Digital Marketing Automation for Insurance Agents
Any innovative conversation is incomplete without Digital transformation in recent years. In a fast-changing world, keeping business more customer-centric, as well as, employee-centric while achieving the desired business goals is a very significant step. Communication, engagement, collaborations and demands have shifted online. Before any big or small decision, consumers want to refer online and this is an opportunity for businesses.
71% of consumers surveyed used some form of digital research before buying insurance (e.g. price comparison or social media) – PwC
Nearly two-thirds (63%) of digital marketing leaders continue to struggle with delivering personalised experiences to their customers. (Gartner)
What is Digital Marketing Automation?
Digital marketing automation is an integral part of the digital transformation initiative. It is a combination of automation software and a marketing process to streamline marketing efforts for improved productivity, improved customer relations and business reach.
80% of companies saw an increase in leads thanks to marketing automation. (Invespcro)
91% of marketing automation users agree it is “very important” to the overall success of their online marketing activities (Invespcro)
Digital automation platforms or tools help with effective communication and managing different marketing activities from a single platform. It helps with lead nurturing, prospecting, retention, social media marketing, email marketing, upsell/cross-sell, deep analytics and more.
Why is it important for Insurance Agents?
According to PwC’s survey and discussion, 55% of customers still prefer to buy insurance products from agents/brokers. With such an influential reach, leveraging agents’ customer reach by enabling them with digital automation can help insurance companies achieve desired growth and results. Across various industries, the strategy is shifting from a product-driven approach to a more customer-centric approach, and the insurance sector is no different. So, we are highlighting some of the benefits of Digital automation for insurance agents:
1. Improved targeting- If you want to target your audience with the right messaging then digital automation can help you achieve that more effectively. Agents can send personalised messages based on their customers’ preferences and interests. They can create relevant messaging and send it across various digital channels where their audience can engage with them directly.
2. Revenue enhancement- Through digital marketing automation agents can cross-sell, up-sell, and do timely follow-ups to increase customers’ retention value. It also helps segregate and prioritise leads, based on customer activity and improves the probability of conversion.
3. Improved efficiency- Digital marketing automation can make agents more efficient by saving their time and helping them focus on more important tasks to increase business. Activities such as pushing regular social media posts or emails manually, automation software can help automate it. Also, digital automation can help agents schedule posts on social media and emails, create landing pages, nurturing, engagement scoring etc. from a single software/platform. It eventually helps in saving time to create & run campaigns.
4. Accurate reporting- Creating manual reports is a very exhausting process and prone to errors, but with the help of an automation platform, the process becomes easy. It provides them with an overview of the process helping them analyse the process/approach that needs to be improved.
5. Improved customer retention- Digital marketing automation tools can help create a seamless customer experience by connecting to potential customers through multiple channels. Based on their customers’ journey they can keep engaging with meaningful content, and if they have had a great buying experience from agents, they are more likely to be brand loyal and stick longer.
6. Schedule emails & social media posts- With automation platforms, social media posts and emails can be scheduled ahead of time. Based on a different segment of the audience and their engagement, instead of scheduling a post for the whole database, it can be scheduled for a definite set of customers based on their interests and requirements.
Global spending on marketing automation tools is predicted to pass $25 billion by 2023 — a 14% annual growth rate.
(https://instapage.com/blog/automation-statistics)
How Insurance Companies can enable their Agent network?
For the insurance sector, agent network is a very important sales channel and enabling this network with the necessary digital automation can help leverage its vast and diverse customer reach. This approach will also help support the sales and marketing activities of the agent network via digital tools to provide a better customer experience. Here is how insurance companies can enable their agent network:
1. Helping create a credible online presence- Insurance companies can enable their agents with a personal business website. It will include a personalised URL, chatbot, contact details, achievements, testimonials, and all the branded content, which can be shared with customers. It will not only give agents a 24/7 online presence but also help insurance companies to maintain regulatory compliance on the content shared online by agents.
2. Creating digital customer engagement- Digital enablement helps agents interact with their customers even when they work remotely. It helps them communicate better while maintaining the necessary human touch via platforms like instant messaging apps, social media, and email. Also, insurance companies can push co-branded, compliance-approved content to their agent network to create day-to-day engagement among customers with the help of a well-integrated platform and all the necessary features.
3. Providing better visibility & reach- As face-to-face meetings are declining, reaching out to customers at different geographical locations can be challenging for agents. But with effective digital automation platforms, agents can create better brand visibility and reach with targeted campaigns. These platforms are well-integrated with CRM, which also helps analyse the effectiveness of various campaigns to create improved customer relations.
Benefits of digital marketing automation
Digital marketing automation can help businesses conserve resources and manage marketing campaigns effectively. So, let’s look at the benefits of marketing automation that Insurance companies can reap.
74% of marketers say the biggest benefit of marketing automation is saving time. (https://review42.com/resources/marketing-automation-statistics/)
1. Time-saving- With the help of automation tools, digital marketing campaigns can be scheduled ahead of time on email and social media channels while helping you focus on more creative tasks and business growth.
2. Better personalisation- Digital automation helps you create personalised content and deliver a unique customer experience to your customers. It helps boost sales and increase engagement.
3. Multichannel campaigns with tracking- Digital automation helps you run multichannel campaigns with tracking to identify the visitor’s interest and engage better.
4. Improved ROI- With consistency in communication and effective marketing campaigns will eventually deliver a better return on investment (ROI).
SalesPanda is a complete Digital Office for partners (advisors, agents and distributors) and sales teams to automate their digital marketing processes and grow their business digitally. Our platform also helps principal companies leverage the vast customer reach of their partners and sales teams following strict regulatory compliance with centralised control.