A fairly new concept B2B2C marketing. B2B2C is when a B2B business sells direct to consumers and to business concurrently, this is the case for many large insurance companies. It makes their go to market strategies more complex with two different target groups that require two different strategies. At the same time.
Brand building and sales activation are front and centre to the growth of the brand, particularly if we sign up to the Byron Sharp methodology of evidence-based marketing. When insurance brokers are your customers, responsible for selling your brand onto the consumer brand messaging can easily get lost.
So, we thought we’d explore some ways to support your brokers from the top, while keeping brand consistency and your eyes firmly on giving the customer the full brand experience.
It can be anything from embedding your brand into a partners offering or broker agents that can provide answers to difficult questions when they need it most.
Create a broker portal, quote tools and APIs
Creating a broker portal isn’t a one-time activity, like a website a portal needs to be constantly maintained, improved and updated. Deloitte found that insurers who invest in automated underwriting and straight-through processing can see up to a 20–30% improvement in sales conversion [Deloitte, Insurance Industry Outlook].
Instant quotes: Brokers need fast quotes, with API driven pricing that seamlessly pulls quotes into their CRM or brokerage platforms.
Single sign on (SSO): Quick access to the system prevents user frustration around passwords, this and generally using pre-filled data where possible speeds up applications and reduces drop off.
Custom dashboards: Give your brokers access to the customer information they need to prioritise and see status at a glance.
Provide insights: Consider how you can take learnings from your consumer trade to pass onto the brokers. Have an area or flag opportunities when and where products and services are more likely to convert or associated with the same personas. Share insights on up and cross sell opportunities.
Think about your sector partners: Embedding large-scale insurance and banking products or services at the point of sale is the new kid on the block for insurance and finance providers. Providing support will go beyond the API or widget on their website, many may be unfamiliar with the products they are selling, so provide tools and wrap around support too – perhaps consider a digital tool kit.
Digital tool kits – Give your brokers a hand with admin
Many insurers (and other enterprises with distribution partners) are now building digital toolkits for their partners (e.g. brokers, resellers, affinity partners) because they can directly improve sales performance, consistency of brand and ease of doing business.
Support your brokers and give them the tools and templates to automate their admin, giving them more time to spend on conversion activity.
Ensure Brand Consistency: With product brochures, email templates and digital assets you can ensure brand and product consistency.
Speed to Market: Give your brokers white labelled sales and marketing assets so they can sell your new products, advise on rate changes and get ahead of regulatory updates.
Compliance & Risk Management: Provide your brokers with a bank of social assets, that are compliant and approved, FCA-compliant messaging, documents and disclosures are used in customer conversations or better still an agent!
Partner Engagement & Loyalty: Providing useful tools builds goodwill with brokers/partners, making them more likely to prioritise your products over competitors.
Data & Insight: If delivered through a digital platform, usage data can show which materials are driving engagement and which partners are most active.
Training & Support: Help your brokers with help tools, agents and E-learning modules (FCA compliance, product knowledge). Make sure your digital platform can host video.
The opportunity to control the brand message while providing value for your brokers is endless.
The hub of all knowledge
Consolidate all your insights, advice and help content into one place. Good for brand equity and thought leadership as well as a central place for your brokers to get information about any of your products, services, market news, anytime they need it.
Sophisticated search functionality: As the content and complexity of content themes develops, you’ll want to have a robust search application, so users can find what they want.
Personalisation: Use an experience platform to apply personalisation, so the user is presented with relevant information based on their previous activity.
Subscription models: Once the content hub is working as a first touch point for a broker to find out information about your products and services you might want to maximise on the value by giving your valued brokers premium access all areas.
Chat bots & agents: If the brokers can’t find what they’re looking for themselves then provide them with an assistant.
Varied content types: We all like to consume information in a variety of ways. Get creative with your content series, as long as it’s easy for people to find.
If you’re looking to increase your engagement with your brokers then why not get in touch with us and we can chat more about what you’ve tried, what you’re doing and how me may be able to increase your revenue through brokers.
Do you have a project you'd like to discuss with us?
At Appius, we're passionate about delivering digital solutions to the Insurance sector. With a portfolio or household names in the car, life, pet and travel insurance sector there’s very little we don’t know about the journey from search term to loyal customer.
If you'd like to understand more or enquire about any of the insurance digital marketing services we offer, just get in touch.
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