We’ll be honest, not everyone is going to like or use Radius, but we didn’t build it for everyone…We set out to build a web based application that we knew spoke to the independent and boutique agencies whom needed a better way to manage their Book of Business. The folks who still use Outlook, Excel, Word or tons of paper need a better option to focus on what they do best, write business. Obviously agents have a lot to chose from (SalesForce, SugarCRM, BrokerOffice, ACT, etc), but we feel that non of these actually speak to an agents entire book of business. One may focus on Lead Management, another on Client Relationship Management and a third on Quoting, but non give an agent a true holistic look at their Book. Leads, Clients, Commissions, Renewals, Tasks, Downline Agents, Marketing, Reporting, Products, Carriers and more.
First and foremost, we wanted something that cuts out most of the fat. Most software applications are bloated with features that never get used and just create extra steps. Take Word for an example, 90% of the users only really use 10-15% of the features, so why are 85-90% of the features in there? We just feel that if Radius can provide what we feel agents need to do their jobs and not get bogged down in data entry or cumbersome details, they can be even more successful.
Secondly we wanted something that is visually appealing and from a user interaction is straight forward. The Radius Dashboard gives an agent a quick snap shot of their five most recent Leads, five most recent Client Conversations, five most recent non lead/client actions, listing of Tasks, One Click Search and One Click Add Lead or Client.
Finally we wanted an application that was flexible and customizable. We think one of our better features is the ability for an agent to create Custom Fields for the Lead and Client Forms. No two agents are alike and neither is their book, so why not give each Radius Account the ability to collect data that is pertinent to generate a quote. Customization within Radius in only enhanced by the effortless ability to do it. No need to write code, cut and paste or put in a support ticket, just build it within Radius.
In the end, one has to use Radius to come to the same (or different) conclusion as us, but we feel you will once take the plunge.
Since the launch of Radius, we have been communicating with both our users and community with The Bob Report. Topics have included everything from feature roll outs, future releases, bad movie quotes and worse humor, but today we wanted to share our current results from a couple of mailings to help put into perspective in case you are looking to do any email marketing or communication.
Just for a point of context, we use CampaignMonitor for our email marketing efforts (and really really dig it):
Radius E-newsletter Points (Click to View Email):
This was are first mailing, very small from a quantity standpoint, but these were reciepents whom opted in, not scrapped from the internet which is why we think our ‘Unsubscribe’ count is zero. While we didn’t have any expectations as far as % of Reads and % of Clicked, we were pleasantly surprised.
TPS Reports Are Done Points (Click Here to View Email):
There was about a month in-between mailings (actually to long for our liking), but we had been working on a number of features and finally decided we should be telling everyone about it. We had by that point set up a Beta Sign Up form and our list had grown since our previous mailing. The two biggest improvements were the % of Reads were up by 15% and the % of Clicks were up by almost 14%. Great News! Besides informing our readers of the latest Radius Updates, we also want to engage more account usage, which has been an added bonus to our emails.
The Price is Right Points (Click Here to View Email): The Price is Right is our most recent email (a two weeks prior to this post) and we have seen even more interesting findings. Our subscriber list grew compared to previous email, still not bounces (great to have all valid emails), zero unsubscribers as well. Bad news is that our Reads went down by almost 9% and our Clicks were cut in half (Ouch).
Our Thoughts and what is Next
We will have two more emails in the coming weeks, one with our final product push and announcement to existing members about their 30 Free Trial and our Radius is Live email. At the point of the Radius is Live email we will have list that is 5x the size our first ever email and those numbers are going to be great to dig into. We suspect reads to jump back up to 50%, a half dozen or so unsubscribe and would like to keep our spam to zero. Also we will look for our Clicks to jump as the call to action is to go to radiusbob.com and create an account. All along the intent of our emails have been to keep users and our community members informed, we are not looking for this to be an acquisition play, but a retention play. Keep em informed so they don’t have to go else where to find it. And we didn’t included our numbers for the very fact that they are top secret and the CIA has mentioned we shouldn’t be sharing them…
Avid TechCrunch.com readers and read this blog post (The Age Of Facebook: Excerpts From The New Book By David Kirkpatrick) which had a few excerpts from David’s new book. Of what we read, seemed to be very well written and the story behind the story of Facebook makes for an interesting read. Like Facebook or not, understanding where they came from, what they went through and where they are going to from a start up’s perspective (Simple Shapes & Radiusbob.com) is fascinating to us. We will start to post more about our experiences, day to day challenges, frustrations as well as the good stuff…
