Sun Tzu's Art of War and GEICO^®

Sun Tzu's military treatise, The Art of War, suggested a progressive hierarchy of conflict strategies. The much studied writing on statecraft and military
planning suggests the very last option for battle is the full frontal assault. Attacking your opponent head-on means a lot of casualties for both sides,
and if a victory can be extracted by avoiding losses (particularly your losses), then an alternate strategy should be employed.

In particular, it is always a good idea to avoid direct confrontation with a larger and better equipped opponent; say, for instance, GEICO. GEICO's pervasive and scattershot advertising campaigns² hint at a take all comers approach; that is, they will write auto insurance for pretty much anybody. Saving money and ease of switching are also integral messages in their campaigns. An independent agent promoting the same value proposition is taking a large, formidable opponent on in a full frontal assault.

Saving money, convenience and time-savings resonate with all consumers and should be part of an agency brand message. Agencies should also shore up their ability to meet customer expectation with 24/7 availability starting with their web site services, and if need be, expanding from there. But agency messages to the market place also need to include traditional, independent agency strengths that exploit GEICO's (and other online marketers') vulnerabilities. Here are two ways to do just that.

Testimonials – What Went Missing in My GEICO Policy

Sure, you can get a quote, online, in 15 minutes or less. Sure, it's so easy a cave man can do it. But the needs of most consumers, their lifestyles and what they have at risk have evolved past replacing a trusty club that has been gnawed to a spindle by a Sabre-Toothed Tiger. What insurance agents know, and GEICO's massive advertising budget obscures, is that what is most important is making sure the right things are protected the right way. And maybe not even a cave man could go it alone and get it right.

The agency testimonials we see most often are the 'I saved a bunch of money', or the 'you have been great to work with' variety (the same as GEICO uses). Those are important but what is missing – and agents tell us this happens all the time – is the 'I got my own insurance online…I had no idea what coverage I did not have'. There is a vulnerability to be exploited there, not only by including appropriate testimonials, but also by making sure the 'protecting the right things the right way' part of your value proposition, is heard loud in clear in all your communications to customers and to your market.

GEICO Admits the Value of the 'Middleman'

In many areas of the country, GECIO actually recruits what they pejoratively refer to as 'middlemen' in their advertising. Consider this excerpt, advertising for agent positions, from the careers section of their web site:

"Geico Field Representatives are independent contractors exclusively writing business for Geico… (as a Geico Field Representative) you are the local sales and service representative for GEICO "³

Need we say more? GEICO's hiring of local contractors to act as middlemen belies their advertising to the contrary. They know consumers prefer to have a local advisor help them with their insurance needs. Of course, GEICO's local advisors represent only one company and do not have the flexibility of selecting the right combination of company, product and coverage options to fit individual budgets and risk profiles. Another vulnerability easily exploited by most independent insurance agencies. Viva! The Middleman!

1. GEICO^® is a registered trademark of GEICO an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.

2. Slate, http://www.slate.com/id/2123285/ 07.25.2005

3. http://www.iiaba.net/IAMag/NewsViews/062305.html 06.23.2005

Your Agency Web Site is not an Art Project

We have said this before here and in other places: your insurance agency web site is a business tool and should be constructed (and evaluated) on the basis of business results.

Tools are meant to be used, and not just collect dust on a shelf; so you also need to consider the most appropriate ways for
your independent agency to employ your online tools. Too often though, we let costs and project timelines spiral out of control because we become distracted by the visual possibilities for agency web sites.

Web site aesthetics should accomplish three things: the design and layout of your web site should make you look professional; your agency web site should be consistent and supportive of other marketing collateral and your agency branding; and your site design should help visitors get what they want quickly and easily.

We have all been conditioned by You Tube and are tempted to succumb to the allure of directing our first movie with videos or Flash animation on our agency web site. But You Tube is You Tube, television is television and your agency web site is a business tool. Even GEICO recognizes that and refrains from employing videos or a lot of animation.

Here are a few other web sites that get a lot of use and avoid the use of distracting or slow loading animation or design:

www.verizon.com

www.bankofamerica.com

www.wachovia.com

These companies have budgets plenty large enough to do just about whatever they want with their web sites. But they have not been distracted by the pursuit of Wow! Cool! They have very specific objectives and they employ their web sites in the achievement of those bottom line sales and cost-management goals. You should do the same with your agency web site.

Web Mobility Comes to GEICO

GEICO recently added mobile web pages to their range of access and convenience options.

(See: http://geico.com/about/mobile.htm). Independent insurance agencies need to get ahead of the competition,
instead of just playing catch-up; and this is one area where agencies with sites hosted by Confluency were able to do just that.

