Consumer behaviors are changing, technologies are emerging, regulations are changing, and new non-traditional competitors are emerging, creating massive disruption in the insurance industry. Given that insurance companies have to survive and thrive in this environment, they have to have strong digital marketing strategies to attract and maintain policyholders through various channels.
Let’s discuss why digital marketing is vital to the survival of an insurance company today and in the future. From real-life examples to key trends driving insurance companies to implement an effective strategy and the necessary elements pertaining to a digital marketing strategy, the documentary will give you an outlook on this industry. In any case, if you are an insurance software development executive, a marketing leader, an agency owner, or simply want to know about digital insurance tactics, you will want to read this article and get actionable insights.
Key Trends Driving Digital Marketing Importance
Several interrelated trends are increasing the importance of digital marketing for insurance companies:
- Customer Preferences. Policyholders increasingly desire on-demand, personalized and seamless digital experiences similar to those offered by tech leaders like Amazon, Apple and Netflix. Most expect to be able to research, purchase and manage policies through self-service mobile and web capabilities.
- Competitive Forces. Insurtech startups are using advanced technologies and innovative business models to compete in traditional insurance strongholds. To keep pace, incumbents must adopt next-generation digital tactics – leveraging platforms like Decktopus AI to craft data-driven, engaging content that bridges the gap between traditional practices and modern digital expectations.
- Data & Analytics. The volume of available data about customers and markets is exploding. Leaders will use advanced analytics across this data to power product innovation, improve risk models, and deliver hyper-personalization.
- Channel Expansion. Agents are still critical, but policyholders are spreading the channels they use to research and buy insurance. Companies must cover an omnichannel digital strategy for paid ads, organic search, websites, mobile apps, and more.
- Global Impacts. Many insurance products are desirable in large global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. Insurers are able to reach affected demographics through digital channels in a sensitive manner.
In the near future, these trends will compel insurance marketing groups to build their digital initiatives as a foundation and not as an add-on. Today, in this environment, digital must come first, and while agent relationships, brand advertising and other tactics are still relevant, they are not as important as digital. Otherwise, policyholders will quickly switch to competitors that provide better end-to-end digital experience.
Core Elements of An Insurance Digital Marketing Strategy
Given digital’s growing prominence, insurance marketing leaders must incorporate key elements across channels to create a holistic and effective digital strategy:
Search Engine Optimization
Although insurance involves considered purchases with long sales cycles, organic search remains vital for reaching new customers and influencing decisions. SEO best practices like content creation, site optimization and link building allow insurers to gain visibility and trust during information-gathering moments. Most insurtech disruptors already excel at SEO, so incumbents must close capability gaps.
Paid Search & Display Advertising
Paid digital ads offer insurers scalable and measurable channels for acquiring policyholders based on factors like demographics, interests and search keywords. Advertising empowers targeting narrow niche groups that closely match specialized insurance products. Programmatic display ads and paid social networks should supplement paid search efforts.
Website Optimization
An insurance company’s website remains the core-owned platform for engagement. Site content and functionality should map closely to top-of-funnel challenges and questions policyholders face during their buyer journeys. Beyond educational content for early research stages, websites should enable self-service quote requests, online policy purchases and portal access for management.
Mobile Optimization
Given rising mobile internet usage, insurance websites must provide responsive designs and consistent experiences across devices. Many customers will complete policy purchases only through mobile sites or apps. Optimizing for factors like site speed, navigation, forms and device capabilities is necessary to drive conversions.
Content Marketing
Ongoing content development is non-negotiable for digital insurance marketing teams. Search engines reward frequently updated sites with new pages and content. More importantly, blogs, videos, podcasts and other formats allow insurers to answer common questions and provide advice that builds brand perception and trust with policyholders.
Social Media Marketing
Insurance shoppers often conduct social listening to see what current policyholders say about companies on networks like Facebook and Twitter. Maintaining an active presence on popular social platforms enables insurers to directly engage interested prospects, provide customer service and promote content.
Email Marketing
Email subscribers represent one of the most valuable owned audiences for insurance marketers. Email nurturing tracks prospect engagement and moves contacts through personalized buying journey stages. Integrated with a CRM system, email facilitates cross-channel coordination. Automation and artificial intelligence optimize messages for individuals.
