Profitable Growth Strategies for Insurance – Part 1: Foundations
Profitable Growth Strategies for Insurance
Growth is being looked at from a more strategic perspective more than ever. Carriers and MGA’s largely develop their products and programs for specific audience personas. Brokers who want to increase their book of business profitably need to take a similar approach. In order to succeed, they need to identify the type of customers, “personas” who will impact revenue both today and continue to produce value in the future. From this point it’s important to develop a strategic plan supported by modern marketing technologies that are centered around this exercise.
Who is your Target Audience?
While this question may seem obvious to some, to other Brokers it may require some reflection. There is a difference between the makeup of an existing book of business and the ideal customer personas that will drive profitable growth today. Defining personas doesn’t mean not covering submissions or applications that may fall outside the definition, but having target personas in place acts as a guide to where investments (marketing, resources and technology) should be made.
Some questions that will help determine who your targeted audience is, in line with profitable growth:
- What type of customer and coverage(personal and/or commercial coverages) will add value today and in the future in line with your business?
- Are there profiles where you have an advantage based on expertise in that sector or geographic footprint?
- Are there underserved areas – coverages, geographies, demographic segments- where you can make in roads?
- Are there segments of your current book that cost too much to serve?
- Where are you winning within your current book of business and why?
Quantifying and Qualifying The Opportunity
These questions may result in the identification of several personas. And while they may all represent great opportunities, tackling them one at a time will allow you to best direct efforts and budget as there will be testing and learning along the way. Quantifying the opportunity for each persona will help with prioritization and provide you with an important metric to right size your investment . If your target is large manufacturers in southwest Ontario, find out how many there are, what industries they are concentrated in. If condo owners in Vancouver, is one of your target personas, how many fall into luxury or non luxury categories? Who typically lives in them (families, individuals). There are multiple sources for this information including Census data, list providers or even ensuring markets. This will provide you with an idea of the magnitude of the opportunity, marketing channels and value proposition that will be most relevant for your personas. You can even begin creating revenue projections, integrating ad spend and average premiums/commissions.
“It’s important to do this exercise with stakeholders and executive leadership, without that alignment there is a risk of breakdown when you go on to create digital solutions that are meant to attract your ideal piece of business. Too often we see investments going into campaigns and technology that largely miss the mark because of this breakdown and often they are expensive mishaps that can be avoided.
– Jennifer Pugsley, VP Customer Success
Next Steps – Digital Solutions
Now that you have a handle on the profile and size of your target audience, it’s time to explore the tactics necessary to drive awareness and engagement. Supporting your persona driven strategy with modern digital solutions is essential to be able to grow at scale, right sizing your investment and monitoring its impact – everything you will need to ensure you are growing profitably.
We will discuss how the execution piece of driving profitable growth in next week’s blog.
Need help with marketing to your target audience? Goose Digital would love to help. Contact Us for more information.