Welcome to Our New Site!
March 22, 2010 by Peter van Aartrijk · Leave a Comment
March 19, 2010 by Peter van Aartrijk
We at Aartrijk have been working on our client’s Web sites—using the very new and very cool social networking and site-building tools available. So we thought it was high time we brought a fresh look to our site. Please let me know what you think about it (peter@Aartrijk.com).
As we pause to celebrate 11 years in the branding business, I’d like to say, “Thank you.” It has been an enjoyable ride—even in this stormy sea of an economy. If you don’t know me well, I’m a glass-half-full kinda guy.
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New Wine in New Bottles
July 5, 2009 by Rick Morgan · 1 Comment
Photo Credit - Flickr heardsy
Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved. (Matthew 9:17)
The world of marketing, PR, branding and communication is being transformed. Consumers have rebelled against “push” marketing. They want to be heard when it comes to how you do business. Trusted relationships are more important than ever and control of your brand is in the hands of your customers.
Clearly “old” marketing and media strategy is failing. Social networking to the rescue, right? Not so fast. When it comes to social media it is not enough to engage the tools, build strategy and implement. Rather, success requires a change in culture and in the way in which business is done. Success with social media requires a culture that is customer centric, comfortable with transparency and understands that message and opinion lie primarily outside of their control. That is, success happens when the “new wine” of social media is put in the “new bottle” of a transformed company culture.
Rick Morgan
Are You Saying This?
June 8, 2009 by Rick Morgan · 1 Comment
It’s a fad
I don’t have time for this
It’s not appropriate for business
Show me the ROI
I don’t want my staff wasting company time on this
I am concerned about the E&O exposure
Objections or perhaps more accurately excuses to avoid having to deal with the social networking? Yes, but we have heard it all before.
Earlier today, I was just talking to a friend about the history associated with the use of technology in the insurance agency business. I reminded him that back in the early ’80s when the push was on for agents go become “automated” there was huge resistance. He then recalled how when e-mail was first introduced many agency owners adamantly objected to their staff using it and the objections were even stronger about “surfing ” the web at work.
Yes, there needs to be a corporate strategy. Yes, there needs to be a policy. Yes, there needs to be management and monitoring. Yes, there shoud be best practices guidelines. Yes, Yes, Yes. But lets get past the excuses and begin to reap the rewards that come with smart implementation social networking. The hoola hoop was a fad. The societal and business trends being fueled by the social web are not.
– Rick Morgan
Photo Credit: Flickr DarynBarryWhy Social Networking? “Credibility and Awareness”
May 27, 2009 by Peter van Aartrijk · Leave a Comment
Peter van Aartrijk
I attended a Chamber of Commerce “lunch and learn” in here in Springfield, Virginia recently. The topic was “Social Networking.” They expected 40 to register, which is about what they normally get for these affairs. Surprise! More than 110 showed up—most of whom were Baby Boomers seemingly uncomfortable not knowing what they didn’t know.
A panel included a trade association exec, a bike shop owner, and a local PR guy. One exasperated audience member asked, “How do we live in a world where we don’t do meetings like this anymore? It’s all online—no more face-to-face.” The answer was—and I agree—that people who are most social online also are the most social in person. Nothing has changed there—that’s been going on since we walked the Earth.
In fact, I’m reminded of our parents’ (or was it our grandparents’?) saying that “TV will ruin your eyesight and you’ll never go out anymore.”
The bike shop owner said she walks a fine line when selling her stuff in the social space. She called it “quiet marketing.” The online biker community is huge around the country, and here in Virginia is no exception. She resists the temptation to leverage that community and turn it into a one-way sales barrage. “I don’t say in my posts, ‘We’re having a sale this week’ and remind people every day,” she said. “I post up something to do with biking and at the very end I’ll say something like, ‘…and we just hung up our sale banners here at the bike shop.’
The Chamber event was filled with lawyers, CPAs, local retail shops, consultants—all sorts of folks. “How does this make me money?” one guy asked. The panel’s answer: “Credibility and awareness.” You may not see a direct return, but over time you will build your brand and drive referrals. Let your customers talk about you—it’s more powerful than you talking about you.
I recommended to the Chamber staff leader that she book more of these events, as members clearly need help.
What does online social networking mean for insurance folks? Well, let me take a page from the bike-shop owner and be as understated as I can be: “We at Aartrijk intend to explore these exciting issues ourselves for our friends and clients in the insurance world at Aartrijk Brand Camp Sept. 28-30 2009 in Chicago (www.Aartrijk.com/brandcamp).
You see? In-person events are alive and well…although they’re changing for the better. Come and find out!
- Peter van Aartrijk
Beginner’s Guide to Social Networking in Insurance
April 30, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
Peter van Aartrijk
Check out what might be dubbed a “Beginner’s Guide to Social Networking in Insurance.” It’s an audio podcast published by Insurance Journal featuring Peter van Aartrijk, managing director, and Rick Morgan, senior associate of Aartrijk.
Noted van Aartrijk in the podcast: It’s becoming urgent for independent agency owners to experiment with social networking, if they’re not already. Some agencies are using social networking portals as a way to do business.
“What they [independent agents/brokers] do — dispense advice, solve problems … It’s incredibly important what they do,” commented van Aartrijk in the podcast. “This new social media … is incredibly powerful to really bring to light what they do.”
Check out the podcast, Agency Management Done Right, Episode 2: Social Media, at: http://www.insurancejournal.tv/videos/2434/
The “Agency Management Done Right” audio podcast is hosted by Mitch Dunford of Insurance Journal and explores insurance agency management.
April 30, 2009
Web Site: “Busiest Storefront” for Agencies
Peter van Aartrijk discusses the social Web with Mike Wise of IdeaStar.
Agent Web sites are an agency owner’s “busiest storefront” — or at least they can be.
That’s one of the thoughts that Peter van Aartrijk, managing director of Aartrijk, shared during a recent podcast with Mike Wise of IdeaStar. In one of Mike’s “InsuraTech” audio podcasts, Peter discussed the social Web, agent Web sites, and how they can work together for an agency:
– The social Web is “not something to be feared. It’s something to be leveraged.”
– “You’re either LinkedIn or locked out.”
– “We like to think of the Web site as the busiest office for the agency … their busiest storefront.”
– ”I’m worried about the calls agencies aren’t getting” because their Web sites cannot be found by people who get a word-of-mouth referral to the agency and then search for the agency via a search engine.
– “Convert that knowledge [of dispensing advice to consumers about risk management] … into text on a blog.”
– ”There’s a lot of general information out there. But what we bring to the table is the knowledge of how agents andd brokers and carriers can take advantage” of social networking.
Check out the podcast at: http://tinyurl.com/clmo5.
Or visit: http://blog.insurance-technologies.com/2009/04/insuratech-podcast-episode-28-peter-van-aartrijk-on-agent-websites-a-conundrum/
April 30, 2009