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Monday October 25, 2010

First up are the “Do It Now” sessions at 3:30 pm Central Daylight Time (CDT). Bring your problems, dreams, aspirations (large or small). Brand Campers, Counselors, and outside speakers will help you, on the spot. It’s a chance to create or fix key items for your brand. Then comes the welcome reception.

Tuesday, October 26

The first full day of Brand Camp (Tuesday, Oct. 26) kicks off with a cold-eyed look at the financial Value of Brand by Hales & Co., focusing on research on independent insurance agencies. Then the interactive part of Brand Camp kicks off in earnest (to continue for the rest of camp).

Then we launch full force into the tools, tactics, and topics relevant right now for insurance branding with a panel discussion Your Brand Transformed, featuring Aartrijk’s team of Brand Camp Counselors. We’ll poke and prod about what is happening in the marketplace of brands, using experience and observations from inside and outside the insurance industry.

Next up is Brand Audit: The Big ‘A-Ha Moment.’ This session presents what a brand audit entails and why it’s a plus for moving a brand forward. Counselors Aaron Moore and Andrea Campbell describe what a brand audit entails and how it helps move a brand forward. Counselors Aaron Moore and Andrea Campbell focus on the image assessment portion of the brand audit, show a case study and take questions.

The big event at Brand Camp is The Integrated Marketing Challenge. It’s experiential learning, especially for Brand Campers who are dealing with insurance branding issues everyday. Attendee teams compete à la The Apprentice in this hands-on exercise. The Integrated Marketing Challenge engages Campers as teams to develop a strategy to resolve a specific marketing problem or opportunity.

On Monday afternoon, Campers switch gears to look ahead for a panel discussion called What’s Next? This focuses on mobile applications, geolocation, video blogging and other new and emerging trends.

Let’s Get This Straight: Internal Brand Alignment looks at how brands work inside an organization. How do you achieve internal brand alignment with leaders, employees and other stakeholders (including the cynics)?

Brand Camp requires fun, good food and enjoyment. That tradition begun in 2009 continues with a day-ending Networking Event: Do the (Max’s Wine) Dive.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Day 2 of Brand Camp kicks off with a special session featuring agent branding. Social Networking: Now What? covers: Bringing in new business, B2B vs. B2C, strategies to make it work, blogging vis a vis Web site vis a vis Facebook/LinkedIn. Panelists are noted bloggers Chris Jordan, Atlanta Insurance Live, and Ryan Hanley, Albany Insurance Professional.

Brand Camp teams make their Interactive Marketing Challenge Presentations. While the winning team takes home a special prize, everyone takes home more knowledge and experience to make their brands more productive.

(After Brand, by invitation only, a luncheon event is open to Assurex Global attendees.)

So, how does a large independent agency with multiple offices approach new marketing and communications opportunities on the social Web? They apply it first inside their own firm.

Peter and Rick spoke with two representatives in IT and communications at a forward-thinking independent agency, Holmes Murphy Insurance. Based in Des Moines, Holmes Murphy has 13 offices in 11 states, 500 employees, and 77 years in the market.

Cindy Adams and Lori Tapscott have taken the agency on a “very deliberate path” with social media. Lori and Cindy were part of a team that looked at social media and educated each other and established a policy.

The pair wanted Holmes Murphy to maintain a culture of collaboration on the agency’s Intranet. Each division in this large firm has specialty groups, and the key was to allow the communities to get together. The agency also uses an RSS feed and monthly newsletter, and keeps a presence on Facebook and Twitter. It also hosts video for testimonials and niche marketing.

Cindy was a contributor to the Agents Council for Technology policy guide for her fellow independent agencies as they go down the social media path.

The podcast was published Tuesday, April 13, 2010. Run time is 21 minutes 17 seconds.

Liz also stressed how important it is to be consistent. That is, it is better to publish one post a week than to do five posts in one week and then wait several weeks until the next post.

Liz also reminded us that what is unique about each of our blogs is us. Being ourselves is what distinguishes us from all the rest of the content on the Web.

Agent bloggers Cindy Donaldson from Founders Group, Nibby Priest from Vaughn Insurance and and Kristin Rielly from Irwin Siegel Agency also shared some valuable pointers they use in writing their blogs. So too did Laura Toops, editor of American Agent and Broker magazine and creator of the Agent for Change blog on the magazine’s Web site. For example, they suggested keeping posts short and to the point and writing about topics that are of general interest and not just about insurance..

If you are interested in starting a blog or becoming a better blogger I would recommend visiting the blogs highlighted above. Watching what others are doing is great way to learn. Another valuable resource I have found helpful is the ProBlogger Blog.

If you have a blog, what ideas and/or tips do you have to share?

– Rick Morgan

Follow Aartrijk on Twitter: @Aartrijk. Follow Brand Camp conversation on Twitter using hashtag #ABC09.