The anonymity of the internet enables many things that at earlier times involved embarrassment. And no, this is not related to porn.
One of the most challenging professions is the job of the sales agent, the door to door person trying to convince suspecting citizens to buy something they do not believe that they need or that they already have, including insurance, and to do this on their home court which for some is hostile territory.
The introduction of the internet brought with it a direct interpretation of the door to door agent in the form of email marketing. The embarrassment for the agent decreased but the annoyance remains. People who used to be troubled answering the doorbell in their pajamas in the middle of a good game on TV, became the target of an infinite junk mail attack. The analogy is not precise of course, because back then there were already other forms of junk mail (inside the mailbox).
Moreover, a good salesman could then as well as now, stand out above the other annoyances and find the way inside the consumers' hearts or at least their homes or their inbox.
Enter the web2.0 or the social web and changes the concept. With the introduction of viral marketing and widgets, the homeowners are becoming, themselves agents of the salesman and they do it willingly. As long as the cool factor exists, people do not mind decorating their websites and blogs with widgets or to forward a video clip to their friends even if they carry a commercial message.
This technology or media to be precise is highly accessible even to the not so tech savvy insurance agent. If until now insurance agents depended on outside help for personal website creation or had to pay for insurance quote websites, widgets technology enables them create their own web presence and for bottom dollar.
A good example is xywidgets.com, creators of the first distributable free insurance quote widget. This widget, installed in websites and blogs enables the insurance agent to sit still and stop knocking on doors altogether by simply multiplying himself thousands of times. Now people who run across the insurance widget in demographic relevant websites and blogs, and suddenly remember they need insurance or would like to evaluate other options, do so through the widget itself, without leaving the current page, all the registered insurance agents are immediately notified, and may return with a quote while the iron is still hot.
The need for insurance as well for many other products which sales agents were always trying to sell actually exists, people do need insurance, but the challenge is to find those who do. Once you find the way to do that, the annoyance, the spamming and the embarrassment are all gone, and people can actually like their sales agent.
