Posted by Rick Morgan on May 15, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Thousands of main street insurance agents have now joined the early adopters in our industry’s foray into social networking. Social networking is working for some, but not so much for others. Users continue to better understand the significance and impact social networking is having on the way insurance firms connect and interact with customers and prospects. They also are taking advantages of the new opportunities an effective social networking initiative can offer.
The following three key concepts are foundational lessons that have emerged in the past couple years – that must be recognized and incorporated into any successful social networking initiative:
1. It’s not about the technology. Success with social networking isn’t just about the latest technology. Technology is transitory. It is the means to an end: Connecting with people. Social networking represents a permanent cultural transformation and a market disruption.
Many of the old ways of doing business are no longer effective. For example, traditional Yellow Page advertising is no longer effective in reaching most consumers.
The way consumers search, research, find, evaluate, choose and connect with their service providers has changed. How an organization appreciates this change, learns to adapt, and engages the new connected consumer—at the time and in the place where he/she wants to connect—will determine the firm’s future viability.
2. It’s more than a marketing tactic. Launching a Facebook Page does not equate to social networking success. Effective social networking is more than a marketing tactic. Rather, success requires that social networking be an integrated part of a comprehensive business strategy. A good social networking implementation will involve and impact all business units within the agency. There are many social tools (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, and Pinterest) that can be used by an agency to build and strengthen their brand. Yet, like any successful agency initiative it must be well managed, monitored, measured and evaluated.
3. It’s not magic. Stop waiting for the pixie dust. Social networking requires sweat equity. Social networking does not magically transform or solve an agency’s marketing or communication problems.
Successful agents have learned that using social networking is an effective way to grow a community of online relationships and, perhaps, advocates. Rather than use the tools to amplify a sales message, these producers use social networking to build and strengthen relationships, connect and build trust. Relationships, whether online or off, take time.
Comment and let us know the most important lesson you have learned.
Posted by askidmore on May 8, 2012 · 1 Comment
It’s easy to do. In trying to tell your business story, it’s so simple to forget about the perspective.
Of course you want to share your experience, your history and your successes. But always remember to circle back and make sure you’re communicating in a way that respects the client’s concerns. In other words, review everything by asking yourself—as if you are a potential client reading—“Why do I care? What’s in it for me?”
So you’ve been in business since 1973. It’s a tremendous accomplishment to be sure, but instead of simply quoting a number of years or a major milestone, tell why it makes a difference:
- Our 39 years of experience reveal a proven record of protecting assets through soft markets and tough business cycles.
- We’ve been at this for a while—since November, 1973 to be exact—so we understand the importance of long-range planning and know that monitoring changing market conditions is what delivers clients the best service even through the toughest of times.
Or perhaps you have multiple locations?
- Our offices are strategically positioned throughout the Midwest so we can access the region’s brightest minds and deliver market-appropriate solutions to every client.
What if you only have one location—afraid this could be perceived as a negative? Not if you frame it appropriately and explain the benefits to your client.
- All our experts work from a central office in Minneapolis so that resources can be quickly accessed and easily coordinated for client projects.
As you consider other organization characteristics, simply take the time to shift their descriptions to reflect their benefits. Perhaps equally important, don’t worry about being all things to all people. It’s a cliché, but taking such a broad stroke to try to appeal to everyone only leaves you appealing to no one. If your firm specializes in fine art, shout that strength loud and proud. Don’t try to extend your expertise into something that it’s not.
So next time you’re out driving, take a look at the billboards you see. Listen to radio spots and review ads or online material sent your way. Carefully assess each message and you’ll quickly discern a difference in what might appeal to you as a customer and what leaves you cold.
It all comes down to perspective—and it’s not hard to see that when the customer is left out of the equation, the marketing simply becomes a hollow vehicle for the brand to “toot its own horn.”
You don’t have to change your story; you just have to change how you’re telling it. While it’s about you; it should ultimately be more about them. Because when you show the client why they should care, you’ll likely find that they do.
Posted by Dave Willis on April 30, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Several years ago, I heard futurist Daniel Burrus speak at an industry event. Since then, I’ve followed his Technotrends newsletter. I find his insight fascinating and overwhelming, all in one.
Burrus recently shared his “Top 20 Technology-Driven Trends for 2012.” One is “social business takes on a new level of urgency as organizations shift from an information age ‘informing’ model to a communication age ‘communicating and engaging’ model.” He also said 2012 is when electronic books, newspapers and magazines “pass the tipping point, due to the abundance of smartphones with readable displays, tablets that provide a full color experience, and publishers providing apps that give a better than paper experience by including cut, copy, paste, print, and multimedia capabilities.”
