Over the past few years, the Indian insurance industry has undergone tremendous changes, with these changes it has become vital for Insurance companies to understand that marketing insurance is an intense job. To succeed in this new-age digitized insurance marketing, you need to way beyond door-knocking and brochures.
Most customers find it a little difficult to comprehend the basics of insurance such as buying, renewing, and raising a claim. For all these issues, communication is the core. Thanks to digitization, for your InsureTech company, websites, apps, social media platforms, email, live chat, etc are fantastic tools that can help you connect with your existing customers as well as prospective customers.
Let us first understand how over the last few years, there has been a paradigm shift in insurance in the last 5 years:
- Most insurance companies today offer a customer-centric approach
- Rather than one size fits all concept, companies now offer a variety of insurance plans and products to help in giving the customer what he needs
- Apart from a company website, there are multiple platforms that help the customers in researching, comparing, and buying insurance, that too without the presence of agents and middlemen
- Simple and easy-to-understand insurance options are offered
- Insurance-specific technologies are used to help connect with customers
The tech aspect in InsureTech:
Thanks to advancements in the field of information and technology, the whole world has witnessed remarkable growth. The Indian insurance industry though has a long way to go but is making all efforts to harness the digitalization of technology and grow. As an InsureTech company, you strive for digital marketing to educate your existing and prospective customers through your website. You need to offer information in the form of high-quality content.
The digital footprint of an Insurance Broker or Aggregator has increased manifolds in the last decade. This has been expedited by Covid-19 and more than 80% of the people follow the digital footprint of the insurance plans, pre or post-purchase. Even customers who buy the plan offline would have gone digital to check the plan before purchase or afterwards for after-sales servicing. Hence the digital footprint of an InsureTech company steps in the amalgamation of insurance with technology!
Ref: https://web-assets.bcg.com/9e/50/a96580d94cf18041ec69c4473328/bcg-insurtech-report.pdf
Even customers increasingly prefer Online Channels for their Insurance Needs
The insurance aggregator, broker, and company websites prefer the digital channel to sell insurance as it is the best way to scale up. Only the bancassurance and the agency channel are still operating mainly offline.
With Covid-19, more people have chosen to go online for their insurance purchases. Even agencies and PoSP (i.e. Point of Sales Persons) have chosen to go online. Even bancassurance and agency channels are slowly adopting the technology for lead generation, client servicing, and policy renewal to increase persistence.
The Top 6 Strategies that an InsureTech Company can implement to improve its Content Strategy:
The insurance industry has a reputation for being boring and dull.
However, the industry is maturing and evolving at a rapid pace with new pay-offs of insurtech companies entering the market every day.
In order to survive in this competitive environment, you cannot afford to have a dry or monotonous content strategy. You need to embrace change and create an appealing brand persona that will help your company get ahead of the competition!
Research conducted by Hubspot found out why people don’t even bother reading some types of content online:
- The headline was too boring- 55%
- Too long- 56%
- Found an interesting article on the same topic elsewhere- 43%
- Not enough visuals- 24%
- Too many ads- 23%
- The title could not be understood/interpreted- 21%
- I felt I already knew what the article was about- 14%
- It lacked credibility- 14%
- Don’t really care about this topic- 6%
Studies show that if your content is too long, people won’t bother reading it. Also, avoid using fluff words and focus on writing in an active voice.
Here are some intelligent yet easy-to-follow strategies that you can incorporate into your content strategies which are especially for the InsureTech:
1. Expand your brand persona
It is a bitter truth that most insurance content is considered to be dull and boring. Apart from the misconceptions about the industry you also need to create a brand persona that is anything but boring. Most people do not like to read about products that do not have real-life tangibility.
Nobody has the time to go through lengthy financial content. If you want people to read your financial content, you need to create a relatable brand persona for your company. Your financial content needs to be short and concise if you want people to read it. In order to connect on a more personal level with your prospects, your financial writer should reflect the brand persona in their writing style.
You can do this by creating personas of the target audience and making sure that financial writers put themselves in the shoes of your customers while typing out a financial copy. This will help them understand what matters most to the customer when they speak about financial products and policies.
So, in order to create a Brand Persona you can follow these simple techniques:
- Create a simple user interface for the website and an innovative, yet simple way to communicate
- Bite-size simplified jargon-free content so that the communication is smooth with the customer
- Create a consistent Content Strategy through the website, blogs, articles as well as digital media.
A combination of all these would help you create a brand persona that would help you go a long way. Since technology is the primary tool of InsureTech companies, creating an online brand personality is key!
2. Empower your Customer
To empower your customer, you first need to under Who Are You Selling To? Personas matter. Now, more than ever. And that could be the differentiator.
The insurance experts in your organisation can help an average customer sail through the insurance journey, something that is often considered to be an inaccessible and complicated space. You need to develop content that can actually benefit your audience.
Gradually, your audience would put their trust in your brand and understand that you are there to help. The most important thing is to create stuff that answers questions. When someone visits your website they should find all the answers to the what, how, who, when and how much.
Content depends on the User Journey and in which stage they are. Let me explain with an example. If your customer is buying a Health Insurance Plan for his parent and he is in:
- Awareness Stage:
When he is trying to discover and learn about all the various Senior Citizen Health Insurance Plans in India, then you can help him with:- What are Senior Citizen Health Insurance Plans and how do they work?
