Here is a quick run-down on what you will find in this bulletin: Merry Christmas…
Update News for November 2010
Here is a quick run-down on what you will find in this bulletin:
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Lead Marketing For Canadian Subscribers
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QuinStreet Lead Marketing Opportunity
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Coming Improvements To Term4Sale Listings
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The New “Buy Now” Button
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Improving Consumer Traffic and Contacts
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Compulife Mobile Quotation System
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Health Analyzer For Web Quotes
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NEW LOWER PRICE – Domains 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.
Canadian subscribers will recall that when we first announced our QuinStreet deal for U.S. subscribers, we advised that QuinStreet does not buy leads in Canada. We asked for input from anyone with an alternative. While no one came up with an alternative, we have come up with an idea that we think may be even better than the Quinstreet deal in the U.S. We need to hear from you – is this something you like?
The new idea is a combination of the QuinStreet concept and the new “Buy Now” button that we will be adding to the Term4Sale web site comparison results page. If you don’t know what we are referring to, the Quinstreet deal (for Americans) is in the next article in this bulletin, and a complete review of the Term4Sale improvements, including the Buy Now button, follows that.
The new deal for Canadian subscribers will be called the “Term4Sale Referral Program”. The referral program is an OPTION in which you do not have to participate. If you activate the option, consumers who visit YOUR site, from provinces that you do not sell in, and who request a quote from a province you do not sell in, will be referred to agents listed at www.term4sale.ca who sell in that province. Your compensation for each automatic referral will be an additional free postal code listing on www.term4sale.ca, for the balance of the current calendar year, and for the full calendar year that follows. That’s a $12 to $23 value; keep reading!
In order to enable the option we will need to modify the control panels of Canadian online quote option subscribers. First, you will have check box (defaulted to no) that will indicate if you want the Term4Sale Referral Program enabled. Second, we will provide you with a list of provinces and you will check off those provinces in which you are licensed to sell life insurance.
If a visitor to your web site attempts to run a quote in a province checked off in your control panel, the quotes will run exactly as they do now. If a visitor to your web site attempts to run a quote from a site that is NOT checked off in your control panel, then a new form/page will appear when they press the “Compare Now” button. The page will say:
Thank you for your comparison request. Unfortunately this is for a province in which we do not do currently do business. I have three agents who do sell life insurance in your province, and who use the same life insurance comparison software to locate competitive products for consumers. If you will complete the following I will forward along your request for a life insurance comparison for “name of province”.
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- Please enter the first three characters in your postal code [_____]
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Your name: [______________________________]
Your email address: [______________________________]
Your phone number: [______________________________]
[CLICK HERE] to request a comparison for “name of province”
The above information, complete with the information that was originally entered into the client entry page, will be emailed to each of the Compulife subscribers in that postal code. A copy of the email will also be sent to Compulife with another copy to the referring site/agent. Each email request will generate a free “postal code” credit for the referring agent, and those credit(s) can be used at the beginning of the month which follows, to the end of the current calendar year plus one more full calendar year (a $12 to $23 value).
So each referral gets you another postal code listing at www.term4sale.ca, with the potential of more requests for insurance in a province in which you sell. If other agents in other provinces participate, it means more actual consumers requests for those listings. If you contemplate the program, you will appreciate that it could easily snowball with participants increasing the volume of business as a result.
So once again, what do you think? Don’t be shy, email your thoughts and comments to:
Work on the QuinStreet interface has gone quite well and we are in the final stage of completing the job. The new feature will be available to anyone who has Compulife’s $99 per year on-line quote option.
Once everything is ready, we will modify everyone’s control panel. Once the control panels have been updated, we will send everyone with the Compulife web quote option an email with a link to the control panel.
IMPORTANT: This marketing concept is an OPTION for Compulife subscribers and nothing compels any subscriber to participate.
For this reason the default for everyone’s web site will be to have the QuinStreet option turned off. If you do nothing, your website will work as it does now. If you wish to enable the option, you will need to take the following steps:
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- 1. Each Compulife subscriber, who wishes to participate in the referral program, must enroll with QuinStreet. You will have a link to the enrollment form on your control panel, and we will provide that same link to you in our initial email.
2. Once you have enrolled, QuinStreet will send you a link to a web page that is your personal referral web page. The address for this page will need to be copied and pasted into your control panel. The link is to the page that will display when a visitor to your site clicks the compare now button for a state in which you do not sell insurance.
