According to several Internet sources, June 28th is National Insurance Awareness Day. Aside from a couple blog entries making reference to this notable industry date (which is also shared by Paul Bunyan Day), there does not seem to be any person or entity claiming the creative rights to the not-quite-Hallmark holiday.

A simple Google search brings back confirmation of June 28th as National Insurance Day, but the closest explanation from HolidayInsights.com states generically, “…you can be certain that insurance companies had a little something to do with the origination of this day.”

Dig a little deeper and you’ll find a California health insurance agent’s tongue-in-cheek (I think) explanation of how his office celebrates National Insurance Day, which involves lighting a candle and some other celebratory activities. In their own words, “In fact, an exotic dancer is sometimes hired to heighten the festivities, but the dance performed, the ‘Insurance Dance,’ is very protective in nature. Just watching it performed gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling all over.”

Aside from these two posts and a few press releases looking to capitalize on the date, there’s virtually nothing that would make National Insurance Day noteworthy to anyone…until now.

Firstly, anyone who has more information about the origins of National Insurance Awareness Day, please chime in the comments section. Whether you’re an insurance marketing person staking claim to its invention or just an agency that’s celebrated in the past, we’d love to know what ritualistic activities make this day special?

For planning purposes, here are some suggestions to build on for future National Insurance Awareness Day celebrations.

• Offer to shred commercial partner papers and recycle for free in your office
• Sponsor a safe driving course
• Set up a wrecked car outside the agency with a sign, “Are you insured?”
• Get a pizza place to hand out your business card w/ every slice they deliver and offer to promote them for it
• Host an Insurance Awareness Day line dance
• Shoot a humorous video showing how insurance is often overlooked
• Have an agency rounding off contest – whoever adds the most policies, gets a paid day off
• Support a local non-profit that you are passionate about and encourage locals to match
• Dress like an insurance agent day – play up the stereotype, the less stylish the better
• Deliver baked goods or branded schwag  to VIP commercial insurance partners around town
• Host an insurance agency Olympics competition
• Publicly re-enact the some of the oddest insurance claims your agency has ever received
• Donate employees for a “Bring your agent to work day.”
• Do a publicity stunt with a partner or town (fire drill) to draw awareness to insurance
• Bake an Insurance Awareness Day cake
• Give away  “Home/Auto Insurance for a year” to the person who can share the most inspiring insurance story
• Have an insurance awareness scavenger hunt
• Send out a humorous email blast notifying people of the date
• Spend the entire day volunteering to call attention to the fact that insurance agents don’t just sell
• Cover yourself in dollar bills & business cards and carry a megaphone around town inviting people to grab you

With a little creativity and a keen grasp of your community, the ideas are really endless. While it’s a bit late for a throwdown in 2010, our calendars are marked and we look forward to making June 28, 2011 the Insurance Awareness Day that changed the industry…

Special thanks to @Carrie_AGIns and @AlysonDelPaggio for bringing the important date to our attention.

According to a 2010 Pew Research Center study, 61% of adult internet users in America (205 million), “…looked for information or completed a transaction on a government website in the twelve months preceding.”

In sharing this study, SearchEngineLand’s Debra Mastaler signaled a call to action for bloggers and web professionals looking to harness the local and national masses flocking to government websites. How you say?

People visit government websites for many different reasons. There’s the DMV, (un)employment, recreational licenses, social services, tourism, business licenses, issue/policy research, military and endless other forms and information sources. Even on the surface, with the right strategy, it’s not a stretch to make insurance marketing parallels.

To be clear, this is not a “get rich quick” strategy, in fact, it is quite the opposite. Leveraging a government website’s search engine traffic takes a balanced effort of optimizing links to the government sites, titles, content and making it readable and interesting enough to inspire people to share.

Look for hot-button issues and take a neutral but informative insurance-related stance. If you sell health insurance, optimize for the public health provider (in Rhode Island, its RIte Care) and be there to help people who are no longer covered. People seeking DMV forms need insurance. Business owners seeking licenses need insurance.

Insurance agencies that are situated in active hunting communities may consider Outdoor Insurance options to rank up with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Be creative and use your own online government experiences as inspiration.

As mentioned, this strategy takes a commitment, but the potential “sticky link bait” created by leveraging government websites can prove to be a source of organic internet leads for the long haul.

An insurance agency, or any business for that matter, is only as socially savvy as the person making the status updates, tweets and blog entries. Ryan Hanley, an independent agent from New York recently highlighted the importance of personal branding in an interview with Rick Morgan and Peter Van Aartrijk on Insurance Journal ‘s May 24, “On Point” podcast, It’s No Longer an Experiment.

In the interview, Hanley states, “Most of the time when people buy insurance, they aren’t buying the agency name, they’re buying the producer, that’s who they trust and who comes to sit in their office…I wanted to brand myself as someone who is there for the relationship, to teach, to be able to connect people and all the things that a producer should be able to do in this online format.”

We touched on the importance of trust in a previous post (Are you an agent of trust?) and there’s no doubt trust is at the foundation of a loyal agent – customer relationship. For the purposes of this post, however, we’ll discuss how social networking, blogging and other online activities can contribute to an individual agent rising above the agency they represent to become an insurance resource and better producer.