A couple of weeks ago, a Burrus article in Technorati focused on the future of newspapers. Advertising was down 7.3% in 2011, he said, a point higher than 2010’s drop. Surprising, he wrote, “was that it was only down that much.
The newspaper business is, unfortunately, focused on the second word, ‘paper,’ instead of the first word, ‘news.’ As a result, they are still making their online news static rather than dynamic, meaning that it is still one-dimensional. The online versions of most newspapers are nothing more than a piece of paper online.”
He’s not the only one who sees the demise of print. A New York Times blogger wrote that, in his second day of testimony during a British inquiry into media ethics, Rupert Murdoch said newspapers will exist as print versions for 20 more years, but with very small circulations. “And the day will come when we’ll just have to say, ‘It’s not working, we can’t afford all the trucks, we can’t afford all the huge presses and so on,’ and we’ll be purely electronic,” Murdoch said.
In his Technorati piece, Burrus asked why newspapers aren’t getting more social. “Local newspapers are about local news,” he wrote. “Yet I don’t see that social component appearing in most outlets. In the newspaper world, that could be very innovative, since so few of them are doing it currently.”
How does this relate to our industry? We don’t have insurance newspapers, per se, but we do have print publications. For the most part, they’re trying to go beyond static and aiming for dynamic. Some, I suspect, would like to get even more social and interactive. Part of what’s holding them back is us—the people in the industry who make, share and consume news.
We can do something to support the evolution from “informing” to “communicating and engaging.” For starters, interact. Respond to blog posts. Comment on articles. Share links with others—directly via email, on Twitter, on Facebook, or on any other platform. Provide links on your website to industry publications, if it makes sense to do so.
Second, engage with publishers on social media platforms. Most have Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. Like or follow them, and then be, well, social. Make social media more social.
Third, offer publications digital content. We have been able to work a number of clients to develop articles designed exclusively for online use. Understanding what editors and publishers need to build their online, interactive presence helps us do that.
Fourth, go beyond print—or digital print. Consider creating and offering podcasts and even video casts to online publications. We’ve seen how using audio and video can generate good response from folks throughout our industry.
Finally, consider digital media in your ad budget, if you have one. If sites offer visibility worthy of your investment in content development, they provide the same reach for paid ads and banners.
We may not all be hanging out in the insurance business long enough to see print disappear altogether, using Murdoch’s timeline. That doesn’t mean we can’t help breathe life into the efforts our publications are making today to reach readers and viewers where they are.
Editors and reporters with the insurance trade media rely on public relations professionals with insurance brands to research and create stories. But there’s plenty of room for insurance marketers to change and improve in their trade media publicity efforts, judging by comments from the trade media.
Those are two key conclusions from an Aartrijk survey of key insurance trade media editors and reporters.
The online survey garnered 17 responses (and thus is more useful for qualitative results than for statistically valid quantitative results) and was conducted in 2011. It found that:
- Nearly every editor/reporter has written feature stories based on story pitches via phone calls and email messages from companies or public relations firms.
- Story ideas come most frequently from editors’ and reporters’ own colleagues within the insurance trade media. But meetings and trade shows are nearly as important, with nine of 10 respondents saying they were a source for bylined articles or feature stories.
- Two-thirds of respondents view working with publicists as productive, with 12 of 17 respondents agreeing that PR people give them “a good amount” of value through their interactions.
At Aartrijk, we view working with the insurance trade media as a triply-good proposition: Pitching story ideas, responding to media requests for information, and providing interviews:
1) Puts a brand and its sources in the insurance trade media in the editorial coverage, where they can be seen and heard by potential business partners, customers and peers.
2) Provides insurance trade media editors and reporters with sources and story ideas they wouldn’t be exposed to otherwise.
3) Adds to the overall level of coverage and awareness of relevant issues, concerns and news in the business-to-business space.
Besides all that, most of us at Aartrijk worked in the insurance trade media in some fashion and continue to contribute articles ourselves to the media. Many of us are writers at heart and we instinctively appreciate what a publication and its reporters are aiming to do: Provide information and a forum for industry discussion. Trade publicity was one of the cornerstone services of Aartrijk when it was formed in 1999. Today it is still a fundamental insurance marketing service we provide and especially appreciate when it works well for our insurance marketing clients.
