We’re back from a few jam-packed days at IBAA. This year has been full of conferences about digital transformation, technology and where the insurance business is headed – and it’s only May! With so much going on in this industry you could literally travel around attending events as a full-time gig! Selfishly, if they were all being held at wondrous places like the Fairmont Banff Springs, I’m in!

We’ve been attending insurance conferences for five years and the general consensus around the “digital topic“ has definitely evolved, Lately, these three things are standing out:

1. We’re hearing from brokers large and small that strategy is the missing link in their digital execution.

They have differences in products, customers, geography and more, but they share a lot in common when it comes to transitioning their business to omnichannel. We saw this in bricks-and-mortar retail as well.

Whether you’re a giant retailer, a branded manufacturer going direct, or a small retailer, the same challenges surrounding strategy, technology, integration, backend operations, and winning, retaining the consumer are universal.

The key piece to this puzzle is strategy and having a solid strategic plan. About a year and a half ago we decided to build a strategic digital roadmap for insurance providers. It has been used over a dozen times with Brokers, Carriers, and MGAs with incredible success.

Building a digital roadmap saves money, time and ensures you’ll produce quality results when you start executing. Brokers and companies are realizing that this is the single most important thing they need in order to start, or keep moving forward with their digital journey. Either way, it’s definitely a great way to get your decision makers on the same page, reduce all the digital noise, and learn how to build a plan that produces focused results year over year (YOY).

2. Commercial lines strategies are taking the stage!

In recent years, digital strategies have largely been focused around personal lines. Since many brokers have had low-ROI with this single-pronged approach, and coupled with a challenging market, we are thrilled to see more focus on commercial lines.

Currently, very few brokers or companies are really building commercial strategies that involve the entire customer journey. Many people we talked to at IBAA are keen to have a company-wide digital platform, that will enable all product lines.

Furthermore, with the growing demand to drive growth and retention in their commercial books, there is a massive opportunity for all insurance providers to look at digital solutions. For example, commercial digital strategies benefit from robust and cost-effective b2b digital targeting for lead generation.

Commercial strategies also highly benefit from automated lead nurturing, which involves warming the buyer up to your product and business prior to being ready to purchase. When target prospects are more likely to buy, producers can reach out with an entire digital timeline of past engagement. And this isn’t just for small business policies. It’s even more relevant to mid-market and large commercial products by leveraging powerful account-based marketing strategies to pull down high-value account targets.

Goose Digital provides the Marketing Automation layer to power all products and all insurance customers types in a way that works across the entire business.

3. Carrier partners are aligned with our vision.

Over the years we’ve developed strong relationships with Insuring partners. They become to know that our approach focuses on strategy, lead quality, customer retention and loyalty.

It’s not just about driving leads any more, it’s about having a true marketing platform that works across all products and all stages of the customer’s journey. It’s also about smart – automated ways to nurture those leads that don’t close immediately, cross-sell customers with relevant products, implement renewal touch-points, and turn your customers into advocates.

Insuring partners know that we understand the challenges around leveraging data, legacy insurance technologies, data integration, call-center operations, budgets – right down to the complexity of helping reboot internal processes to support digital. The validation is nice, but the reality is if digital transformation isn’t approached with a holistic lense it becomes a lot of work and success is difficult to measure.

It was great to share a drink with old friends, clients and colleagues and inspiring to meet new ones.

Goose Digital is the only multi-platform certified marketing automation agency with extensive insurance experience in Canada. We’re on a mission to support brokers, carriers, and MGA’s alike using commercial-grade platforms. We lead with strategy and provide flexible on-going services packages to augment your team.

Coming up for us is Vertafore – Accelerate, Applied Net and IBAO!

If you’re struggling to bring together teams, operations, marketing, technology and data, contact us about our digital road-map, we will help you design your next 18 months. Contact us at [email protected]