Updated on 05/12/2022
In web marketing insurance, today, the competition can not be based only on pricing policies, but needs trust and stable relationships to which to support marketing actions in an up-selling and cross-selling perspective, and this also applies to online policies.
The phenomenon of online insurance, especially for RC car coverage, has assumed important proportions in recent years. This has led to the proliferation of pirate sites, which aim to deceive the consumer by offering bargain offers. The reports come from the IVASS (Institute for Insurance Supervision) which does not fail to constantly warn consumers about the existence of fake companies or fraudulent aggregators who use the web using only the mirage of savings.
Therefore, in such a competitive and sometimes unfair market, the first weapon available to an insurance company is its brand reputation. Let’s go deeper: how to build a brand reputation? We identified 7 factors:
- Performance: financial performance and profit;
- Products and services: the expectations of consumers about companies and products, also given by their interaction with them;
- Innovation: ability to innovate in response to consumer trends and needs;
- Corporate culture and working environment: Meet the needs of employees who will stay in the company longer and trigger word of mouth;
- Leadership: the company’s reputation is conditioned by leaders and managers, the real face of the brand;
- Governance: The set of rules and business systems that are part of everyday management can also affect customer expectations;
- Citizenship: citizenship means the environmental responsibility and social commitment of the company, perceived by consumers, increasingly as a duty of the company.
The brand reputation is created on these 7 factors, but what then the influence actually?
- Communication: what can be deduced from the company’s conduct and concrete actions on sustainability, customer relations and employees;
- Signs: are those messages created and sent to the public in a strategic way and can be verbal and not as advertising and advertising, logo, etc:
- Networks of relationships: the word of mouth, the opinions spread by those who interact with the company including customers, collaborators, employees, press etc.
In short, each of these aspects contributes to creating an image that, of course, must aim to inspire quality and reliability.
The competition is won by brand reputation
An online brand’s reputation is the basis of any marketing activities for upselling and cross-selling. It builds from the beginning of the relationship with the customer, but there is a problem. Research has found that 80% of insurance intermediaries do not use online services in Italy and this is very serious, if you look at the perspective of continuous digitalization. Not to mention the presence on social networks, far less (source: insuranceup.it).
This means that you have to move in this direction and do it as quickly as possible. It can not be considered that the absence from social networks presupposes the existence of a huge space, where you can reach a large and vast audience of customers, still almost unexplored.
An audience that, during the buyer’s journey conducted on the net, tends to seek not only advantageous pricing policies but also reliable information, precisely because of the risks highlighted in the first paragraph. Even Millennials, whose digital skills are on average more advanced than Generation X, are struggling with estimates and contractual clauses, due to the complexity of the topic and the difficulty in approaching it.
So one of the first tools to use, to maintain and/or increase your brand reputation, is the simplicity of communication. A simplicity that must enable potential customers to better understand the contents of online policies and all related services. A simplicity, whose ally can be represented by the value of digital. Online videos, email marketing, interactive apps; tools that if used properly can make your digital strategy more than effective.
Upselling requires prior confidence
Once acquired, the policyholder must be involved in a stable relationship represented, however, by constancy and that is not only detected occasionally, for example at the time of renewal. This type of behavior gives the image of a company that thinks only and exclusively of its personal gain.
Instead, we must aim to personalize the relationship, with the periodic request for feedback and the sending of news related to the insurance sector, perhaps through a well-structured email marketing campaign. Also, keeping the customer constantly informed of his current situation, is one of the ways to make the customer feel considered, thought.
These are roads that must necessarily also pass from social channels, from informative emails, as just mentioned, and from the persuasive power of personalized videos built tailored to customer, drawing on the data communicated by the customer during the conclusion of the policy and very useful for engagement.
As well as the up-selling proposal, based on a strategy that aims to sell higher-end products – and at the same time of greater value – can be successful only if you managed to create a climate of real confidence. The consulting dimension, being close to customers at every opportunity and providing them, when necessary and when required, continuous assistance, must definitely prevail over a more superficial and fast attention, as it is often the one that can be created in the commercial ties born in net. The links born on the net, as we have defined them, must not, in any way, preclude the presence of the company alongside customers when they need it.
Cross-selling online policies: know your policyholder
Also in cross-selling, i.e. in offering complementary insurance products to those already purchased, an already established loyalty is the starting point, and it can further become an opportunity to consolidate or strengthen it.
Based on a thorough knowledge of the insured, his habits and wishes, a personalized strategy can be used to anticipate an implicit and unexpressed need. It can incorporate recent events, such as the purchase of a new vehicle to the arrival of a new family member, all news whose sharing can only derive from a close bond between the company and should be used from the perspective of customer experience.
The typical case could be that of someone who has taken out a third-party liability policy, but has not yet stipulated protection for personal assets or for damage caused to third parties. In the course of the relationship, the frequent contacts solicited by the company may pique the interest of customers, making them aware of the importance of these forms of protection, in the interest of keeping the family safe, as well as for discounts or special offers for new services or products.
The competition for online insurance is increasingly competitive when it comes to pricing, but also on the reliability and ability of companies to lead policyholders to choose the policy that’s best for them in an increasingly conscious way. And this has a recognized value; also economic.