We invite you to follow Brand Camp updates on LinkedIn, Aartrijk’s Facebook page, Twitter (@Aartrijk) using hashtag #ABC2010, and Aartrijk’s blog.

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.)

Too often agency principals find themselves facing a forced sale as a result of not having a proper perpetuation plan. In this podcast, MarshBerry president John Wepler discusses the many difficult and “uncomfortable” decisions required of an owner seeking to properly–and profitably–perpetuate the firm. Listen to this frank conversation as John offers some good news: It is never too late to start to implement a perpetuation strategy but it takes a “burn the ships” commitment. That is, once you start down the path there is no turning back. Get some good ideas for your firm from one of the industry’s best-known management consultant.

The podcast was published Monday, August 23, 2010. Run time is 25 minutes 43 seconds.

Pat Alexander, founder of InsuranceEcosystem.com

The Aartrijk team is pleased to welcome — for the first time — guest bloggers from in and around the insurance industry, starting this month.

To kick off this occasional series, we welcome Pat Alexander, founder of industry blog InsuranceEcosystem.com and a Brand Camp 2009 alumna.

About Pat: In 2009, she launched InsuranceEcosystem.com as a resource for the insurance industry and a way to spark more conversation about her areas of expertise in independent agencies, coaching and technology. She describes Insurance Ecosystem as a blog that “provide[s] you with communicators that don’t normally blog but have great views and information to share. Each of these individuals … [has] so much to contribute in their area of expertise.”

1. What has happened in the past year with your firm now in the area of branding? What changes or initiatives have you been working on?

After Aartrijk Brand Camp 2009, I developed a plan to redesign my primary Web site, PatAlexander.com, and give it a fresh look and to develop a blog where individuals of interest to insurance agents could blog regularly or at their whim. Developing this blog included developing a brand for it as well as an audience.

Often watching and listening is a great way to learn how the various social networking tools can work for you. I also follow a number of non-insurance industry social networking “gurus.” One of my favorite is Amber Naslund of Brass Tack Thinking. Amber is director of community for Radian6. Smart young lady providing great thoughts and tools.

4. Now a word from our sponsor. Tell us one thing that you learned at Aartrijk Brand Camp 2009, and how you have implemented it or changed your branding since then.

At Brand Camp 2009, I learned so much about the importance of brand. I have always told agencies that I work with it is important that everyone in the agency delivers the same message about the agency.

I now believe that the brand and message are inseparable. I developed a presentation, specific to insurance agents, on the importance of brand and social media. From this presentation, I have gained a couple of clients, and I am assisting them in developing and implementing their social media plan.

The focus is on providing their clients and prospects with useful and informative information. We develop what they want their brand and message to be — and carry that through the tools that they choose to use.

Pat Alexander’s Web site also has a great resource: a list of industry blogs and other relevant blogs. Follow Pat on Twitter.

Three years ago, when the Real Time/Download Campaign launched, Aartrijk staffers, in our Campaign communication leadership roles, fielded a range of Campaign Web site visitor queries, such as: “How much is this Real Time software you’re selling?” and “Where can I buy your Real Time product?” We’d explain that we weren’t selling anything and that Real Time was actually available in existing agency systems.

Today, we rarely get such questions. Most property and casualty insurance professionals understand that Real Time is a workflow—it’s the ability to click on a button from a client file in an agency management system or comparative rater and get immediate access to carrier info on that client. They recognize Eddie, the Campaign’s mascot, as a the friend of improved workflows and profitability. And they know how to access Real Time in their systems.

More than that, they’re implementing. Vendors report marked growth in Real Time transactions. And our 2010 survey of independent agents and brokers showed that more than two-thirds of respondents use Real Time—up 30% from a year earlier.

What’s changed? As part of the Campaign, industry leaders engaged in activities to boost recognition of Real Time and its benefits. Through strategic implementation of focused advertising (PDF file), media placements, Web site content development, events—online and in-person, and other foundational marketing communication, the Campaign made the case for Real Time. It was a good case, too, for a good product.

At the same time, carriers and vendors built out capabilities, increased availability and refined functionality. Plus, they instituted direct sales and educational activities of their own—often using Campaign materials and initiatives as a hook. Those realizing greatest success capitalized on the complementary nature of branding and sales. This integrated approach delivered better results.

That’s a lesson we all should keep in mind. Branding and marketing communications do well generating awareness and readying buyers. But without sales efforts to build on this, it’s easy to fall short. By the same token, without a marketing and branding strategy, those on the front line face an uphill battle turning prospects into buyers—or in this case, users. Integration is key.

Another lesson has to do with the product that is being branded. Believe it or not, it was 25 years ago that Coca Cola spent millions (probably lots of millions) of dollars to promote its new product. The price being paid on the black market—$30 a case—for the old product proved the public didn’t want to change.

Our industry has experienced similar situations. Who remembers “Paper Free in ’83” and “Elect SECMI in November?” Each represented a visionary approach to improving agency workflows. And each was ahead of its time. In both cases, the underlying product was not ready.

If you promote something the public isn’t ready for or is in some other way flawed, it won’t get implemented. That’s not the case with Real Time. The model is good. It works. Agents and brokers and their business partners are taking it seriously. More and more carriers and vendors are offering increased functionality. And more and more agents and brokers are making Real Time a habit.

“On Point, with Peter van Aartrijk and Rick Morgan” is an audio conversation with insurance industry leaders who champion change and challenge all of us to think.

This podcast is an interview with Sharon Emek, President and CEO of WAHVE.

Listen to Sharon as she shares here vision for this new company with Rick and Peter.

