Like most people in business, I had been hearing that using social network sites like Twitter and Facebook was the way to drive more visits to my website. So, in September of 2011 I hired Janette Kotichas , Social Media Advisor to assist me.
She helped me put together a Colorado Affordable Health business page on Facebook, to which she posted on my behalf once a day. She also created a Twitter account for me on which she wrote health insurance related comments at least 10 times daily. Additionally she prevailed upon me to start writing a blog on my website, www.coloradoaffordablehealth.com, twice a week.
The writing of a blog had been something I had thinking about for some time, but never got around to because I did not want to HAVE to come up material on a regular basis. I didn’t know how to set it up and felt it would be drudgery. I also believed that I would not be very good at it. But I agreed anyway.
So, I had my webmaster, Mia Mestdagh of Web Yodel perform the necessary work on my website for me to blog and we were off for a four month trial.
The first thing I found out, to my surprise, was that I enjoyed writing blogs and had no trouble putting together a couple each week. For content I usually thought of the health insurance questions people asked me on a daily basis and answered them. Sometimes I would also forward an interesting piece I had found by someone else, adding my comments. The articles mostly wrote themselves. I added relevant photos to brighten up the text and found that I liked the whole process. So much so that I was soon 10 weeks ahead of schedule in prepared entries!!!
Every once in a while I have included a blog on my personal life, just because I can. I have written on a Rugby tour to Hong Kong, Colorado Peaches, a family war hero for Memorial Day’s entry and others that seemed interesting at the time.
During the four month test, with Janette dutifully churning out the Facebook and Twitter spots, and me piling up the blogs, activity to my health insurance website increased dramatically. The company that hosts my site, Lunarpages, provides a measuring tool which indicated that daily visits increased from about 70 at the start in September to over 200 by the end of December. Truly wonderful results, but I was not directly writing any more health insurance policies because of it.
I inquire of everyone who calls about how they got my contact information. Most people either say that they were referred to me by a friend or that they found me on the Internet. Only one person in these four months said they found me through Facebook. But the increased traffic had boosted my results on all the search engines, like Google, Bing and Yahoo. So that I was now receiving more calls from people who found me when they had typed in something like “health insurance broker Boulder.” In fact I now come up first, or close to it, almost every time on searches by people looking for health insurance in my area.
Based upon the poor results from the work with social media tools, I called time out on those efforts at the end of December 2011. But I have continued blogging, albeit only once a week. As I hoped, visits to my website have continued to grow to the point of now boardering on 300 a day.
My goal has changed from having clients contact me because they came across my information via the various and ever expanding channels of social media, to blogging on interesting subjects (at least to me) that build volume and in turn keep my website high for relevant searches.
I have also started adding additional, and more involved personal blogs such as “My Peace Corps Experience,” “Rugby and Me” or even the one you are reading now. They have nothing to do with health insurance but build volume.
I’ll be interested to find out how many hits this entry receives?
If the health risks associated with the use of tobacco are not enough to get a person to consider stopping, perhaps the monetary penalties will tip the scale. Not only does a tobacco consumer (cigarettes, cigars, pipe, chew, dip, etc.) have to pay for the cost of the product and all the punitive taxes attached to it, but their premiums are significantly “rated-up” when they apply for health insurance.
Because the actuaries that work for health insurance companies well understand that tobacco users are much more likely to require expensive medical treatments than non-users, smokers/chewers are charged more for coverage. Typically a 25 year old tobacco user pays 20% more and at 50 it can be 30% or higher.
In order to qualify as a non-tobacco user you must have gone the previous 12 months without its use. You will also want to be truthful about tobacco use on a health insurance application, because if you are not, your policy may be cancelled just when you need it.
If you are presently insured with a plan that rates you as tobacco user, you can request that this be changed once you have abstained from its use for a minimum of 12 months. You will probably be asked to submit a blood test to prove you have no nicotine in your system.
So, the choice is quit or pay up.
If you’d like to know more about this, please give me a call at 303-541-9533.
I meet in person with the vast majority of my clients, most often in my home-office, but occasionally in their homes as well.
Most health insurance agents never see their clients in person, but rather deal with them over the internet or on the telephone. This has never worked for me for a number of reasons.
* There are some complex concepts involved with health insurance and I have found it difficult making them understood when I am not physically with a person.
* I find most clients prefer having an in-person relationship with their agent; it is a matter of building trust.
* The part about my job that I enjoy most is meeting with clients. One certainly gets to know someone quickly when you are talking about their health insurance.
* Since I am a poor typist, and anything to do with health insurance involves filling out forms, I am able to enter the information by hand on forms when the client is sitting right their next to me.
I am fortunate that my home-office is located in an easy-to-get-to location in downtown Boulder.
