– traditional children’s song

Those who don’t get to Grandmother’s house by horse and sleigh (or airplane, bus, car, or train) are now traveling there via Facebook. They’re going to all kinds of places on the social networking site.

Facebook.com was the most-visited web site on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 2009, and on New Year’s Day 2010, according to data reported by Experian Hitwise. “Facebook” was also the most-searched word in 2010, according to the firm’s most recent statistics.

What does this mean for insurance brands? If the people are there, shouldn’t the insurance brands be there too? Maybe brand decision-makers can use:

– Ads and content to the theme of “Safe travels and secure home brought to you by [carrier name / agency name].”

– Facebook postings of blog content about holiday safety tips, an evergreen (pun intended) topic for TrustedChoice.com and others.

– Reminders about claims service numbers and tips in case of a home mishap or car accident around the holidays.

Researching this blog post, I came to learn that this song, which I’ve always associated with Christmas visits, is actually a Thanksgiving song by Lydia Maria Child published in 1844 written originally as a poem. The poem, titled “A Boy’s Thanksgiving Day,” is based on her childhood memories and mentions visiting her “Grandfather’s” house. I always recalled the lyric as “Grandmother’s house,” not “Grandfather’s.” The author was a novelist, journalist and teacher who wrote extensively about the need to eliminate slavery, according to Wikipedia.

Question: What good social networking content do you use (or see insurance brands using) around the holiday season?

What do agents want from carriers? In the many discussions I have had with agents the answer is, “It depends” and more often than not they are not really sure. Frequent answers include content, leads, and co-funded social marketing programs. Generating good content for their own blogs and social posts is a common concern voiced by many agents. But what type of content do they want from carriers? What can carriers do to really help? For example, are “white labeled” carrier-created articles that agents personalize the best we can do?

Here is what I think. Currently, it is not uncommon to find both parties acting independently and without a clear sense of purpose. Carriers and agents would benefit from the creation and implementation of collaborative social strategy—and implementing such a strategy involves more then just creating content to be shared. One of the first steps would be to identify and agree on the business objectives of their collective social efforts. That is, do they want to increase dialogue and touch points with customers and prospects? Do they want to improve loyalty and reduce “churn?” Do they want to find new customers and write more new business? All of the above?

As I see it, the opportunity here is for agents and carriers to be working in support of each other to provide the consumer with interesting and valuable content—and promote the unique value of the independent agency system. In addition to building online personality and humanizing brands, effective collaboration would require agents and carriers to be watching, listening and monitoring each other. For example, carriers would leverage the local touch points of their agency force by commenting on, re-tweeting and/or sharing posts made by agents.

Clearly, I don’t have all the answers here. I’d like to know what you think and what your experience has been. If you are an agent, what carriers do you think have done a good job in support of your social networking efforts? If you are a carrier, how are you working to help your agents? What is working? What is not?

Today more than ever brand is being defined by consumers and what they think is more important or has more influence than your brand messaging. Interestingly enough, even if you are not engaged in social networking it is having an impact on your brand. In fact, not engaging in social networking may be doing great harm to your brand.

When you search for a business on Google are you more likely to click on and follow-up if the business has a website link? What impression are you leaving with potential customers if they can’t find you on Linkedin or if your profile is poorly done and incomplete? If Facebook and other social sites have replaced the yellow pages, what damage to your brand is taking place if you can’t be found? How do you think consumers feel about an inactive Twitter account or a Facebook page that has not been updated for several months?

Social networking is not a project. Rather, it is about being a social business and has a great deal to say about who you are and what you do.

Are you using the new tools of social networking to help position your brand in a positive way?

At Google Inc.’s Think Mobile event in New York, industry guru Mary Meeker said that the pace and force of mobile growth is unlike anything she has ever seen.” —

Mary Meeker, the leading trumpeter of the Internet in its early days and now a venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, is now saying mobile is growing faster than the Web did.

She’s got her evidence …

• Shipments of smartphones and tablet computers outpaced desktop PCs and notebook PCs in the fourth quarter of 2010, globally.
• Mobile data traffic is forecast to grow by a factor of 26 over the next five years, according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index.
• It took about 10 years for electronic commerce to reach five percent of all US retail sales activity. Meeker posits that mCommerce (mobile commerce) will reach the same level of penetration much faster.
• Desktop Internet units (mostly computers) topped one billion in 2000 after being introduced in the 1980s. Meeker forecasts mobile Internet devices will surpass 10 billion units in less than 10 years.
• Real-time features of social networking such as music sharing and location sharing are accelerating mobile device usage.