CRM / Customer Intelligence
Marketing automation CRM software centralizes known customer data from across channels to build rich profiles. Behavioral tracking provides policyholder intelligence to personalize messaging based on interests and channel preferences. By integrating AI and machine learning, CRMs continuously improve targeting and experiences.
Testing & Optimization
To improve results over time, one must continuously test and optimize through channels and campaigns. This involves multivariate testing to determine how changes to copy, headlines, images, offers, and designs affect conversions. Performance-data-based evolution is better than stagnant or gut-feel evolution.
Attribution Modeling
To understand the impact of marketing on pipeline and sales, we have to model how policyholders interact with channels as they go through their purchase journey. Traces attribution, assigns value to each touchpoint and correlates each exposure to the acquisition result. Eventually, with time, the optimal channel mix, as well as optimal spending levels, become clearer.
Omnichannel Alignment
The modern insurance customer easily toggles between channels and comparison shops across competitors and expects coordinated messaging. Therefore, digital marketing strategies must orchestrate omnichannel alignment, focusing on consistent brand experiences regardless of channel or device.
Security & Compliance
Insurance marketers must adhere to complex regulations regarding advertising claims, privacy disclosures and data handling while defending against cyber threats. Strategies for maintaining trust balance transparency, consumer protections and permission-based data usage.
Why Digital Marketing Matters to Key Insurance Audiences
Digital marketing capabilities clearly impact insurance companies themselves, but they also directly serve and provide value to other key audiences:
- For Policyholders, digital channels give them more control over their insurance journey through self-guided education, quotes and purchase options. Ongoing account management through secure web and mobile portals enables convenient updates or changes.
- For Agents. Agents remain invaluable advisors to many policyholders, especially for complex policies. However, digital channels capture web traffic that might otherwise fall through the cracks and expand reach to niche customer segments where agents have little penetration. High-value leads can be routed to agents to supplement traditional referrals.
- For Investors, insurtech disruptors have attracted billions in investment dollars thanks to their superior digital engagement models, which threaten legacy players. Incumbents focused on digital transformation and innovation are better positioned to weather industry disruption.
- Across the Organization. Digital also supports internal teams in risk management, claims processing, customer support, and human resources. Enterprise analytics dashboards centralize data for leaders to glean customer insights. Collaboration tools aid remote work and productivity.
Real-World Examples of Digital Marketing Excellence
Many insurance carriers are shifting significant resources toward executing cutting-edge digital marketing strategies:
Allstate
The established personal insurer develops sophisticated data science capabilities to power digital marketing. Allstate acquired InfoArmor for identity protection. A unique entity called Arity collects driving data for risk and pricing models. Allstate is aggressively growing online policy sales through its innovative QuickFoto Capture app.
Oscar Health
This tech-driven health insurance startup relies on a strong digital marketing foundation to differentiate its options and unique member experience. Oscar centralizes member data into an intuitive mobile app interface and seamlessly integrates telemedicine partners. Oscar uses member engagement behavior to infer health risks.
The Hartford
The commercial and personal insurance leader recently gained a $442 million investment to build best-in-class digital marketing and analytics. The program includes team expansion, technology upgrades and expanded analytics to strengthen capabilities across channels.
Slice Labs
This insurance, backed by $342 million in funding, leverages digital channels to distribute innovative on-demand insurance products for the sharing economy tailored to home share, ride share and delivery drivers. Slice efficiently underwrites and settles claims through automated bots.
Lemonade
Backed by $644 million in funding, Lemonade is an AI-driven insurtech using behavioral economics and machine learning to rewrite policyholder experiences. The company has captured market share through viral digital marketing and word-of-mouth referrals. Lemonade develops targeted ads by analyzing users’ digital footprint using AI algorithms.
Key Takeaways
Given accelerating technology innovation and digital-savvy competitors intent on disruption, insurance companies must make digital marketing a top strategic investment. Leaders will build centralized, analytics-driven and omnichannel digital marketing competencies across their organizations and partner ecosystems.
Although the digital tactics summarized in this article require real commitment and resources to implement, they collectively represent table stakes for insurers hoping to survive and remain relevant to policyholders in the years ahead.