Insurance Journal Leads Way with Custom Videos

Online video is booming.

By 2012 nearly 50 percent of all Internet traffic will be to online videos, according to Cisco Systems.

This online video boom can be a benefit to independent insurance agents and brokers, according to the people at Insurance Journal and InsuranceJournal.tv, whose new product, Custom Videos, is a series of customer-oriented videos, agents can use to tap into this trend.

Adam Dunford, vice president of New Business Development for Wells Publishing, which publishes InsuranceJournal.tv, says there have been two forces behind the explosive growth and consumption of online video content that agents and brokers can now leverage to their advantage.

First, broadband internet usage has reached critical mass. Most consumers now access the Internet via a broadband connection, totaling over 66 percent of U.S. households and nearly 97 percent of U.S. businesses. That's according to websiteoptimization.com

Second, the convergence of affordable digital video cameras, easy-to-use editing software and free platforms such as YouTube, where content can be displayed, allows not only professional studios but also ordinary citizens to generate and view astonishing amounts of video content. In the single month of January 2008, for example, nearly 79 million viewers watched more than 3 billion videos on YouTube alone, reported CNN.

"Today, consumers are flocking to the Internet for information and increasingly they are turning to the video format for that content. Monthly views to our own video page have doubled over the course of the year, since we launched InsuranceJournal.tv," said Dunford. "We see a tremendous demand for timely, intelligent and useful video content."

Agents can take advantage of this demand for video, without an expensive investment in technology and expertise. Insurance Journal allows agents to license educational, Custom Videos on property/casualty insurance, that are scripted and filmed to appeal to insurance buyers. Agents can place the Custom Videos on their own agency Web sites.

The Insurance Journal Custom Videos are priced at less than $200 per year, a fraction of the cost it would take to produce and host the same content in-house.

For more information about insurance educational videos for retail agent and broker Web sites, visit, www.insurancejournal.com/videos