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Technology
Darwin 2.0—It's survival of the Web savviest
AgenciesOnline provides an integrated online system that leverages the agency's brand
By Nancy Doucette
You know times have changed when maxims no longer apply. There was a time when the saying, “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got” actually made sense for a lot of agencies. The sales and marketing techniques that agents learned early in their careers at a carrier’s producer school served them well enough. Their agencies prospered.
So what changed? Everything.
Technology might be the greatest influence on the evolution (or devolution) of independent agencies. Like it or not, it affects how agencies interact with their carriers, their clients, and their prospects. Vendors, consultants and association groups have said for years that proper use of technology can improve efficiency and increase productivity—inward facing activities. But it’s only recently that outward facing activities such as marketing have been able to benefit from technology’s cool tools.
Christine Sciola is senior vice president of finance and administration at Appleby & Wyman Insurance Agency, Inc., headquartered in Beverly, Massachusetts. The agency can trace its roots back to 1903, Sciola says, and has kept pace with increasingly more complex technology. “We’ve redone our Web site several times,” she says, “because we keep outgrowing it. As technology advanced, we wanted our Web site to leverage the new capabilities.”
She says the 42-person agency had been relying on local firms for Web site development. Each firm did a fine job, but they lacked insurance expertise, which meant that the agency had to spend time educating the firm on what the Web site should highlight.
In mid-2009, Appleby & Wyman found the insurance expertise they were looking for in a Web site developer. What’s more, that expertise would provide the agency with marketing muscle that would enable the agency to expand its reach beyond its three locations in the greater Boston area.
In Hagerstown, Maryland, F. Christian Wright IV, CIC, CRM, president of Wright-Gardner Insurance says until about a year ago, his agency was “struggling with the shift from ‘old school’ to today’s marketing techniques.” Like Appleby & Wyman, Wright-Gardner has a long history, dating back to 1914. “We didn’t want to fall into the trap of selling a commodity,” Wright says.
At the same time, Wright says he was looking for ways to differentiate his 30-person agency from local competitors and “compete with the big boys that have the resources to invest in the latest online marketing capabilities.”
The solution for both of these agencies was introduced by industry veterans George Nordhaus and Valerie Jordan. Appleby & Wyman Principal Carmen Marciano and Christian Wright each knew Nordhaus from his tenure with IMMS—Insurance Marketing and Management Services. In 2008 Nordhaus left IMMS and joined forces with Val Jordan to form AgenciesOnline (AO), an all-inclusive marketing system for independent agencies.
“Our primary job is to market your agency,” says Jordan who is president of AO. “Member agencies can outsource all their marketing needs to us. We provide Web site development and hosting, content changes and automatic updates, search engine optimization, ‘smart’ quote forms, commercial lines leads, marketing campaigns, monthly e-newsletters, audio postcards…and the list goes on. Everything we do is aimed at helping the member’s bottom line.
“AO customers are ‘members,’” she continues. “You pay one membership fee and you get access to nearly everything AO offers.”
“Each member agency is assigned to one of our marketing specialists,” explains AO Chairman George Nordhaus. “Then every month, we contact the agency at a predetermined time to track progress on any marketing campaigns that are underway, go over Web site analytics, and discuss outstanding projects. AO interacts with members numerous times during the month but we ‘officially’ contact them monthly. This regular consulting call is a valuable part of our service.”
Both Christine Sciola and Christian Wright appreciate the recurring consulting calls. “I have a business degree and an MBA, but I didn’t learn a lot of marketing or creative techniques,” Sciola says with a smile. “We don’t have an in-house brand marketing person, so it’s great to have all the resources available through AgenciesOnline,” she notes.
Wright concurs. “We know insurance, but we don’t necessarily know marketing. Before we began working with AgenciesOnline, Wright-Gardner’s marketing efforts were shared by several of us. I did some, our sales manager did some, and our department managers did some. It took time to create the collateral pieces and even then, there was no consistency. Our follow up wasn’t consistent either.”
Make it personal
Agencies like Appleby & Wyman and Wright-Gardner understand that their Web sites need to reflect their agency’s unique personality. Additionally, the Web sites need to satisfy clients and prospects whenever they’re searching for information. “It’s no longer okay to work from 8 to 5,” asserts Val Jordan. “An agency’s online presence needs to ‘work’ 24/7.”
Jordan says step one is for the AO team to learn about the agency so it can “bring the personality of the agency to cyberspace.” In Wright-Gardner’s case that meant having Wright greet visitors to the site with a video of him sharing some of the agency’s history as well as its service offerings.
As an outgrowth of that, Wright-Gardner offers a combination of videos that were professionally created by AO and the Insurance Information Institute. Topics include business interruption, directors and officers liability, insuring teenage drivers, rental car insurance, dog liability, child-proofing your home, and an introduction to annuities. The videos are brief—only a couple of minutes long—but provide enough information so that a visitor to the site can be a better-informed consumer. In all, there are some 85 of these informational videos available to all AO members.
And more are added each month, which helps with search engine optimization, Jordan points out. Search engines reward sites that regularly add content.