Insurance marketers, many of whom are still catching up with social networking (as well as older technology such as Web sites), now face another significant change. Business partners and consumers will be using new mobile technology devices (smartphones, tablet computers, book readers, car-based Web systems) to search, learn, interact and buy.

One insurance marketer catching the wave is Humana, which recently announced new services for a highly mobile consumer demographic where connecting has life-and-death implications: the U.S. military.

Meeker’s conclusion about So/Lo/Mo (social/local/mobile): “It’s going to be a fascinating decade.”

Questions for the insurance pros out there:

1. Are mobile devices insured on a homeowners policy?
2. When an exec loses his or her phone or tablet computer, how would you handle the business interruption claim and/or the identity theft risk?

E-mail added 500 million users in 2010.

An article in Econsultancy.com’s blog reported:

“According to Royal Pingdom, 107 trillion email messages were sent in total last year. That works out to 294bn per day. There were nearly 2bn email users and 3bn email accounts, and the ranks of the emailing grew by nearly 500m. In other words, last year, email grew a Facebook last year.”

Royal Pingdom, a monitoring company, recently posted numbers about e-mail, social media, Web sites, etc.

The bad news: An estimated 90 percent of e-mail messages are considered spam. That points to social networking sites’ big advantage over e-mail: The people who post spam-ish things get un-friended and otherwise shunned.

What place does e-mail still have in marketing communications and branding? It’s changing, I think, but not going away.

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.)

Just showing up on social networking sites does not lead to social networking success. Rather, success comes from a commitment to delivering outstanding service, being a good communicator, implementing smart marketing initiatives, and being comfortable being transparent and authentic.

Note: What I’ve said above isn’t new for independent insurance agents and other insurance brands. Those points have long applied in our business. What is new is that you, as an insurance marketer, now have a whole new set of powerful tools to help you build relationships and grow your business.

The agencies below understand the difference between just using these tools and incorporating them in the the agency culture. They are making the transformation to become “social businesses.”

McClain Insurance Services
Atlanta Insurance Live
Parker Smith Feek

How are you transforming your business?

In this Podcast Doug Pullman, a member of the Parker, Smith & Feek marketing team, describes the planning and process this top 100 broker went through to prepare for their launch into the world of Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and blogging. Doug discusses the very deliberate and measured approach the brokerage took, the importance of getting not only support but participation by senior management, and how success is tied to having a unified and comprehensive strategy.

Doug explains that the agency goal was to use social networking to help customers and prospects build a personal and emotional connection with the broker. They knew that they needed to be where 25% of their customer base was – the social Web. His advice to other agencies wanting to tap into the opportunity the social web offers: Take it slow, learn from others, and add your own voice.

The podcast was published Monday, August 9, 2010. Run time is 21 minutes 11 seconds.

Listen to agency owner Claudia McClain explain why even in today’s social media world success involves more than just putting up a Facebook Fan Page. Claudia explains how her agency has continued to grow and prosper even in this difficult economic time. Her secret – an agency culture built around strong customer service and a blend of traditional marketing and social networking. While the agency has a blog (two actually), a Facebook Fan Page, a LinkedIn account and is on Twitter, it also touches each customer 12 times a year with traditional print media.

The message Claudia drives home is that social networking is not a Silver Bullet to success. Rather, she sees social networking as providing her with a new set of tools that has enabled her to expand the way she communicates with prospects and customers. Yet, the foundation of her success is rooted in traditional marketing principals and practices, and the understanding that building long-lasting trusted relationships not only takes time, but is hard work.

The podcast was published Monday, July 26, 2010. Run time is 27 minutes 26 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.

Texas agent David Berry has used the marketing lessons he learned from his experiences in the captive agency system to find success as an independent agent. Listen as Berry discusses how he uses traditional marketing practices, combined with the new tools of social media, to grow his business.

Berry understands the importance of investing in technology; but more importantly he understands the need to make sure it’s used wisely. He’s committed to building strong relationships and providing great service as he builds his new business, and credits social media as a powerful tool to help him contain costs and expand his reach. Peter and Rick particularly enjoyed listening to Berry speak passionately about the advantages and value of the Independent Agency System.

The podcast was published Monday, July 12, 2010. Run time is 20 minutes 41 seconds.