Now don’t forget ot visit us at iWebHound.com …Jack is available via Live Chat several hours a day to offer real time assistance to agents looking for markets and programs.  Come by and say hello or leave him a message! http://www.iwebhound.com/iah/16 

Attention agents: Live chat has returned to our site!  Now  you can ask for real-time help with your searches.  Let the search experts help you maneuver through over 1200 MGA and wholesaler websites and find the markets or programs you need.  Our search is all-inclusive and driven by Google, not advertisers.  No fees, no log ins and no limits!

 

This time, it’s personal. 

Get real-time help on iWebHound.com. 

Jack, our faithful insurance WebHound, is available for a limited time via Live Chat to assist agents as they search thousands of MGA/wholesaler websites for markets and programs on our search engine.  

Drop by and say hello before his time runs out!

The only all inclusive insurance search on the web. No fee, no login, no limits.
 

 

Now you can have fast access to iWebHound.com…just tap the insurance market or program you want to search for into your MSIE tool bar!

By popular demand, we have posted the instructions for adding iWebHound.com to you search provider toolbar on MSIE.  View them here:  Bitly.com/iWeb4Me

Thanks to everyone for adding us! We are honored to be a regular part of your web browsing.

iWebHound.com is the most comprehensive search site for retail agents.  There is nowhere else on the internet that agents can search 1200+ MGA, wholesaler and program administrator websites for markets and programs. 

Don’t try to get results like ours on a standard search engine; you’ll be bombarded with forums, news, articles, and competitors. Don’t be fooled into thinking you are searching every market out there by directory sites…all you are “searching” with them are their own advertiser’s sites. While we do have advertising on our site, the raw results are all-inclusive and unbiased.

All-inclusive is what makes iWebHound.com the best tool for agents.  It’s also what makes us unlike a regular search engine or our competitor’s limited directory sites.  We are licensing Google®’s technology to search the sites we index, but the specialty of the insurance subject matter makes some of our standard protocols a little different than theirs   Keeping this in mind can help you find what you need a lot faster.

Today we offer some tips, based on searches we have observed, user comments and live feedback from focus groups. 

1. Describe what you need in as few terms as possible.  There are many different ways what you are looking for can be written a website. Since the goal of each word in the query string is to further narrow the result, each additional word you use will limit the returns. It could also eliminate a lot of useful resources because it will take the query very literally and look for it exactly.

For example, you may be looking for coverage for a commercial roofer inMichiganwith a high loss ratio.  It is likely a wholesaler or MGA would simply list “commercial roofer” as a product or eligible class on one part of the site. They may address state eligibility and loss history elsewhere on the site or on the apps. As such using just the words “commercial roofer” would yield more results than the words “commercial inMichiganwith losses” strung together. 

More is better when working with an already streamlined search engine…every result is already going to be an MGA or wholesaler.

 2.  Use the refinements on the top of our page.  Frustrated by straight up application pages floating to the top when you want a live website and a person to call? Try the tab marked “Exclude PDF” and drop 80% of them in one shot (or use “Only PDF” or the “Application” tabs if an application is what you need).

For difficult classes like fireworks, there may be a lot of text on sites about how it is not eligible.  Use the “eligible classes” tab to spin the results to the more positive connation.

3.  Lose the quotes, colons, hash marks, ampersands and other search shortcuts. Unlike our parent site, we have already refined results down to what retail agents care about so these search shortcuts do not work on our site.

 4. We do not index carriers, vendors, CE providers or other retailers.  While some of those refinements may come later, our focus now is for you to find what you need to write business.  When you are ready to forge a new carrier relationship or buy a product, other more traditional search engines can be of more assistance. 

We do have a CE directory that is free to use and to any CE provider who asks to be listed.  We currently have nearly 100 online and brick and mortar providers listed with us. 

5. If you are looking for specific information on forms, terms or coverage try our insurance glossary page.  Most MGA/Wholesaler sites don’t catalog this info on their sites unless it is a very common question so you may be disappointed in search results alone.

We hope some of these will help you get even more from the site. Don’t forget if you need assistance you can always ask us directly.  Google may not answer calls or emails but we do!

Hundreds of retail insurance agents visit iWebHound.com daily to search for products they need for their clients. While we are not licensed to sell or transact insurance in any way, we have learned a lot about agents and their habits and successes both through the searches performed at our site and in the course of marketing to and surveying them.