- How is it different from a regular health insurance plan?
- Consideration Stage:
When he is aware of the type of plan but is still trying to figure it out, then you can help him with:- 5 things to consider when you are looking for Senior Citizen Health Insurance Coverage
- Top 10 must-have features in a comprehensive Senior Citizen Health Insurance Plan
- Decision Stage:
When he is deciding which is the best Senior Citizen Health Insurance Plan for his parents, then you can help him with:- How the Sharmas overcame health insurance worries in their family
- Plan A V/S Plan B: Which to buy and when?
- How much is the sum insured to opt for if you are in a Tier 1 city?
- Advocacy Stage:
When he has already purchased the plan and might need other assistance thereafter such as:- How to renew your Senior Citizen Health Insurance Plan?
- Happy Testimonial to help others take a decision
- How to change your address/phone number/nominee, etc.
The content strategy has to work across the buyer journey. And the web design has to be able to serve the content to the prospect intuitively as well.
3. Expand the content horizon
You need to understand the challenges average customers may face. When you produce content that is specific to your plans and products, you might not be able to generate organic traffic. On the other hand, offering solutions without directly promoting your own product would surely create an impression on consumer engagement and retention.
Tip: Think beyond insurance plans and services. Research what your target audience is looking for. Motivate your customers to turn to you repeatedly for financial advice.
Importance of a Content Strategy for an InsureTech company:
1.Consistency is key. So, without a proper 6-month Content Strategy laid out, it is very difficult to be consistent with content creation.
2.Follow the same Content Strategy across various Digital Channels, as an online brand takes time to build. But once the brand is built, it would create an avalanche effect and the benefits can be reaped forever!
3.Remember to focus on SEO or Social Engine Optimisation while planning your Content Strategy as ranking on the 1st page is extremely important for organic traffic to the website.
4.Create a value proposition for the customer, i.e. create a strong WIIFM (what’s in it for me) so that the customer finds a reason to come back to your website for the second time. This happens when there is a brand recall!
Contact me at +91-93102-96016 if you want to know more about how to create a winning Content Strategy for an InsureTech company, especially in the startup or funding phase.
4. Telling Stories Helps
You need to remember that you are neither writing for yourself nor is every reader an insurance agent who would understand your lingo and jargon. You must give your existing and prospective customers something that they can relate to. Your content must be relevant to them and offer them information on things that they need. Impressive and engaging infographics, videos, data, and blogs help in generating a steady stream of traffic.
People love reading that relates to their lives or problems they are facing. For instance, you’re selling financial products to young people who want to own an apartment of their own but cannot afford the hefty down payment. You can talk about how financial products can be used to save up for a down payment and get advice from professionals on what financial product is right for them.
The attention span of individuals has fallen significantly and here is where stories play a role. Thus, your content strategy should be:
- Articles/ Guides/Blogs which are easy to find content
- Jargon-free and simple which is easy to consume content and
- Relevant and informative content which is easy to share across mediums, especially WhatsApp.
All of this can be achieved through:
- A mix of Long and Short Form Content as Blogs and Articles on the website
- Informative Infographics and Sequence Posts on Pinterest, Instagram
- Videos and reels or short videos on YouTube, Instagram
- Podcasts
5. Review your Content
You also need to ensure that your content stays useful as well as applicable to your audience. When you review it on a regular basis, you would be able to evaluate its relevance to the target readers. A great way to analyze the pulse of the market is customer and tropical surveys.
Top 4 Ideas on Content Review:
1.Online Tools:
You can make use of online tools to get new ideas for your content such as:
Google Search Results and predictive texts such as
HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator
2.Keyword Research:
You can use an SEO Extension on your Google Chrome which shows related keywords such as:
Social Media Research:
You can do a keyword search on Twitter and see what people are tweeting about the most. Check the trending posts on IG. Check your competition.
3.Frequently Asked Questions:
Visit Quora and try to find out what are the general questions most people ask.
4.Plan:
Formulate blogs and articles around such topics. And then distribute the content so that it reaches your audience soon. 5.Focus on social media presence
Social media is the best way to build a strong online presence for your company. Therefore, when it comes to financial content marketing, you need to make sure that financial writers are targeting the right audience on social channels like Facebook and Twitter.
You should also encourage financial writers to engage with potential customers by commenting on their posts or retweeting their tweets.
The financial writer’s LinkedIn profile should be active as well if they want people interested in financial products to connect with them. Besides engaging with clients it is important for financial writers to brand themselves properly so that potential employers find them easily through LinkedIn search.
6. An amalgamation of digital marketing pursuits
There is a myriad of online analytical tools that are available to you today, such as:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Social media platforms
- Pay-Per-Click
- Email marketing
- Mobile Marketing
You need to elevate and focus all your marketing activities in order to reach your audience. Keeping track of the results of your activities will give you a true picture of how well they are performing. Based on this you can further adjust your plans and strategies.
The Final Word
The model of the Indian insurance industry has undergone tremendous changes. InsureTech companies are embracing the latest technologies to serve their digitally immersed customers better. Remember that you would need a little time to be able to create high-quality content and work on the marketing plan. When you establish a content approach that is strategic to productivity, customer experience, risk management, and talent, you would remain a competitor in this ever-changing industry.
Featured image credits: Image by Freepik