“The definition of retirement has changed. Consider two trends:

1) People who are “retired” from the insurance industry in the traditional sense (no longer going to an agency or a carrier to work in a management or professional position) still want to work, but under different working arrangements.

2) Those who are hiring in our industry now consider “retirees” as a prime market to fulfill their demand for a quality workforce for their businesses.

Matching up vintage workers (those people who have left the traditional workforce but want to work from their homes) with hiring managers is what this innovative new company is all about. The acronym “WAHVE” reflects the focus in placing “Work-At-Home Vintage Employees” with insurance organizations such as independent agencies.

As an insurance producer, I came to learn how vital agency staff people are to selling and servicing insurance clients. As an agency principal, I came to appreciate how precious quality performers are to running an insurance agency. Now, as the founder and CEO of WAHVE, I’m pleased that we can offer employees and principals the only remote domestic staffing option for insurance agents and brokers.” – Sharon Emek

The podcast was published Friday, June 4, 2010. Run time is 22 minutes 6 seconds.

“On Point, with Peter van Aartrijk and Rick Morgan” is an audio conversation with insurance industry leaders who champion change and challenge all of us to think.

Ryan Hanley, is an independent agent with the Guilderland Agency in Albany, NY.

Just two short years ago Ryan started his insurance career and at the same time started to “dabble” with the social Web. While the agency wasn’t yet ready to jump “head first” into social networking they gave Ryan the freedom to do so.

Being new to the industry he started researching insurance issues, and then writing about his experience on his new blog, Albany Insurance Professional. Ryan also set up Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn accounts.

Has it been a valuable and profitable experience? According to Ryan, “social networking is how he builds and strengthens relationships and generates new business – it is no longer an experiment.”

Listen to Ryan as he shares his experiences with Rick and Peter.

The podcast was published Monday, May 24, 2010. Run time is 24 minutes 7 seconds.

“On Point, with Peter van Aartrijk and Rick Morgan” is an audio conversation with insurance industry leaders who champion change and challenge all of us to think.

Linda Rey is a second-generation agent and owner of Rey Insurance in Sleepy Hollow, New York. Frank Rey founded the agency in 1978 to serve bilingual clients in the local community.

Linda discusses how she has incorporated the use of social media into the agency’s marketing strategy. For Linda, it was an “effective way to be present, visible, and increase awareness and exposure.”

This agency has made very effective use of video to put a human touch and project personality on their website. Linda states, “it is OK to show personality – it isn’t always about business.”

While it is important to have a solid strategy, Linda feels that having fun and enjoying what you are doing are keys to being successful an benefiting from the use of social networking.

You can also follow Linda Rey and Rey Insurance on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

The podcast was published Monday, May 10, 2010. Run time is 20 minutes 9 seconds.

At a time when people are skittish on the economy, it’s great to hang out with folks who are bullish.

One of my favorites is Charlie McShane, and his company is State Auto, based out of Columbus, Ohio.

Recently Maureen Wall Bentley, our executive vice president of brand strategy, and I attended Charlie’s grand opening of State Auto’s new Hunt Valley, Maryland offices, just north of Baltimore. Charlie is the company’s eastern regional president—he actually founded the region for State Auto and was the only employee there a few years ago. (In case you don’t recognize Charlie, he’s the big man on campus in the center of the photo.)

Charlie and staff were joined at the opening by State Auto’s senior leadership team, including CEO Bob Restrepo. The firm is an Aartrijk client, and this beautiful new office is yet another sign of how this super-regional company is optimistically positioning for growth.

Office openings are a milestone, sure. But for me, this one is more about people than real estate. I’ve known Charlie for 20 years. He has moved around in that time as P-C carriers consolidated and evolved. When I first met him, he evoked the quintessential “company field man,” working with independent agents on their local level. As I got to know him, I saw all his qualities—honesty, professionalism, knowledgeable, caring, and a great sense of humor—are why folks such as Charlie are not only incredibly valuable in leadership roles, they are rare people, period.

On behalf of Aartrijk, I’d like to extend my congratulations and best wishes to my friend Charlie, the folks working in the new eastern regional offices, and all our friends at State Auto. Good luck, guys!

Peter van Aartrijk

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.

Last week was a great week. I spent three days in Chicago with some of the best people I’ve ever met.

Where was I??? At Brand Camp. What’s that you ask? It was a conference put on by Aartrijk to explore the world of social media and its impact on insurance branding.

Sure, I learned a lot about how social media can be utilized effectively, how to “Tweet” and how important blogging can be. But what really struck me was the energy of the group. The people who attended were really excited about the prospects, willing to learn and energized about their agencies. It’s probably the first time I didn’t get a sense of “quiet desperation” about the future of the independent agent and the power of the direct writers.

• I learned that independent agents have some huge opportunities because their business is based on building and maintaining relationships–a perfect match for social networking.
• I learned that there are some amazing young agents and their staff that have great new ideas to reach “Generation Y,” and that they should be listened to.
• I learned that the agents that adopt this new way of marketing and sales will be the ones to succeed.
• I learned that listening is as important as talking, whether it’s face-to-face or on the Web.
• I learned that being open to new ideas and new ways of doing business is critical to long-term growth.

Yes, we did discuss how to find “fans” on Facebook and “followers” on Twitter. We talked about effective Web site design. We talked about search engine optimization. But they were secondary to the new attitude that was circulating in the room. I wish we could capture that and sell it over the Internet!

– Laurie Donohue, vice president, I-Marketing Management (a partner firm of Aartrijk)

Visit I-Marketing Management: http://www.imarketingmanagement.com.

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