3. Your control panel will have a list of states. On that list you need to check off each state in which you sell life insurance. States that are not checked off will refer your web site visitor to Quinstreet.
For those who have not read about this before. Here is the background on the new option:
The QuinStreet referral program is an optional way for YOUR web site to generate revenue from leads that you obtain as a result of your use of Compulife quotes on your web site, leads that would otherwise be of no use to you.
As background, QuinStreet is a lead generation company that will pay you for qualified leads automatically generated by your web site – leads which you do not want. They will sell the lead to either a direct carrier, broker, or agency in the specified location. NOTE: QuinStreet only sells leads to high volume corporate buyers.
The company initially approached us about buying leads from www.term4sale.com but we have assured QuinStreet that we did not want to change the term4sale model, which directs consumers to contact life agents who subscribe to Compulife. Therefore, what we are proposing does not involve www.term4sale.com.
However, during our discussions about www.term4sale.com, we suggested that QuinStreet consider offering our subscribers a program to buy leads from our subscriber websites which sometimes receive application requests for insurance from consumers who are in states where the subscriber is not licensed.
We advised QuinStreet that Compulife can automate this process and make it very easy to activate the option for subscribers who wanted to participate. Quinstreet was keen on the idea.
EXAMPLE:
Let’s say that you are currently licensed to sell in CA, NV and AZ and that you have enabled the QuinStreet option for your Compulife on-line quotes. Someone visits your web site which is using the Compulife online quote system, such as appears here:
Now assume the site visitor is from IL. That consumer visits your site and fills in the client page selecting IL. When that visitor clicks the “Compare Now” button, instead of getting a comparison for IL a new QuinStreet page will appear.
Here is a sample of the page that will appear:
Once the user completes and submits the page QuinStreet will then pay you for that lead. Quinstreet will pay you a flat $15 per lead. Therefore, if your site generates 20 leads during the year, you will generate enough money (20 X $15) that the referrals will pay for your subscription to Compulife including the web quote option.
To summarize, the new QuinStreet marketing program will be an OPTION that you can enable on your administration panel. If you do not want the option, you will do nothing. If you enable the option, you will identify which states you are licensed in. For all other states QuinStreet will receive the lead and pay you $15 for the lead. Quinstreet will pay you monthly on net 45 payment terms.
About Quinstreet – Founded in 1999, QuinStreet delivers “customer leads on-demand” to high volume corporate and agency clients across multiple verticals. In February 2010 Quinstreet went public with stock symbol NASDAQ:QNST. To learn more about the company please visit their website at www.quinstreet.com.
Following the work on Quinstreet, we will add a new feature to a list of improvements that we are going to make to the www.term4sale.com web site. The new feature will allow consumers to contact subscribers by email, through the agent listings page at www.term4sale.com.
Currently, if you visit www.term4sale.com, enter a zip code and do a quote, the “Find An Agent” button appears numerous times throughout the quote. If you click on that button, a list of 3 agents names appears, with their name, phone number, listing city and the optional “web page” link.
NOTE: Agents who have web sites with links to www.term4sale.com, can have the web page links for free.
With the changes that we are making, a new button will be added to the list, and will appear between the name and phone number. The button will be called “Contact” and will appear under the title “Email”.
If the consumer clicks the contact button next to the agent name, an email form will appear much as it does if you push the “Application Request” that now appears next to individual products in the $99 online quote option. If you do not know what we are referring to, go to:
NOTE: When the online quotes are added to your web site, “Request Application” emails do not qo to Compulife, they go to you. That is one of the things you can amend on the control panel for your site. The control panel is set up for you at the same time you obtain the online quoting option.
We are now planning to add that same type of capability to the “Find An Agent” button. Once again, when this new change is completed, the consumer will be given a list of agents and in that list will be a new column between the agent name and phone number. The new column will be titled “Email” and there will be a “Contact” button next to each agent name.
If the consumer clicks on the “Contact” button, an email form will come up and say:
- Once you have completed the information in the following form, and click the “Submit Contact Form” button, the agent will be sent an email and advised that you would like them to contact you.