Resources:

• Example of an insurance agency website
  


• Example of a mobile insurance agency website.
  (View it on your phone by going to: http://demo.cfluent.com/m
  


• More information on mobile web pages for insurance agency websites
  


• Contact Confluency about your agency website
  


• Send this to a friend

Advertising Alternatives for Your Agency – Paid Web Search

A recently released search marketing survey noted an interesting, but not surprising, correlation between search advertising and natural search. Those companies that engaged in paid search campaigns also saw an increase in web site traffic from traditional search, that is, web site visits coming form keyword searches launched in Google or another search engine.¹

All the search engines, Google, Yahoo, MSN (Live Search) and Ask, etc., provide a paid search alternative. Paid search is really a simple concept. Rather than relying on a search engine to score your web site pages for relevance to a particular search term (organic search), you pay to have your page summary (advertisement) appear in the paid search area, usually on the right hand side of the search results page. You can set your budget for the month and decide what a click is worth to you by bidding on the words you want. This kind of advertising is often called Pay-Per-Click (PPC) since you pay only if your ad is clicked upon.

There are some advantages to PPC over organic search. With PPC the tedious, ongoing, and expensive trial and error approach of page optimization (for search engines) can be minimized. Learning if organic search optimization tactics work often takes months, because the search engines will re-index your web site on their schedule, not on the schedule of your sales campaign. This is true even if you resubmit your site to the search engines.

With PPC you will see your results right away and can increase or decrease spending, suspend the campaign, or make changes to your key words or ad copy. PPC allows you to focus on niche business, specialty coverage or consumer needs. For example, you might bid on words like 'business income insurance', 'special events insurance', 'disaster recovery planning', 'earthquake insurance homeowner', and so on. You can be narrow in your keyword selection and run several campaigns at one time to test keyword combinations.

Just because PPC is a World Wide Web option doesn't mean your search ads need to be viewed by web surfers in Europe. You can easily narrow down your potential viewing audience to cities or regions.

Your search ads will appear in more than just search results, an important aspect for local agencies. Through a feature called contextual placement, your ads can also appear on web sites that permit display of sponsored ads. Most often, the placements are based on a match between site content that displays on a particular page and your chosen ad words.

Launching and managing a campaign takes very little time, there is virtually no up front investment and you have complete control over your spending day-to-day. You will need an effective 'landing page' that will accomplish the goal of your PPC campaign. Simply dropping an ad word clicking visitor off at your agency web site home page won't pay off.

A landing page can be part of your existing web site or a micro web site can be used for PPC purposes. A landing page should contain a call to action that engages the visitor and furthers your agency's objectives. Use landing page for soliciting quotes, permission to review programs and needs or use free PDF guides as a way capture opt-ins for future email marketing campaigns like a prospect newsletter (e.g., http://www.insuranceagencymobileweb.com). Guides with topics like "Managing Insurance Costs", "The Most Common Mistakes in (fill in the blank) Insurance Programs", etc., can be emailed after the site visitor provides some basic contact information (For an example of such a form go to: http://www.insuranceagencymobileweb.com/book.contactus.php).

Because PPC is easy and so affordable, we think all insurance agencies should be at least dabbling in it. In our experience, Google AdWords is the easiest to use and is a good place to start. Google provides excellent how-to documentation on their web site at https://adwords.google.com/select/Login.

1. Source: Marketing Sherpa, Search Marketing 2006 Benchmark Guide

The Old Fashioned Emergency Number and New Technology

Remember the good old days when insurance agents gave out their home phone numbers in case of emergency? There weren't many emergency calls placed to those numbers but the reassurance of knowing the contact option was available was huge and a big selling point for doing business locally. It still is.

Fast forward to 2007 and we find ourselves in an environment where, particularly in a larger town (or on our web sites), we may not be so willing to share our home or cell phone number. Many larger agencies might want to spread the 'on-call' duty around to a rotation of employees. Publishing personal phone numbers for multiple employees is not a good idea in and of it self and comes with the additional challenge of letting insurance agency customers know who is on call at a given moment.

Inexpensive and easy to implement technology provides a way around this. VOIP services and virtual receptionist options allow you to inexpensively set up a special emergency number just for those middle of the night large losses. A web interface is usually provided that allows you to instantly make changes and route calls to any number. Google's Grand Central, currently in beta but available for use and very reliable*, provides similar options and is currently free.

Nobody wants a wake up call in the wee hours but those agencies that promote their emergency number get enormous brand credit for doing so, in exchange for very few sleep interruptions. And the testimonials that result for those infrequent emergency calls can be more compelling than any your insurance agency is likely to receive for any other reason.

Why We Are Different (Flash demo with audio)

Contact Us