Additionally, working with clients out of my home gives me an additional incentive to do a good job for them, THEY ALL KNOW WHERE I LIVE.
My friend Monnie Biety shared the following wonderful story with me:
In May of this year, I spent 2 weeks working in Rwanda. Most of us are familiar with this small African country for 2 reasons, the genocide in 1994 and the mountain gorillas introduced to the world by Dian Fossey. I was lucky enough to visit the gorillas in Volcanoes National Park where Dian Fossey did her research. The park is about 2 ½ hours by car from the capital city of Kigali. It is in a very mountainous and lush area of the country surrounded by dormant volcanoes. The park sits on the border of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In order to visit the gorillas you have to purchase a permit. I was able to purchase one at the last minute only because it wasrainy season. At any other time of year, there is normally a 6 month to 1 year waiting list. In the park there are 20 groups of gorillas, 10 groups are exclusively for research and the other 10 groups receive visitors every day of the year. In total, there are less than 800 mountain gorillas in the world!
Eighty people are allowed to visit the gorillas each day. When you arrive at the park, the rangers divide the visitors up into groups of eight and each group is assigned 3 rangers and 2-3 trackers. You then set off hiking to find your assigned group of gorillas. This sounds like searching for a needle in a haystack but it was all very organized. The trackers locate your assigned group of gorillas early in the morning and then the rangers guide you to their location.
I visited the Agashya group. Agashya is the silverback or mature male and the leader of the group. He weighed 450 pounds. Inthe mountain gorilla world, it is the silverback that holds the group together. There were also 20 adults and adolescents in the group and 6 babies. We found our group busily eating bamboo, their favorite food. We were surrounded by the gorillas; they were up in the bamboo, on the forest floor with us and just going about their daily life. They acknowledged us but we didn’t appear to bother them. The rangers told us that we could not get closer than 7 meters. But luckily, to enhance the experience, the gorillas weren’t aware of that rule. They approached us and moved freely about us. In fact, one ran right into my knee. After you locate your group of gorillas, you are allowed to spend 1 hour with them. It was the most amazing and memorable 1 hour in the bamboo forest, in the middle of Africa, spending time with 27 mountain gorillas roaming freely, gazing at me with soulful, gentle and intelligent eyes and nothing between me and them but bamboo!
My friend Monnie Biety shared the following wonderful story with me:
In May of this year, I spent 2 weeks working in Rwanda. Most of us are familiar with this small African country for 2 reasons, the genocide in 1994 and the mountain gorillas introduced to the world by Dian Fossey. I was lucky enough to visit the gorillas in Volcanoes National Park where Dian Fossey did her research. The park is about 2 ½ hours by car from the capital city of Kigali. It is in a very mountainous and lush area of the country surrounded by dormant volcanoes. The park sits on the border of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In order to visit the gorillas you have to purchase a permit. I was able to purchase one at the last minute only because it wasrainy season. At any other time of year, there is normally a 6 month to 1 year waiting list. In the park there are 20 groups of gorillas, 10 groups are exclusively for research and the other 10 groups receive visitors every day of the year. In total, there are less than 800 mountain gorillas in the world!
Eighty people are allowed to visit the gorillas each day. When you arrive at the park, the rangers divide the visitors up into groups of eight and each group is assigned 3 rangers and 2-3 trackers. You then set off hiking to find your assigned group of gorillas. This sounds like searching for a needle in a haystack but it was all very organized. The trackers locate your assigned group of gorillas early in the morning and then the rangers guide you to their location.
I visited the Agashya group. Agashya is the silverback or mature male and the leader of the group. He weighed 450 pounds. Inthe mountain gorilla world, it is the silverback that holds the group together. There were also 20 adults and adolescents in the group and 6 babies. We found our group busily eating bamboo, their favorite food. We were surrounded by the gorillas; they were up in the bamboo, on the forest floor with us and just going about their daily life. They acknowledged us but we didn’t appear to bother them. The rangers told us that we could not get closer than 7 meters. But luckily, to enhance the experience, the gorillas weren’t aware of that rule. They approached us and moved freely about us. In fact, one ran right into my knee. After you locate your group of gorillas, you are allowed to spend 1 hour with them. It was the most amazing and memorable 1 hour in the bamboo forest, in the middle of Africa, spending time with 27 mountain gorillas roaming freely, gazing at me with soulful, gentle and intelligent eyes and nothing between me and them but bamboo!
Dr. Don SchmidtCanyon Chiropractic Center - Boulder, Colorado
Thank you for saving us money on our health insurance! We really appreciated your willingness to 'hand hold' us through the process. It can be a daunting task to choose from all the available insurance plans out there. You made it almost easy!
Don MartingMartin Auctioneering - Longmont, Colorado
I can't thank you enough for helping me and saving me a significant amount of money. I truly believe that you had my best interest at heart.
