at least part of the problem:

Dear Sir,

I found your article in the April edition of Rough Notes (Agency Marketing Technology column) of interest. I agree that the insurance industry has not embraced technology like it should… I joined the insurance industry in September 2006 and departed this past January. One reason I left was due to the lack of technology.

Most [insurance company] Web sites did not give good quotes. Or, two weeks after the sale, the company would terminate the sale. Needless to say, my clients were frustrated with me and the fact that their insurance rates kept changing. I found myself phoning underwriters on a regular basis with my clients sitting in my office reviewing quotes. Underwriters would then change and (for the most part) increase the rate, or tell me they wanted to pass on the sale. One company even had to approve all sales afterwards, again changing rates or canceling.

The agency owner didn’t want to invest in technology and didn’t see the need for basic items—such as a laser printer. Instead, my clients sat in my office while a multi-function copier/scanner/printer slowly printed documents. One client commented that his home printer worked faster than mine.

It was hard to find clients in our low-wage market who could afford insurance and deal with insurance company obstacles… I worked for $7 an hour while the agency owner spent the profits on herself.

You likely do a much better job of trying to provide the technology tools your staff needs to effectively “make the sale.” But don’t get too smug. The level and type of technology that a recent college graduate uses (dare I say expects?) is far above what exists in most agencies I have visited.

How many people who enter this industry end up leaving due to frustration with the antiquated ways we get our work done? The frustration that results from the cumbersome and time-consuming process of trying to obtain a bindable quote from an insurance company is only one example. How many more don’t we hear about?

Many who have been around for a while see that progress is being made— but are things changing for the better fast enough for the kids we need to hire? Or are they just going to give up and leave? Worse, maybe they’ll never come to work with us in the first place.

If you want to attract and retain the talent you need to be successful in the future, you have to be willing to invest in appropriate technology. There is no time like the present to begin exploring and experimenting.

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May 27, 2008 by Steve.

Israeli company Aerophone Ltd. has developed a communication system that enables telephone calls to be made from airplanes—independent of GSM/CDMA ground stations. The system supports all wavebands and requires neither prior written registration of the passengers nor a particular billing system. Calls cost $1.60 per minute and are invoiced via the normal mobile telephone bill.

The development has been made possible by the installation of so-called picocells (miniature GSM stations) in airplanes, as well as by servers and transceivers that link to telecommunication satellites and receiving stations for the Ku band (Kurtz-under band: a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum in the microwave range of frequencies). The picocells in the immediate vicinity of passengers automatically reduce the energy output of logged-in mobile telephones to a minimum so they don’t have negative effects on the aircraft electronic systems.

Installation and operation of the Aerophone system is free of charge for the airlines. While I applaud the continued development of technology, as a frequent flyer, I am not thrilled with the idea of listening to phone conversations while trapped on a plane.

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