As expected, traffic to the iWebHound.com site has steadily increased in the last 2 months. Retail agents are getting to work on their Q4 renewals and new business proposals and while the overall list of their searches is pretty diverse these days, there were 5 consistent standouts for August and September:

Recycling

Churches

Trucking

Night Clubs

Equipment Rental

We have seen most of those in the top 5 before.  With such high volumes this month we decided to also look at  some of the less popular but more unique and/or seasonal searches like:

Corn Maze

Pumpkin Patches

Haunted House

Way down there at the bottom of the list were some other unpopular searches that we will be talking more about in our next post.  Those searches are the ones that make us realize some agents are still not using this site to its full potential. We’ll be going over making the most of a search (on our site and any other search engine) in more detail and also explaining why some answers just can’t be found here on iWebHound.com. 

Even the things we choose to leave out of  iWebHound.com are all in the interest of better providing you with the service we have promised agents:  the most complete and focused search engine for markets and programs available.  Period.  No mazes or haunted stuff here! See ya’ next time…

What are retail agents looking for? Find it at www.iWebHound.com!

What kind of business are other insurance agencies looking to place?  Every month we analyze and and share the top 5 searches on our iWebHound.com site.  

Here are the Top 5 “most searched” categories for July, 2011: 

1. Recycling

 

2. Hotels

 

3. Environmental Consultants       

 

4. Event Liability 

 

5. Green Industry

 

What are you looking for? Be sure to stop by http://www.iwebhound.com and let Jack help you find it. Jack is the dedicated iWebHound for iWebHound.com, the most complete & focused search engine for P&C retail agents to find markets & programs.

 

Subscribe to this blog by using the link in the upper right corner here so you don’t miss a post.

“You need to be in front of prospects at least 13 times, because when they need your service, and they’re ready to buy, they need to instantaneously think of YOU. To be considered, you have to be on their short list of three possibilities.”

This marketing insight comes to us from our good friends at Insurance Copywriting.com.  I must admit, there are not a lot of blue dogs competing for the “free search engine” business these days, but if there were I could benefit greatly by subscribing to this idea; my business will suffer if I don’t have a plan to stay “top of mind.” 

However, if I were an insurance agent, I’d read their latest post very carefully.  If you are looking for new ways to stay in front of your insurance prospects and be on their short list, click here to read this post.

Eight Ways to Make an Effective Landing Page for your Email Campaign: part two in a series “Landing Pages: what why and how?”

An email campaign or landing page alone won’t seal the deal; it is the conversation afterwards that ultimately wins the business.  For you that might mean a personal visit, a phone call or subsequent personalized email that makes the most sense for a follow up. Whatever the “it” is for you, the landing page is a vital tool in getting what you need to have this opportunity.  Dropping them at the website is risky.  It relies on the reader having the time to spend there, to make the decision your product is right for them on their own and then and the inclination to extract what they need. 

So how do you make a landing page that can keep a prospect around long enough to get what you need? Keep it simple.  Let your web page be the pretty, talkative one and represent your corporate identity on the internet.  Your landing page is the workhorse in the family and should look the part.  There are a eight core components that will make your landing  page effective:  

1.         Stick to the same look and feel as the email ad that was sent and use browser safe fonts and colors.  When dealing with html, fonts and colors do not translate on everyone’s computer the same way, period.  Go for readability and consistency with email ads and the landing page by using the browser friendly choices like those suggested here:

http://webdesign.about.com/od/colorcharts/l/bl_colors.htm

http://www.ampsoft.net/webdesign-l/WindowsMacFonts.html

2.         Get all the vital message information, such as what prospects will gain from you and the request for what you need, in the top of the page at around 300 pixels or higher. Even the most interested readers begin to fade after that.

3. Keep the copy to a single column so readers know where to look and stay with the storyline you want them to hear.

4. Keep navigational links to a minimum, or remove them altogether. This helps keeps readers  focused on giving you what have asked for and makes sure they don’t run out of time—you will only have their attention for a minute or less.

5. Make fill in forms as simple as possible. They are the best way to gather data and a strong indicator of interest, but if you make them too long and no one will follow through.  Long drop down lists can be frustrating too, free form fields are faster for the user.

6. Make the interaction a two way street if possible.  Give visitors something to take away with them in exchange for giving you the information you asked for. Try sending out a case study, , coverage explanations or even just a “thank you” email to them for their efforts.  You may have some of those things at your site, but a personally delivered pdf version will make them feel appreciated and let them know they are dealing with a professional and an individual.

7. Along the same lines, ask them to opt in to whatever you can realistically offer on a regular basis: news letters, renewal alerts, blog posts, event listings and so on. This moment of piqued interest is the best time to position regular future communication. Then be sure to follow through as promised.

8. Eliminate any text not associated with reinforcing the message of the marketing piece or obtaining what you need from the agents.

Landing pages are never a wasted effort.  A serious inquirer will usually find their way to you no matter where you drop them. It is the less committed prospects, who represent a good chunk of business, that need this well defined trajectory to get to you.