Below that paragraph the form will then ask for the consumer’s name, phone number, email address, best time to be contacted and a note should they wish to pass along any information to you. Following that will appear the “Submit Contact Form” button. When the consumer pushes the button an email with the above information will be sent to the agent at the email address specified in the agent’s account with Compulife. We will also provide the agent with the information that the client originally entered into the client entry form – birthdate, sex, face amount, insurance category, etc.
NOTE: We realize that that email address that you use for your Compulife subscription may end up being different than the one that you want these requests to go to and so we will offer you the option of specifying a different email for that purpose. Initially, and unless advised differently, we will use the default email for your subscription.
IMPORTANT: Neither Term4Sale, Inc. or it’s parent company Compulife Software, Inc. sell life insurance. Compulife provides life insurance comparison software to thousands of life insurance agents throughout the United States and Canada.
You have expressed an interest in purchasing the following life insurance policy:
Name of Product
Health Category
Annual Premium Monthly Premium
at this point a list of subscribers will appear,
as they do now in the Find Agent list
Each of the above subscribers will be invited to contact you if they offer the company/product that you have selected, or if they can advise you of which comparable product(s) they do offer that would be a competitive substitute.
If you prefer to contact agents individually, feel free to call them or use the email contact button next to each agent’s name which appears on the above list.
We recommend that you let agents compete for your business, as a way to get the best advice and product suitable for your situation. Completing the following form will alert all three by email. We would also invite you read the important information that follows this Contact Form, which will assist you in picking the right agent/product:
Contact Form
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- Name
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- Phone Number
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- email Address
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- Best Time to Call
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- Message
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- Submit Contact
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IMPORTANT: The agents listed at this web site are NOT employees of Compulife Software, Inc. – they are subscribers to our life insurance comparison software. While we cannot and do not control their business practices, they have been forewarned to be polite, courteous and helpful in serving you. If you experience any difficulties in dealing with agents listed on this site, we appreciate hearing from you immediately. Please email any comments you have to Compulife President Robert L. (Bob) Barney at barneyrl@compulife.com or you can call Bob at (888) 798-3488.
Following this will be the same information that now follows the list of agents in the “Find Agent” webpage…
We believe the new email/contact functions will result in more contacts for agents. Unlike phone calls, we think there will be less consumer resistance to making a contact by email. Where it may be stressful to pick up the phone and call an agent, it is much easier for the consumer to send their name and phone number and have the agent call them. This way the agent breaks the ice.
Further, you will know that it was your listing at term4sale that produced the contact because the consumer’s contact will come by an email generated by www.term4sale.com, whereas a consumer may call you about life insurance and never mention that they got your name from the web site.
Compulife will also be tracking these initial email requests and using the information to determine what volume of calls are being produced by given zip code listings and email lead generated for individual agents by the site.
Earlier in the year we told you of other planned improvements where we would be modifying our zip code search system to create a nearest physical location search instead of a nearest numeric zip code search. We also told you there will be a panel that you can visit where you can see where you are listed, and what other listings are available in that state, and how many agents are listed around you. That work will also be completed at the same time as we are offering the new email contact options.
We had also indicated earlier that we would begin to offer a system of evaluating zip codes based upon zip code populations. That methodology will now be amended. The value of a zip code (for 2012) with will be based upon actual email contacts that are generated by that zip code listing.
Further, by tracking the “contact” hits on zip codes, we will be able to also provide you with that information later in 2011 – as part of the panel that lets you review zip code listing. Of course zip codes producing more hits than average will cost more to renew for 2012.
All of this additional work will be going on at the same time as the email contact changes are being made.
The new price is $99 $79 $69 $39 – down $30 from last month. Will we drop the price again? Yes, we suspect that by winter the price for the remaining domain names will drop again. We will probably cut the price dramatically by Christmas and will be practically giving them away. The point is that we will keep dropping prices until our current inventory is sold out.
The problem is that if you wait you may lose a great domain name to someone else. More than one of the sold domain names were requested by another subscriber after they had just been sold to another subscriber who beat the second person to the punch. You snooze, you lose.
And if the latest price cut doesn’t suit you, and instead of waiting around for another domain name price drop, feel free to MAKE US AN OFFER on any remaining domain name(s) that you want. If it is a reasonable offer we are likely to take it.
For more information about the domain names that we have for sale, and the web sites that are ready to go, click on:
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 determine 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.
The point of sharing this with you is that the process will be quite lengthy and so from this spring throughout most of 2010, 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.