Update News for January 2012
Here is a quick run-down on what you will find in this bulletin:
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Happy New Year
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The Importance Of FREE Zip Codes
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Three Ways To Earn FREE Zip Codes
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www.term4sale.com – Revamped Web Site
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Here’s A Gift For Internet Quote Subscribers
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Term4Sale Paid Listings For 2012
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Term4Sale Lead Exchange
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Term4Sale Advertising Campaign
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Domain Names For Sale
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What’s Next?
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These topics will be dealt with in more detail throughout this bulletin.
With that in mind we would like to wish you a Happy and Prosperous New Year. We resolve to work hard to help make that a reality for you. A former employer in my youth told me that if I took care of my clients, my pocket book would take care of itself. He was right.
In addition to the FREE Home Zip Code, most subscribers are then given another one or two FREE Zip codes listings. If you have purchased the Personal Use edition you get one additional FREE code and if you purchase the Standard License you get two additional FREE codes.
FREE zip codes can displace paid listings.
To undertand the hierarchy and importance, there are three types of zip code listings:
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- 1. FREE Home Zip Code
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- 2. FREE Zip Code
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- 3. Paid Listings
Example: A FREE zip code(2) can be displaced by a FREE Home Zip Code(1). Suppose that there are 3 people already listed in a particular zip code. Two have FREE Home Zip Code listings, and the other is a FREE Zip Code listing. You decide to select that zip code as your Home Zip Code. Your Home Zip Code will displace the FREE Zip Code. In the same way, FREE Zip Codes can displace paid zip code listings.
Background: When a consumer visits www.term4sale.com, and obtains a list of agents in their zip code, Compulife provides 3 unique agent listing for each request. That means that there is a MAXIMUM of three agents that we allow to be listed in any one particular zip code.
NOTE: If a zip code has less then three agents listed, we search nearby zip codes until we obtain a complete list of the 3 closest agents. Consumers are always given the names of three different agents.
In addition to FREE zip codes, subscribers (not Term4sale – Agent Edition users) can purchase additional zip codes for $1 per month, paid annually to the end of the calendar year. Paid listing are ONLY available in zip codes where 3 agents are not already listed. If 3 are already listed you cannot buy your way into that zip code; it is full.
To determine the “lay of the land” you can use the Zip Code Analyzer. Enter in the zip code that you are interested in and the site will give you a list of zip codes. Each zip code will show how many subscribers are already listed. You will also find additional useful information about the size and prosperity of the zip code.
The point is to emphasize that FREE zip code listings trump paid listings. If you have a FREE Zip Code you can get into a full zip code where at least one of the three listings is only a paid listing. The FREE Zip Code lets you displace one of the paid listings. It is the only way you can get into a full zip code.
So, at the very least, a FREE zip code is worth $12 per year. In addition, it has this important option attached to it, which allows you to use the code where a paid listing may not be available. That makes it much more valuable that $12 per year.
The reason we are reviewing this is that there are now NEW WAYS to add additional FREE Zip Codes to your account.
Apart from raising prices, something we had not done for years (and have no plans to do), the way for Compulife to grow is to increase the number of subscribers and/or services that they purchase.
Adding new subscribers is the most valuable way for us to grow. Further, and in case you missed it, the overall life agent community is an aging demographic. More and more agents will be retiring and we need new blood just to maintain our existing base.
Now we realize most subscribers don’t like to refer other agents due to the competitive advantage which Compulife provides. Most subscribers would like to be the only person using Compulife when competing. Therefore, to induce you to refer new subscribers, we are sweetening the referral compensation/benefit.
If you refer a new subscriber to Compulife, we will give you a FREE zip code listing until the end of 2014. That’s a simple monetary value of $36, but because it is a FREE zip code, it has the priority to bump paid listings. Is there a zip code you’d like to be in, but can’t get into because it already has three others listed? Here’s you chance. Send us a new subscriber, and you’re in.
Referrals are easy to make. Go here and fill in the form:
So if you would like more FREE Zip Code listings at Compulife, I would get busy ordering 30 Day Free Trials for all your insurance colleagues. 4 months later we can review your referrals and see who or if they bought.
And to encourage you to refer any agent you know, if you give us 5 referrals for 30 day free trials, will give you a free zip code immediately. Of course one of your referrals will have to buy by the end of 4 months to keep that free listing. So, refer 10 agents for trials, and you get 2 Free Zip Codes immediately, and we’ll review the referrals at the end of 4 months to see if you keep them or have earned more.
Our New Years resolution is to significantly grow the number of companies in our forms library. If you will work with us to that end, and if you are the key individual in getting a particular new company added to Compulife’s Forms Library, we will give you:
The good news for life companies is that THERE IS NO CHARGE to have forms in the Compulife library. As long as the company provides us access to the forms, so we can add them to our site, a list of forms with descriptions and state approvals, and an ongoing commitment to email us when forms change, then we will add the company at NO CHARGE. None of that is a burden for the company, and it adds a big convenience for their brokers who are also our subscribers. If an agent has a choice between Company A and Company B, but Company B’s forms are easier to get, because they are in Compulife, who do you think is going to get the business?
