“It’s like a gift card in a big store.”

Recently a client made that statement at the conclusion of a discussion about a new branding initiative for his insurance firm. The client was delighted about having a range of choices in the creative materials we had developed. But he also was a bit torn and forlorn about having to only choose one approach from more than one choice.

Ah, there’s the rub, as Shakespeare once said.

With a marketing budget, or any budget for that matter, insurance brands need to make choices. Examples of some of the age-old choices are:

• Should I develop an email campaign to put my brand back in touch with those new contacts that stopped by the trade show booth recently? Or should I spend the budget to reach out to make a follow-up phone call to prospects we met last year?
• Is it a better idea to write up and design a case study or white paper to send to prospects, or to create a new ad campaign?
• And so on.

In 1960 (around about the time of the setting of the current TV hit MadMen) Jerome McCarthey presented the idea of the “4 Ps” to the marketing world: product, price, place, promotion. Philip Kotler later talked about making marketing decisions in the context of the “4 Cs” of the marketing mix:

• Product = Customer Benefits
• Price = Cost to Customer
• Place = Convenience
• Promotion = Communications

Insurance brands today have another wrinkle in their marketing decision-making. Whether you want to call it a “P” (for personalization or personal contact) or “C” (contact or customer contact or customization), the social Web gives marketers a chance to interact more personally, one-on-one, with prospects and clients. The social web is a new “place” (in McCarthey’s terminology) or a new “convenient” location to meet (in Kotler’s terminology). It’s in the mix.

How do you see insurance brands spending their gift cards, in light of the new choices the social Web provides?

“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.

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.

We had pre-surveyed attendees at Aartrijk Brand Camp. These were agents, brokers, carriers, association executives, media reps, and business partners such as technology firms.

In sum, you have genuine concerns and questions around the impact and application of social media. You are being cautious about stepping into fray.

Here are some top issues you are having with all the excitement behind Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, etc.:

Social media appears to be a time vampire. How do you manage the time you and your people spend with it?

How do you show a return on the effort? One survey respondent said: “While time spent on informing/communicating with fans helps build relationships, does that turn into referrals?” And sales?

We don’t know where or how to start with social media. We need a plan and a budget and somebody in charge—who is that going to be?

The internal battles are brutal. How do we get our management on board? And our legal beagles are putting the kybosh on us branding folks—the IT department isn’t helpful either. One of you said, “The current rule is to run all printed copy past the marketing and legal departments. Social [media] requires a more relaxed, conversational tone to be authentic and trustworthy…[But] it is viewed as more of a risk than an opportunity.”

We’re not sure when we should start! One of you said: “Maybe it’s better not to put a toe in the water until this new frontier matures.”

Who in insurance has gone before us? What are the best practices around building brand awareness with social media? “We need success stories.”

Who is this for? Is social media best for business-to-business? Business-to-consumer? Both? Neither?

Finally, do insurance and financial services play a role at all in social media? Do consumers care about us? We’re not worthy! We’re just not cool enough!

Ah, yes, great questions. Stay tuned for some solutions offered up by Brand Camp attendees.

– Peter van Aartrijk

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

Excellent questions. I attend many industry conferences so I’m sensitive about offering another one.

I can assure you that Brand Camp won’t be yet another meeting.

This event is the only one designed to put in context the impact of social media/social networking on marketing and branding in insurance and financial services. So if you are responsible for formulating and articulating your brand in our industry—agency, broker, carrier, trade association, services provider—then you should come to Brand Camp.

At most conferences, speakers present in a one-way format. Like social networking itself, Brand Camp will be much more engaging, where attendees truly will get involved. We hope to imagine—even create—some new ways our industry can communicate with customers and prospects. This engagement is a more fun way to learn anyway.

You will return home with a solid plan to introduce or enhance your brand in this new social networking world. Brand Camp will be educational, engaging, entertaining and rewarding for the group as well as for individual participants.

Go on, jump into the fray! Check out the Brand Camp Web page.

– Peter van Aartrijk

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

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

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

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