We recently came across a well qualified consultant who acts as a telecoach and has very strong insurance industry background.

Check out his blog: www.commonwealthconsulting.wordpress.com

Surveys are one of the most underappreciated marketing tools.

Client surveys show you weak points in your client relationship management. And, the act of conducting a periodic client survey clearly indicates your concern about client satisfaction and how your organization is viewed by prospective, current and past clients. Are they likely to call YOU next time they need services like yours? Refer others to you? Demonstrate their loyalty to you?

We recommend that most firms schedule a client survey at least annually. Plus a sampling of clients at key “moments of truth” e.g., completion of a service phase, initiation of a new service.

Internal (employee) surveys give you a clear picture of how your team members and associates REALLY feel about their relationship to you and your organization. Loyalty? Role and responsibility clarity? Commitment to team goals? Belief that your standards and expectations are challenging yet realistic?

How about your referral sources? Potential referral sources?

Of course, you could hire a consultant to design and conduct the survey for you. It’s usually well worth your investment. But this may be a task you (or a member of your staff) should master using any one of many inexpensive and user friendly software sources. You’ll save many thousands of dollars EACH time you run your survey. And you’ll probably be more likely to conduct your survey more often and in a more timely manner.

Inexpensive on line survey sources include Zoomerang.com and SurveyMonkey.com

You’ve heard it over and over: Almost everyone you know is a potential referral source. But each one of them needs to understand WHY, WHO and HOW they should suggest your services to others.

If you want them to help you, they need for you to help them by making it very simple. Your complex explanation of your wonderful services will just make life more complicated for them. They don’t want to have to figure it out. They want it simple.

Their request is “Give me one good reason I should tell others about you?” (Who should know about you? How do they find you?)

You want to give others a very focused message.

Example: “I help people who have been in an accident get fair treatment and compensation from insurance companies.”

This year consider sending Thanksgiving Cards instead of the traditional holiday cards.

Thanksgiving cards are more likely to be “noticed” and remembered by your clients, prospects and referral base. They arrive before the mass of somewhat faceless cards which most firms receive in December.

I suggest you enclose a letter, talking about the various things you and your staff are “thankful” for and your hopes for the coming year.

Don’t make the mistake of assuming everyone visiting your website will “enter” your site via your home page. Frequenty, they will “land” on an interior page (e.g., www.MySite.com/special.htm in your web browser window).

Therefore, make every page work for you. Focus the PAGE AND CONTENT on the topic targeted for this page. Does your PAGE TITLE focus on the key words? Is the page COPY (BODY TEXT) key word intensive (reflecting the key words relevant to the target topic for this page)?

Does each page repeat your CALLS TO ACTION? Does it indicate your firm’s SIZZLE? LOCATIONS? Ways to easily ACCESS your service?

Remember: Search engines index PAGES not just web sites.

“if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there”.
–The Cheshire Cat, Alice In Wonderland

Keyword research is essential to improve your website ranking. Knowing what “keywords” people use who are looking for services like yours is critical.

Keyword word research will tell you what people are looking for on the various search engines. And what specific terms (search phrases) those people use to search for services like yours. Of course, Google is (by far) the most important search engine. So knowing what people are looking for on Google and what words people are using in Google are what count.

You will use these keywords in many ways to build relevant traffic to your site. More on that later.

Almost anyone can do keyword research. But it’s quite time consuming and most small firms simply don’t have the time to devote to this and other “search engine optimization” tasks.

There are lots of keyword research tools available to you. Some are free. Some are not. Some are great. Most are not. I recommend you consider two: Keyword Discovery and Wordtracker.