Further, once we have added the company, we are happy to provide the company with our forms retrieval technology for FREE. They are welcome to use it for themselves – FOR FREE.
3. Term4Sale Lead Exchange
Subscribers who have Compulife’s quote system on their web site can now activate a new option called the “Term4Sale Lead Exchange”. Once activated, this will send consumers from states in which you don’t sell, to the www.term4sale.com web site. Providing the consumer completes the referral form and submits it, the referring subscriber gets a FREE Zip Code Listing to 2014.
We are also offering a FREE Zip Code Listing just for activating the new feature. For further details, keep reading. We have left the announcement from December in the remaining part of this bulletin.
During October we spent some money and hired a third party to evaluate our previous site/pages. In return we got some live feedback from virgin users (consumers not agents) who the company hires to visit sites and record impressions. We think the investment was worth it and we got some great tips. In particular we picked up on some weaknesses with the old format and content and realized we could reorganize the site and pages to be simpler and more obvious.
What do you think? If you would like to give us feedback, email us your comments at:
In the spirit of gift giving, and as an incentive to turn on the feature, we will give you a free zip code to the end of 2014, for just turning on the new Lead Exchange function. So if you haven’t done so, it makes sense to do it now. And if you already have, you need to claim your additional free zip code.
Once again, to get this free additional zip code all you have to do is go to the control panel for your web quotes and activate the Term4Sale Lead Exchange option. Next, check off each state in which you sell life insurance. Each state you check off will quote from your site, and each state you do not check off will send your visitor to www.term4sale.com.
Once you have activated the lead exchange, send us a link to your control panel, and we’ll verify that it’s on. If it’s on, then you will get a free zip code listing to the end of 2014. Remember, free zip code listings are more important than paid zip code listings. If you don’t know why, you need to keep reading.
And here’s another incentive (gift) to get you going on this. For a limited time (we haven’t decided how long yet), each qualified referral to term4sale will give you a FREE zip code, until 2014. Normally you get a free zip code for 12 to 23 months, but we are adding a bonus of another 12 months. That means your referral will be worth $24 to $36.
So, two potential gifts! A free zip code for just activating the feature for at least one state, and an extended period of free listings for each qualified referral generated by your site to www.term4sale.com.
With that in mind, subscribers wanting to get into zip codes that were previously full need to check the Zip Code Analyzer during the week of January 16th to see if lapsed listings permit them to buy zip codes they could not previously get. In that regard we will send all subscribers an email during the following week, once the newest listings (with the deletions) have been posted.
Two things of importance regarding the invoices for term4sale listings:
First, prices have not changed. Zip code listings remain at $12 per year. We had hoped to raise the prices for 2012 for those zip codes which have produced the most contacts. Unfortunately we do not feel the volume of contacts has reached a level where we can warrant any price increase.
Second, if you did not receive ANY contact as a result of zip code listings at www.term4sale.com, you can apply to have your 2012 invoice cut in half. To qualify you have to read this and contact us. If you contact us we will check the Term4Sale request history, to see if you received any emails as a result of your listings. If you received NO email requests, your invoice will be cut in half, no matter how many zip codes you are renewing.
IMPORTANT: This is the only place you will be told about this rebate. If you decide, because you did not think you received enough consumer contact, to not renew your paid listings, or to reduce the number, we will not tell you that there is the potential to cut your invoice in half. You will only learn of it by reading this bulletin.
And remember, if you reduce or cancel your paid zip codes listings, it increases the number of potential contacts that other subscribers will receive. Ultimately our goal is that every Compulife subscriber receives business as a result of their subscription to Compulife which includes FREE listings to www.term4sale.com. Primarily this is a value added benefit intended to reward all our customers.
You can read the complete details for the new program here:
You will now see the referral page. If the consumer fills in that page, and submits it for the agent contact and to do a quote, an email is sent to the 3 agents who are listed. Another email is sent to the referring agent and the referring agent/site will be alerted that they have received a free zip code listing at www.term4sale.com.
Once again, you can read all about this at:
REMINDER: FREE zip codes are worth more than zip codes that you buy. You can read more about that here:
This new referral program will allow financial professionals, who do NOT sell life insurance, the opportunity to refer their website visitors to www.term4sale.com. In return we will pay a $20 referral fee.
The financial professionals who sign up will be given a client entry box, not unlike the one provided to our subscribers. This one will have the Term4Sale logo on top, and will require that the consumer enter their name, phone number and email address in order to do the quote. It will also explain that their quote request information will be sent to 3 Compulife subscribers who will contact them in order to compete for their business.
You can get an idea of what the box will look like by visiting the new home page for Term4Sale, which you can see by clicking here.
We redesigned the web site to ensure that term quotes are the more obvious primary function of the site. We would be happy to receive any comments about the new look that we are giving to www.term4sale.com, and the new programs we are implementing to promote the site. Send your email to service@compulife.com.
