What is required, outside of technologies, to make omni-channel marketing a success? – Adrea Rubin Marketing

To create the customer journey we must use consumer data to build and insure how the customer will act at each stage of his insurance life cycle. Insurance marketers are still in The early stages of understanding the internet and all that it means. We need to be positioned with innovative products, distribution methods, partnerships, and omnichannel marketing to take affinity marketing to the next level. Create and build trust with your target audience and establish an emotional connection with consumers. Educate and create curiosity thru social media to get all ages out of their seats and engaging g with your brand. Tell a cohesive story across all media channels so your customers can like it tweet it and be your brand ambassadors. Humanize the relationship.

Walt Disney said it best: “…we must keep moving forward opening new doors and doing new things because we are curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths…”

To that point, I spoke at this years PIMA Mid Year Meeting and enjoyed participating in a Q&A session, the content  of which I will share with you in a serialized manner, over the coming weeks.

Moderator:  What is required, outside of technologies, to make omni-channel a success?

ADREA:   There are two sides to omni-channel marketing – the technology and analytics, as well as the marketing plans.

Typically, insurance carriers are very silo’ed in their marketing efforts.  Brand, digital, direct mails usually all have their own agendas and metrics.  In order to make omni channel a success there must be equal participation and responsibility for the campaigns.  Each group must be willing to share in the results, responses and sales.  This includes accountability for successes as well as missteps.

There must be open communication between the affinity group and the carrier.  If the affinity group can share specific data points, it will make the campaign more successful.  Data points include name/address vs. name, address, email and phone; age of member; length of membership; channel preferences; and other elements that provide insight to the consumer.

Lead attribution is critical here, as consumers are not restricted to one channel and/or mode of response.  Creating unique phone numbers or URLS for a campaign help track the responses and sales across all media.

Success is based on expectations that are reasonable and achievable.  It is unrealistic to think that an omni channel campaign will triple response rates or increase the average new premium by 50%.  It is important to measure success in smaller increments.  True success is achieved for the product, not the individual channel or individual parts of a campaign.

I have worked with clients who initiated digital and direct mail campaigns at the same time and did not coordinate  the efforts.  In the post campaign analysis, phone sales for the direct mail campaign were down, while the web responses spiked.  At first, the client believed that it meant that the digital channel was more profitable.  Further analysis showed that there was cross-over between the direct mail audience and the digital audience.  Consumers who received messages in both channels outperformed those who received messages in one channel.

By matching back the web sales to the direct mail solicitation file proved that each channel was successful on its own, but improved significantly when teamed together.

Always,

Adrea Rubin

This content was originally published here.