Digital marketing has revolutionized the way we receive and perceive information. Many industries have embraced the opportunity and are now “all in,” while others are taking a more cautionary approach. It seems this is the case with the life insurance industry, in spite of the fact that every month, a million related keyword searches are executed, or that the websites of the top 10 life insurance carriers are visited 7 million times a month.
Changing times
The way our grandparents bought life insurance was pretty simple: they visited with an agent (probably recommended by a friend or relative) who brought them a policy to sign and put in the safe until needed. Today, with so much information available online, the research phase takes longer than your grandparents’ entire transaction.
Today’s young professionals know somewhere deep down that they need to start thinking about life insurance, but unless they encounter a “life event,” they’re not thinking about it and certainly not likely to be searching about it either.
Specific messaging that piques interest by utilizing low-pressure dialogue resonates well with this target audience, and the best method is with a mix of search marketing and social media. It is imperative to have a humanized brand that can build trust, which leads to a purchase consideration. This is where digital marketing is better than all other channels at crafting specialized messaging and utilizing the data to build lookalike audiences.
Life events as a catalyst
Today, people share life-changing occurrences through social media channels, providing marketers with the information necessary to reach future policyholders at just the right time with targeted content that educates and engages.
Prospect profiles surface easily through data analysis, along with a real understanding of the customer. Through their interactions and engagement, the audience will tell you what they want to know and how they want to learn it. Your job is to answer their curiosity.
The big bonus is data
The cyber world captures a ton of data, and if you know how to parse it and analyze it, revelations appear that help to hone strategy in a more focused fashion, giving digital marketers the ability to pivot quickly and serve up new images, messages etc.
Since the internet is instantaneous, if the numbers tell you something isn’t popping, you can tweak practically immediately. When your audience is comprised primarily of those raised in the digital age, you have to seize the opportunity to grab attention when it happens, as it is here and gone.
Ride the wave
The internet doesn’t only collect data, it notes online behavior, which provides an excellent opportunity to pinpoint your strategic marketing placements. Your chances of hitting the bullseye grow considerably when you can reasonably predict what the user will do based on their previous actions. More precise targeting makes the customer journey dialogue that much more relevant, which leads to higher close rates and translates to ROI, profits and happiness in the C-Suite.
About Michael Taylor