Also during December we continued with Google, Bing and Yahoo adword campaigns to promote the new site:
4 Biggest Mistakes
www.4biggestmistakes.com
Learn the 4 Biggest Mistakes
Made When Buying Life Insurance
a total of 6,915,880 times. The total number of clicks to the ad was 8,472 (not clicks to www.term4sale.com; but we suspect a number went on to term4sale. At some point we will build in a counter mechanism to get the numbers for that.
Cost per click were climbing, but the good news is that the average cost per click has leveled out to about .63 cents, making our total cost for the 8,472 visits $5,355.70.
Bing/Yahoo continues to be a better deal. We have run the same ad at Bing/Yahoo a total of 29,912,145 times. The total number of clicks to the ad was 72,126.
The cost per click for Bing has been much lower. The average cost per click is .08. Total cost of the compaign to date, based upon the average cost of .08 per click, has been $5,664.79.
As we reported before, and given these results, we will continue to run these advertising programs.
Suggestions as to other strategies for driving traffic would be welcome. We have had discussion with SEO [Search Engine Optimization] outfits, but we are being cautioned by others that some SEO strategies can actually hurt a site’s rankings, rather than help it. Next year, as we anticipate some of our new product offering work quiets down, we hope to have Jeremiah spend some time learning more about SEO strategies. There is an important SEO conference in Las Vegas each year, and we will try to have Jeremiah attend in 2012.
Good domain names are short and sweet, easy to spell and remember.
You should avoid domain names with suffixes other than .com. When you say “something something DOT com”, people know that that is a web address. By contrast, when you say “something something DOT info” many people will think or ask “DOT info DOT com?” DOT com is much less confusing.
Avoid short forms for words. If you do use a short form, as we do for “Term4Sale” (registered trademark), also register the domain name that is the long form of the short form. For example, if you enter in www.termforsale.com it goes to www.term4sale.com.
Avoid dashes like the plague. In most cases people who have registered domain names with dashes are doing so because the domain name that they really want is being used by someone else. If you use dashes to distinguish your domain name from the name that you really would have liked to have had, then all that will happen is most of your customers will end up at the other web site; not good.
Your domain name is important. Once you build up traffic and recognition for a domain name it is a bad idea to change it, even if you suddenly realize the old one was not a good one.
With those basic principles in mind, Compulife has spent time searching for available short domain names and we have been buying up recently abandoned domain names that we think are good. A number of the domain names that we have registered are for sale.
To get a list of current domain names for sale click this link:
Once you have a domain name then we can set a quoting site up for you. You can get your hosting at GoDaddy or other low cost IP’s for about $60 per year. Once you setup your web site account, we can put your quoting page on your site at no charge.
The annual cost of the Compulife quote service for your web site is only $99 per year. The good news is that you can get the first 4 months for free by applying here:
Call us and we will be happy to discuss it further.
Further, having reviewed where we are heading over the next few years, and the changes that we would like to be able to make in the future, we have decided to stop and do a much more extensive overhaul than simply changing our data entry software. We have determined that we would also like to implement a better data storage structure that will make maintenance easier on both a data entry basis, as well as a programming basis.
To achieve our goals in this regard, we will be spending a fair bit of time reviewing our new data storage needs, and then building conversion software that will convert our existing data files into our new data file structure. Once we have done that, we will then introducing new comparison software that does exactly what it does now, but which derives its results from the new data structure. In other words, you will end up with a new program that does exactly what the old program did/does.
Once this first stage is completed, we will have both old program and old data, with new program and new data. Moving forward we will use the old data entry systems to maintain the old version, then converting old data to the new data forms for general distribution.
The next stage is to create the new data entry systems that talk to the new data format. Once we are satisfied that the new data entry system give us everything that we have now, we will then switch to the new data structure alone. We will only do this once we have thoroughly tested the new software to ensure it gives us no problems in maintaining the date. This may take several months. As far as the part you use, by the time we make that transition, you will have been using the new software for several months.
To summarize, the current Compulife program is called “GOWIN.EXE”. The new program, when it is ready for you to use, will be called “CQS.EXE”. The objective is to have CQS.EXE do exactly what GOWIN.EXE does, and only after that has been thoroughly test, and we are certain we can maintain the new data structure directly, without the need for data conversion, will we move over to the new system. Until that happens, you will have both programs in your system. This is no different a transition strategy than when we took our DOS software to Windows. Those who have been subscribers for years, will remember that transition and how relatively smooth it was.
The point of sharing this with you is that the process will be quite lengthy and so from this spring throughout most of 2011, you will not be seeing many changes and improvements to the software that you use, even though the underlying foundation will be going through a massive change. Once the foundation has been reconstructed, and all the tools to work on the foundation have been built, the program will be in a position to make some substantial moves forward.
Think of it as transplant surgery, where you need to keep the patient alive and well, at the same time as you are swapping out the organs.
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