But, this article is about the fundamentals of marketing and communications for an insurance agency (or any consumer facing business's marketing). In my opinion, if you can stick to nurturing these fundamentals regularly, then all the advanced and future enhancements will come naturally. It doesn't matter whether the role you play in the agency is Principal, Producer, CSR, Admin or any customer facing role, in more ways than one, these fundamentals should apply to you.

You've probably received great encouragement-- if not downright pressure-to put your business on the Internet. Whether you already have an Internet presence or are merely contemplating one, you should realize that just having a Web site doesn't guarantee that the people you want to reach will actually see it. You may have hung out your shingle, but the Internet customers you seek might be nowhere in sight.

CUSTOMER FOCUS: THE CSR'S ROLE IN VIRTUAL BUSINESS MARKETING by Lori Loomis Although a customer service representative (CSR) is responsible for a variety of tasks in an insurance office, the ...

DO YOU HAVE A GOOGLE PRESENCE? by Bill Cates When someone tells you about a resource (person, store, vendor, service, etc.) do you Google them first? I know I do. When othe...

DOES YOUR WEB SITE HAVE PEOPLE SAYING lsquo;WOW!? by Maribeth Kusmeski These seven questions can help you evaluate the WOW! factor on your Web site: Does your sit...

EIGHT COST-EFFECTIVE WAYS TO MARKET YOUR AGENCY ON THE WEB by Jack Fries Agencies large and small have embraced the Web as a place to have a presence. Fewer, however, have reall...

Are you using video to connect with prospects, clients, referrals, and potential alliances? Did you know that a website...

GOOGLE ADDS SOCIAL NETWORKING TOOL by Steve Anderson Google has released a new service called Google Friend Connect that makes it easy for Web sites to add social networking features tha...

Over the years, I've gathered something of a reputation as being someone who can find just about anything on the Internet. Like the time I helped someone find out the inscription written by Stevie Ray Vaughn on Kenny Wayne Shepard's guitar. There's no secret to finding information on the Internet — all it takes is some basic knowledge, creativity, and a little elbow grease. This article by Bill Wilson will examine some techniques that you can use to search the Internet more effectively.

When I ask agency owners this question I get mixed responses that fall mainly into three categories:

“No, but we have not changed our website in years and need to ASAP and get more traffic

“No. We spent a lot of money and time on a recent redesign, but we are not getting the results we expected.”

“Well, we recently redesigned and we like the look of it, it’s cool, but it doesn’t seem to be working for us in terms of traffic.”

The common theme among all of them is this ROI – “We are not getting great results.”