Digital Transformation through Martech

Marketing furthers your insurance digital transformation

Digital insurance initiatives attract and convert leads, enable client renewals, and support organizational efficiency.

According to research by Shutterstock in less than five years,?85% of insurance sales will be digitally-influenced.

At some point, every industry must undergo a digital transformation to remain relevant.?Customer expectations, requirements for improved efficiency, and growth initiatives require that all businesses adopt modern tools, systems, and processes to succeed in increasingly complex and fragmented business environments. The time has come for the insurance industry as according to Novarica almost 70% of insurers report that they are somewhere along the journey to digitally transform.

According to Gartner’s research, implementing new digital solutions is the top priority for insurance industry CIOs as the rapid advancement of technology fosters new ways to find, service, and retain customers both in personal and commercial lines of business. For those brokers and agents who are able to harness and leverage these opportunities, the potential for growth and efficiency is massive. This has been further intensified by the global pandemic pushing sales from face-to-face to virtual. A good digital presence has never been more important.

However, taking the digital transformation leap can be a daunting task. For some brokers and agents, simply establishing a website can feel like a huge undertaking as they work toward establishing their online presence. Others go a step further and use email to send monthly newsletters or annual premium invoices. And now there is a small but growing contingent who are investing fully in their digital initiatives, looking to leverage technology to automate standard tasks (e.g. claims processing) and extend their brand reach.

As an industry in flux, there is, understandably, a wide spectrum of transformation. Many leaders acknowledge that change is necessary but they aren’t sure what the specific goals of those changes should be or where that journey should begin. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach, within the insurance industry, these initiatives typically fall into one of the following categories:

• Customer Experience
• Customer Retention
• Service Innovation/Product Development
• Customer Acquisition
• Reduce Costs/Process Automation

Unless you are fortunate to have almost unlimited resources, trying to attack all of these areas at once is not a wise approach. Each digital initiative requires dedication, resources, time, and money. So the question then becomes, where should you start for maximum impact?

Marketing: The Most Straightforward Entry-Point

Forrester research states that by 2023, 85% of insurance sales will be digitally influenced, which means that if you are not speaking to your target audience through digital channels (e.g website, email, social media, SMS, and online advertising), your products and services, no matter how good they may be, will be invisible. Personal relationships are still key for turning prospects into clients, but to turn anonymous Internet traffic seeking information into a prospect, you need a digital marketing strategy and the technology to activate it.

Second, brokers and agents possess a wealth of information about their clients that can be used for marketing purposes. Yet less than 20% feel they are taking full advantage of the data they possess. By leveraging insights about your current clients’ demographics and buying behaviors to personalize your marketing, you are able to better target your next client. Additionally, tying your management solution (AMS/BMS) to a digital marketing platform can foster the sale of new product lines into your client base.

For example, a broker is offering a new line of cyber insurance and knows that a certain segment of her current clients has an online component to their business. She can use her digital platform to run a campaign that provides targeted information to that client segment about the new product and how it would be relevant to the needs of those clients.

Lastly, marketing is a wise choice for starting the digital transformation because its workflows are usually outside of many of the back-office processes that occur within a traditional BMS/AMS — thereby allowing that system to continue to operate without change. Brokers and agents are able to run campaigns, attract prospects, and market to current clients all within a separate system without affecting internal workflows that, for example, enable how policies are created, renewed and invoiced (although this will likely be a second stage within the digital transformation).

Leveraging the right technology

Once you’ve decided to implement a digital initiative within your marketing efforts, where specifically should you focus? With over 7,000 digital marketing technologies to choose from, many marketers suffer paralysis by analysis.

Many marketers begin their journey by cobbling together a number of independent and unconnected tools to send emails, post on social media, display online ads, and the like. However, without a coordinated hub to manage all of those activities, your data and leads are likely not captured and utilized to the fullest extent. Effective digital processes are supposed to move a prospect in an organized manner through an established buyers’ journey, so it is not so much about having any technology as it is about having the right technology designed for scalability — specifically, marketing automation. This is where Digital Agent comes into play.

Why invest in Digital Agent?