Editors and reporters made several comments — including, shall we say, constructive comments — about the value they receive in working with publicists with insurance brands:
- “I get good ideas and support from publicists who know the insurance industry, but not often from those who don’t. Extraneous.”
- “On the insurance company PR side, I find value in PR people who share stories about agents who are doing interesting things, or who offer industry trend observations that can become good story ideas.”
- “It’s annoying when they are too aggressive or the opposite: nonresponsive.”
- “… I occasionally encounter PR people who do not read our publication and pitch stories of no interest to our readers.”
To gather ideas about how insurance brands could better serve the insurance trade media, one question was: What is one thing you need or want from insurance sources that you’re not getting? The answers are a trove of insight:
- “Well written press releases with substantive information.”
- “A better understanding of their subject’s role in the insurance environment. You can tell in a second if the PR person has an insurance background or understanding.”
- “Exclusive original content.”
- “More in-depth information and less puffery.”
- “When I’m provided sources by a publicist/PR firm, I rarely have complaints. The firm prepares the source, perhaps by asking for questions in advance. The source has set aside a block of time for our interview, doesn’t put me on hold to take another call, isn’t distracted.”
- “More on-the-ground observations of agents doing great things — the broader I can cast the net for interesting sources, the better. We hate using the same sources again and again!”
- “I hate it that I have to go through PR people to get to many of my insurance industry sources. I’ve begun to put out my first calls to lower level, less-prestigious firms that give me immediate access without making me call a control-freakish PR person first to get “help” with arranging an interview.”
- “Fewer story ideas that are thinly veiled self-promotion.”
- “Good quotes that aren’t manicured with talking points.”
- “I don’t get enough information about topics of interest and concern to our audience of independent property/casualty agency principals and owners. I get way too much extraneous/irrelevant info from the e-mail blasters.”
- “Not in every case, but one of the biggest frustrations and sources of stress in a business in which you have to rely on others to get back to you is the lack of a timely response.”
In a future blog post, I’ll cover “pet peeves” about how PR people work with the insurance trade media — as perceived by editors and reporters.
Posted by Mariane Ceballo on April 17, 2012 · Leave a Comment
While a brand is only as valuable as the time and dollars invested in it, sometimes, the F-word—“free”—is the answer.
Let’s face it: While the market isn’t as soft as it was, the economy is still unstable. Marketing budgets are reflective of the environment and aren’t quite what they used to be.
Typically, the average cost to produce a professional video ranges from $5,000 to $20,000 for two minutes of time. Companies such as GE, Microsoft and others have in-house video studios and a budget to allow for the high price of perfection. But in the insurance industry, we tend to have a little less focus on marketing and drive harder on reducing risk for our customers.
That’s not a bad thing. After all, we’re in the business of mitigating risk but video is a key communication vehicle when delivering your brand message. So, that’s where the F-word can be helpful.
Independent agency owner Chris Paradiso recently invited me to a social marketing session at his office in Stafford Springs, Conn. He demonstrated products such as Animoto, which allows for the easy creation of 30-second video, incorporating photos and footage, at no cost. Chris uses this product to communicate key messages to his clients all year round and his statistics show that his usage has proven successful.
The industrywide Real Time Campaign (www.getrealtime.org and FB page) recently created a free Animoto video to help communicate the news about Real Time Day.
Perhaps you’re a pro with a Flip camera in your hand but you don’t want to invest in video editing software (programs average about $1,000). If that’s the case, check your computer! There’s a very good chance that you already have Windows Movie Maker installed (yes, free). It’s easy to use and allows for the addition of music and other features. YouTube’s editing software has also been enhanced and makes it easy to break your clip into pieces. And, for Apple fans, check out iMovie which is also easy to use and easy on the wallet.
Then there are the F-tools that monitor and grade your website. When’s the last time you checked your page stats or evaluated the usefulness of your site? Hubspot’s Marketing Grader will review your site and return a calculation (100 is the best) within seconds and then provide suggestions deemed to help increase traffic to your site.
Google Analytics when installed (free) will monitor the traffic on each of your pages. You know that page that’s buried three clicks deep? Are people actually visiting it? If not, it’s time for some R&R (revise or remove).
Whether you go free or go pro, be sure you’re in the game. A compelling brand drives a home run every time.
Next Page »
Thousands of main street insurance agents have now joined the early adopters in our industry’s foray into social networking. Social networking is working for some, but not so much for others. Users continue to better understand the significance and impact social networking is having on the way insurance firms connect and interact with customers and prospects. They also are taking advantages of the new opportunities an effective social networking initiative can offer.