Christine Sciola recalls that she created a four-person, in-house team as Appleby & Wyman began its latest Web site redevelopment effort. Also on the team were IT Manager Paul Hajj, and two of the agency’s Gen X and Gen Y employees: Lindsey Trovato and Melissa Witherspoon. One of the agency’s objectives in updating its site was to reach tech-savvy customers and prospects. The team decided to use brief voiceovers to greet visitors to the various portions of the site and inform them of highlights of those sections.
A growing niche for the agency is flood insurance so Appleby & Wyman repurposed a radio spot they’d made and asked AO to post it at the agency’s new Web site.
Both Wright-Gardner and Appleby & Wyman decided to include a live chat feature at their sites. Mindful of E&O considerations, AO offers a transcript of the live chat session that can be attached to the client file in the agency’s management system.
Focus on marketing
The monthly consulting call for Appleby & Wyman now includes eight team members, Sciola reports. The original four-person team expanded as the agency became more focused on using its new Web site for marketing. The team now includes her dad and agency principal, Carmen; her sister, Lisa Marciano, vice president of operations; Derik Whalen, marketing manager; and Mary Ann Dignan, commercial lines manager.
During the monthly call, part of the discussion focuses on Web site traffic—what pages visitors have spent time on.
Sciola indicates that Appleby & Wyman experiences more visits to specific areas of the Web site that are highlighted in either the personal lines or commercial lines e-newsletters that AO creates and e-mails to customers monthly.
Wright says he and the agency sales manager participate in the monthly consulting calls with AO. “Discussing the analytics helps us evaluate our marketing activities,” he points out. He says that, recently, traffic to the group benefits section of the Web site increased, so the agency is putting more effort into marketing those services. “We’re offering seminars on health care reform and bringing in local politicians to talk about it,” Wright says.
“We announce our upcoming seminars via audio e-mails to clients and prospects. AO provides me a phone number to call and I record the message. AO then attaches it to a mass e-mail piece. When the client or prospect receives the e-mail, they click on the link and I’m speaking to them through the computer. As an independent agency, we don’t have the time or money to try to implement something like that on our own,” Wright says.
Wright says he’s used audio e-mails to alert contractor clients and prospects of changes in the law regarding lead paint disturbance. It’s not a sales message per se, he says; it’s an informational message that basically says: “Did you know this law just passed?…and by the way there is insurance that can protect against this exposure.”
Sciola says Appleby & Wyman is embarking on marketing campaigns that are based on carrier appetites and lines of business where there appears to be good opportunity. “AO offers commercial lines leads,” she points out. “We can ask for a particular SIC code for a certain geographic area. AO will help us market that product, beginning with surface mail pieces.”
AgenciesOnline has created a Sales Leader Program that provides leads for both personal lines and commercial businesses, George Nordhaus explains. Once an agency has previewed the leads, they can be downloaded into the agency management system. From there, AO helps the agency develop a marketing campaign.
“We have proven marketing programs and strategies to help our members both acquire new business and round out existing accounts,” he continues. “And if a member needs a campaign for a niche market, AO will work with the member to develop a customized campaign.”
All campaigns are shared with AO members. “If an agency in Texas develops an oil and gas campaign, a member agency in Pennsylvania can use it too. That’s one of the benefits of membership,” Nordhaus says.
“All our marketing materials are ‘variable copy’ pieces,” Val Jordan explains. “The design is in place but we can swap out pieces of it to fit another member agency’s locale and product preference.”
“AO is constantly bringing new ideas to members, thanks in part to the sharing of information among members,” Christian Wright points out. “It’s like being part of a family of top insurance professionals.”
Next steps
With social media moving onto the radar for many agencies, AO is ready to help its members explore its marketing potential. “We’re offering ‘social media optimization,’” Nordhaus says. “That’s using social media to build more activity at your Web site.”
Wright-Gardner is getting its feet wet via Facebook and LinkedIn, Wright reports. “Every week I post an insurance tip on our LinkedIn site,” he says. “Recently I posted a tip on the steps a person should follow if they become an identity theft victim.”
Sciola says Appleby & Wyman is purposely taking it slow with respect to social media. “The worst thing is to announce we have a Facebook page and then not change it regularly,” she comments. So for now the agency is working on an editorial calendar which will provide a schedule of topics and when they will appear once the agency decides to go live with its Facebook page.
Jordan points out that AO provides “grist for the mill” during the monthly consulting calls. Members can then take that content—perhaps from one of the e-newsletters—and turn it into a message for LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter. “The messages need to be targeted and short,” she explains. “They need to be educational. You don’t want to abuse your ‘fans.’”
“When we started working with AgenciesOnline we believed it was the right thing to do for Appleby & Wyman,” Sciola concludes. “But we didn’t fully understand how great it was going to be. We’re now able to focus on our creative ideas and leave the execution of those ideas to the industry professionals at AO.”
For more information:
AgenciesOnline
Web site: www.agenciesonline.biz
Appleby & Wyman
Web site: www.applebywyman.com
Wright-Gardner
Web site: www.wrightgardner.com |
