According to a recent survey by J.D. Power & Associates over 92% of internet users have used reviews to make a purchase sometime in the last 12 month. That’s pretty much everyone.

Reviews matter.

People don’t have time to waste shopping around or money to lose on a bad service or product. Using the collective experience of a group of people is a great way to speed up your shopping process and avoid getting burned. Why get a referral from one friend with one situation when you can compare the average reviews of 100 people who had 100 different experiences?

Insurance Information Apps for Insurance Agents

Kelly Blue Book

There’s probably a lot of ways to use this app on the job, but one instance where it really comes in handy is when you’re trying to help a client decide whether to purchase collision and comprehensive coverage.  Faster than you could do on kbb.com, this app will give you a value for any car super fast. Bonus tip: take a screenshot of your client’s car value in this app by clicking the home and power buttons at the same time.  Then go to your photos and you can email it to them directly.

Life Foundation

This life insurance needs calculator from the Life Foundation is a great resource for helping a client determine how much they really need to keep their family afloat. There’s nothing here you haven’t seen before, but it’s a good tool from a great organization.  Bonus Tip: Recommend this app to a prospective client before meeting with them – it might put them in the right mindset going into the meeting and you don’t have to worry about them being pitched another company’s policy from the app.

Insurance Discussions

This app is from the guys at Insurance-forums.net and it’s not bad.  Insurance-forums.net is the most active online insurance agent forum and this app does a pretty good job of allowing you to participate like you would on the website.  I’m not a big forum junkie and I don’t personally use this app so if you use it please leave some insights in the comments and I’ll update this section.

Starting an insurance blog is easy.

It’s also quick (which I’ll prove below).

Five minutes from right now you could be the proud owner of your own website with:

• Your domain name (www.yourname.com?)
• The easiest web publishing system.
• And exposure to every insurance buyer on earth.

For under 10 bucks a month.

There are two specific groups of InsuranceSplash readers that would especially benefit from starting their own insurance blog:

Getting your contact information into a client’s cell phone is a huge marketing opportunity for insurance agents.

Clients with your contact info in their phone:

1. Refer you more since they always have your contact info handy.
2. Have a better customer experience since they’ll call you before a small problem becomes a big problem.
3. Buy more lines of insurance because they’ll call you about another coverage before it slips their mind.
4. Have smoother claims because they’ll be able to reach you throughout the claim process if there’s a concern. (especially right after it happens)
5. And they renew more because they feel a closer bond with your agency

The customer’s connection with your agency strengthens each time they see your name in their address book right next to the friends and family!

Hello, It’s John from InsuranceSplash.

And I’m very excited to announce the launch of my latest free marketing tool for insurance agents.

Thought it’d be good to announce it and provide some answers about how it works here on the blog.

Just Wanna Go Try It? Click Here

What is it?

It’s a free online tool that asks questions about your current agency marketing strategy and generates a custom PDF report with ideas, suggestions, and action plans specific to your needs.

I call it the Insurance Agency Marketing Analysis.

I see a lot of insurance agency websites.

Hundreds…

And one thing I pay attention to every time is my first-impression.

Studies show your website has under 3 seconds to form a first impression with visitors.

Insurance agents always ask me for the one most important way to improve their website marketing.

My response is always the same…

“Before you do anything else, install Google Analytics.”

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a 100% free tool for your website that tracks:

1. How many people visited your site
2. How people found your site
3. What people did on your site.
4. And A LOT MORE!

Why Do Insurance Agents Need Google Analytics?

Is your agency optimized for Yelp?

Yelp is a website and mobile phone app used by hundreds of millions of people to review, compare and find local businesses like yours.

If you ignore Yelp, sometime soon a disgruntled customer will write a damning review about your agency and you won’t even know!

It will be the only impression thousands in your community get about your business and will be on the first page of Google for any customer or prospect who searches for your agency!

But it doesn’t have to be that way…

You can actually use Yelp to grow your business and brand by:

The average American spends 50.2 minutes commuting back and forth to work every day. (Source: U.S. Census)

If your commute is typical you’ll waste:

• 4 hours, 11 minutes next week.
• 18 hours, 8 minutes next month. 
• 9 full days, 1 hour, 32 minutes next year!

There’s many things to do while driving (I see them all here in Miami).

Unfortunately, applying eyeshadow, listening to sports talk and chatting on your cell phone will not help you run a better business, sell more insurance, and build a better life for your family.

For the past several years, I’ve been maximizing my car time and my life by turning this wasted time into highly productive time…. How?

Google Places is a free service of Google that lets business owners customize the information about their business that is displayed when local people are searching on Google. Google lets you define your business name, description, hours, photos, videos, and a few other things to help potential clients learn more about your business.