Coincidentally, a day after the On Point interview went live, a blog post from respected blogger and current Chief Branding Officer for Outspoken Media, Lisa Barone appeared on BruceClay.com, How to Build Your Brand Working For Someone Else. While not insurance-industry specific, the post highlights five areas where companies will benefit from having a strong individual brand working within the marketing infrastructure:

• When there’s more interest in you, there’s more interest in the company as a whole.
• Your personal success and connections can be leveraged by the company you work for.
• You become a more efficient worker thanks to quicker access to information and contacts via your network.
• A company with two (or three. Or four!) A-listers is more interesting and worth more than a company with 1 A-lister.
• Today’s market place is social. Users want to connect with people, not logos.

Understandably, many insurance agency owners are nervous putting individuals ahead of the business as a marketable commodity. Fortunately, as more owners learn to embrace the social web, the value of a web-savvy networker (or two) will be seen as increasingly important to marketing efforts for all the reasons listed above. Furthermore, it provides a carrot on a stick for the industry to dangle in front of young, web-savvy talent, something the insurance industry lacks.

Owners may also take comfort in knowing that social media users don’t need to be the end-all, be-all marketing mavens writing blog entries, producing Youtube videos, managing the Facebook page and handling every aspect of a social media insurance marketing program. Sometimes it’s better if they’re NOT. According to Ms. Barone:

“Whoever you are, you have some skill that no one else in the organization has and something that you can use to build a name and provide value back to the company. Figure out what that thing is and change how you work to leverage the hell out of it.”

We can’t all be Pulitzer winning writers or Don King-sized personalities, but we can all take what and who we know and turn it into something useful for our employers.  The ability to build and nurture our web presence into a more supportive online community is what lies at the heart of the social media ROI debate.  Followers, comments and visitors are useful metrics, but can the value of relationships be quantified?

The answer, not easily; and the most experienced social media practitioners will tell you, it’s all about relationships and conversations, not sites, tools or technology. Relationships can’t be built with agency logos, signs or front doors. Brand ambassadors need to be personalities that teach, connect and collaborate in such a way that the agency benefits just by being the employer.

“Your personal brand is a promise to your clients… a promise of quality, consistency, competency, and reliability.” Jason Hartman

We looked at State Farm’s efforts with the cultural and musical force OK Go and the exploits of Nationwide’s Greatest Spokesperson in the World Ever, today we explore the social media efforts of another insurance provider, The Hartford.

At 200 years young, The Hartford recently celebrated its bicentennial anniversary with good news from the Change Sciences Group who awarded the insurer it’s top auto insurance website rating for: ease-of-use, content quality and persuasiveness. With a clear understanding of website design and functionality, would the social media stand up?

The company behind the stag currently manages corporate Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Youtube accounts (although the Youtube link isn’t shown on the website home page, hint hint). Without a marquee spokesperson or marketing icon to build a campaign around, The Hartford runs a balanced social media program focused on charitable endeavors, company announcements, education and company history.

The closest thing to a figurehead would have to be Dr. Bob Froehlich, senior managing director of The Hartford Mutual Funds who dishes out “Market Commentary” on a blog-like page housed on the main website and promoted on Facebook and elsewhere. Surprisingly, I couldn’t find an official company blog.

One area that gets considerable social media attention is The Hartford’s eco-conscious efforts. In pushing for paperless billing, the company forged a relationship with the Arbor Day Foundation, planting 200 trees at eight different offices on Arbor Day 2010. More than just a one-day campaign, the company issued a press release in April stating the following

“Through The Hartford’s Project Re-Leaf, the company will make a donation to the Arbor Day Foundation to plant a tree for each customer who opts for paperless delivery of their group benefits bill or mutual fund statement…The Hartford has pledged a minimum donation of $10,000 to the Arbor Day Foundation, which will plant 10,000 trees in our nation’s forests. These trees will be planted in a forest that has been devastated recently by wildfire, insects or disease.”

Overall, The Hartford is still playing catching up with other industry players in terms of social media following and presences, but their sense of corporate responsibility, commitment to education and a rich history of serving customers for two centuries drive their program forward as a strong branding tool.

Insurance agencies should leverage the efforts of their providers for content ideas and community building. If you don’t have $100K to donate to a charity, talk about the fact that you represent a company that does. And if there are no social media efforts being made, encourage the provider’s insurance marketing representatives to get cracking on some sort of social media agenda.

(For more information on The Hartford and their 200th birthday, check out this post offered by Laura Toops, Editor of American Agent and Broker, Hartford at 200 and the importance of agents.)

Recently, my co-worker at Astonish Results, code-named “The Zenmaster” for his unflappability in leading the SEM department, shared a valuable acronym that returned some interesting results from Google’s image search.

The meaning relates to a critical component of office life in any industry…email.

DDDD stands for Delegate, Delete, Delay or Do. Whether plowing through a flooded inbox or one-offing as they come in, the four Ds force an immediate action, even if that action is not taking action until later.

Efficient inbox management skills are increasingly important in the insurance industry, as many agencies are just starting to dabble in email and online marketing. Very few people prefer slow service, so a quick reply “Do” can often mean the difference between a hot or cold lead.

Aside from the importance of an immediate “Do,” the four Ds are relevant because of the never-ending battle of being busy versus productive, a paradox discussed in depth by dozens of blogs and time management self-help sites. Furthermore, I love DDDD because it enhances the decisiveness in other areas of life and business.

Pontificators are already predicting the demise of email since Twitter, Skype, G-chat and Facebook IM are more efficient means of communication, but email is not going the way of the carrier pigeon quite yet.