Internet Marketing

Eat your "failure flakes"

Leverage what didn’t work and prepare to dominate your market online

By Adam DeGraide

Tony Alessandra, president of Insurance Solutions in Mission Viejo, California, is a pioneer in insurance Internet marketing. He told me that all of his earlier failures in Internet marketing weren’t failures at all—they were simply an opportunity for him to eat his “failure flakes.”

Failure flakes, he explained, represent all of the initiatives he has undertaken in his agency, successful or not. He says they showed him one of two things: (1) He’s doing something the right way. Or (2), he learned a way not to do something.

What a great perspective! And for insurance agencies that are thinking of shifting to the Internet as their primary means of marketing and retention, this should tell them that they don’t want to fail.

Just jump in the water and learn to swim. The reality is that if you don’t, you will be left behind as your customers migrate to other agents who are either learning to swim on the Internet or are gold medal swimmers in Internet marketing. In other words, you need to fish where the fish are—not where they were.

Gone are the days of agencies running a full-page ad in the newspaper or phone book and attracting customers who will stay indefinitely. Gone is the ability for a physical location to be the primary driver of growth. Agencies need a Virtual Insurance Office that is open to sell and serve the modern consumer 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The world and your community have moved. They are online, and agencies that embrace this fact will win the battle for the hearts, minds, and business of the modern consumer.

I have spoken with agencies that say things like:

“We tried that and it didn’t work,” or

“We bought leads but we didn’t have much success,” or

“I’ve invested in several Web sites that haven’t really made me money,” or

“I’ve invested in pay per click and e-mail marketing and had limited success,” or

“I can’t see how Facebook or Twitter will make me money,” or

“I’ve bought customer relationship management tools, training, and more—all to no avail!”

Great news. Those failures can bring you closer to success if you don’t quit.

It may be your experience that none of it worked. Does that mean you should stop trying to figure out how it can work? Heavens, no. It just means that you found out a bunch of ways it doesn’t work. Good job!

My business partner, Tim Sawyer, calls failures “tuition.” He says: “You’ve paid your tuition, and now it’s time to find a way to make it work.”

We all know that the Internet is not some passing fad or the next diet trick. It’s not only the future—it’s today.

Think about this. Do you use the Internet on a daily basis? Do you actually spend more time on your computer than just about anywhere else? What makes you think consumers are any different?

Agencies like Duffy Insurance, with several locations in Massachusetts, have made a commitment to make Internet marketing work. They have embraced their past failures and used them to make the changes necessary for them to dominate their market online.

Make a choice

Why are insurance agencies losing customers? Where are all of your customers going? They have moved to the Internet. Have you?

Those agencies that get it and want to be the best at serving the modern consumer will do what it takes to make Internet marketing work for them. Too often agencies start something, fail, and then quit. The best agencies start something, fail, and then get up and get it right.

You have only two choices: You will either choose the first option or the second.

So go for it! Eat your failure flakes. They might taste bad at first, but they can lead to much success if you move from the failures to discovering a system to help you excel as an Internet marketer.

Having done Internet marketing, training, and consulting for 14 years, I can tell you that the one trait that separates the winners from the “also-rans” is tenacity—a refusal to quit in the midst of apparent failures. So don’t just sit there! Start failing and embrace the change that our world has brought upon us. Agencies that don’t believe they can make money on the Internet are in no danger of that ever happening. You must believe and then you must act.

So what does the rest of 2010 look like for your agency? What is your strategy to find, sell, and keep your customers? Do you have a plan? Are you educating your people on how to deal with the modern consumer? If not, when do you think is a good time to start?

The author
Adam DeGraide is a veteran Internet marketer, sales guru, entrepreneur, record producer, and motivational speaker. In 2006 he founded Astonish Results, a digital marketing company, and since then he has been encouraging independent agencies across the country to “Join the Internet marketing revolution, or get left behind!”