It is best to think of our marketing automation platform as the place where you market to your prospects and clients throughout the duration of their lifecycle with you. Turning a prospect into a client can be extremely difficult, yet even when this has been achieved, your marketing efforts must continue.

The combination of a comprehensive platform like Digital Agent plus a coherent and focused marketing strategy can allow any team (no matter how small) to punch above its weight when it comes to executing its digital marketing strategy and expanding brand reach. Helping prospective clients find you online and then nurturing them through highly targeted, personalized messaging and content (even after they convert to policyholders) is a primary use case for Digital Agent.

Looking back at the initiatives that spur the pressure for digital transformation mentioned at the beginning of this article, Digital Agent provides the foundation to accelerate in these categories and focus on specific goals with clear direction and visibility. This is accomplished by the following key functionalities:

Personalized messaging, relevant content

Remember that consumers are research-obsessed and, due to the plethora of online resources, begin their buying journey with a much deeper understanding of their needs and options than ever before. Almost 80% of consumers say that personally, relevant content increases their purchase intent for a brand’s products and services. This means that it’s important for you to gain their trust by offering information that they find applicable and useful.

For example, email remains the most cost-effective means of communication with your prospects and clients. Despite a crowded inbox, they are still the backbone of marketing communications. Create segmented lists for personalized messaging, optimize the timing of delivery, share value-packed content, and provide calls-to-action within those emails to dramatically improve your email’s opportunity to stand out. Failing to do this and simply blasting your prospects and clients with emails will quickly identify you as someone who is more interested in promoting themselves and just hoping that a recipient takes the bait.

Strengthening client relationships

Because insurance policies are renewable products, you must market to your current policyholders on an ongoing basis to retain their business and ensure they grow with you as you launch new offerings. Failing to stay top of mind with your current clients makes them more susceptible to your competitors.

After all, only 35% of insurance clients say they’re satisfied with their current providers, which could lead to an estimated $1.4 trillion in business for the taking globally, according to an EY Insurance Trends Analysis. Like any subscription-based offering, brokers and agents must be disciplined about implementing ongoing touchpoints with their clients.

Analytics and measuring ROI

Once you have deployed your digital assets, you must measure effectiveness so that you can alter and adapt your strategy to ensure you are getting the most out of your digital marketing spend. Unlike offline marketing, online marketing stems from what Digital Agent can provide insights into who is coming to your website, what they view while on the site, and how particular pieces of content perform versus others. You can also track who is opening and interacting with the content of your emails.

A recent Gartner survey indicated that 64% of brokers do not track the return on investment they are getting from their digital efforts, which indicates that these marketers are pumping a lot of money into online marketing with zero insight as to whether these investments are successful. You don’t need to be in the finance department to understand that flying blind like this is a major problem when multiple priorities are competing for a limited set of dollars. Fortunately, with the reporting and analytics capabilities available today, this is a problem that can be solved relatively easily.

Marketing and sales alignment

Finally, implementing Digital Agent assists not only your marketing team but also the producers within your organization. These solutions essentially establish a persistent handshake between marketing and sales with respect to the information that flows between the teams. The producers receive relevant data in real-time pertaining to a particular lead’s interactions with the brand.

For example, if an individual is looking into the benefits of higher liability coverage, the producer who reaches out can easily tailor her questions to determine if they’re interested in an umbrella policy. This may spark a discussion about bundling all their insurance needs, and someone who was clicking around to learn more about liability insurance winds up becoming a home, auto, and umbrella policyholder. The sales cycle is accelerated as conversations can be focused based on the research and other interactions taken by the prospect.

Strategy makes or breaks tech initiatives

Once you have decided to begin your digital marketing transformation by implementing Digital Agent what is the next step? First, unless you have people on-staff with robust experience in implementing and operating Digital Agent, you are likely going to need some strategy and consulting services to ensure you are successful. There are technical requirements for optimal results, decisions about what your goals are, and education on best practices.

So where can you find this much-needed assistance? Generally speaking, there are a couple of options for you to choose from. Inquire whether your vendor of choice has in-house expertise you can leverage for strategy, consulting, and training. At Veriday , we have a full suite of pre-and post-sales services solutions that can serve our customers. We also invented DigitalAgent so we are the best people to implement it successfully for you.