Insurance has never been considered the sexiest of products to sell. On the surface a seemingly rationale purchase, but stripped back, there are just as many, if not more, emotive drivers drawing customers to choose your brand versus your competitors. Understanding what these are is key to creating a brand that people want to be associated with, as opposed to simply needing to be associated with. Tapping into the emotional mindset of your customers is a unique space your brand can own and once captured, your insurance company becomes more than just a means to an end. It’s part of their life.  

Emotion counts for 95% of the decision-making process so, in order to talk to your target audience in a way that truly resonates and builds community, you as a brand must embody the same values, principles and interests as your audience. That way, you can speak genuinely, bring personality to the heart of the conversation and become a trusted resource that can help guide people effectively towards your products and services. 

This is more important in today’s market than ever before. As the cost-of-living soars, consumers are re-evaluating where and how they spend their money. Research from Consumer Intelligence showed that a third of UK customers have cancelled non-compulsory insurance with the top three to go being home buildings and content insurance, pet insurance and appliance insurance. A huge 63% of UK customers have looked to switch to cheaper policies, so even more reason for your brand to prove its value above and beyond just the price. 

However, with messaging that focuses on the emotional benefits of insurance such as peace of mind, financial security and mental well-being, insurance brands can mitigate policy lapse rates, increase their customer base and even steal market share from competitors, who might be scaling back in their marketing activity given the economic outlook. 

Below we share the five principles that will help you turn your insurance company into a lifestyle business. 

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Understanding your brand personality

Until you know who you are as a brand, how you speak, how you behave, what you wear - it will be very difficult to drive meaningful connection. Trust equals sales, but to build consumer trust, there needs to be consistency, clarity and alignment in your messaging, tone of voice and visual language across every customer touchpoint. 

Creative brand strategy workshops are brilliant for establishing a solid brand framework, brand qualities, narrative and tone of voice. By getting the whole team involved it gives the business an energy injection that turns every member of staff into a brand guardian, who can confidently speak about the business, knowing they’re in sync with all their colleagues. That enthusiasm radiates out and in turn, gives your customers a good feel that you are the right insurance company for them. And branding workshops aren’t just for new businesses. If you’re an established business, you might be launching a new product that’s going after a new audience, or your brand might just be in need of a refresh or modernisation. If you’re struggling to get your messaging to resonate with your audience, interrogating what you're saying, how you're saying it and who you're saying it to is a good place to start and getting an outsider to help, is a good way to untangle the thoughts within what might be an internal echo chamber.  

Smarter Contracts, are a privacy tech company and creators of Pulse, a consent and permissions management platform. Prior to their current brand, communications and website, the team were struggling to articulate and visually represent their business in a way that reflected how they wanted to be perceived, which had a knock-on effect on lead generation, investment and talent. Over a series of creative workshops involving all senior stakeholders, we defined the purpose, vision, mission, and value proposition for both parent and product brand along with the brand personalities, emerging qualities and tone of voice. finding a way for them to be related while distinctly different from one another. For the parent brand Smarter Contracts, we used our outcomes to define the visual language resulting in a bold, confident logo mark, a more open font, ownable iconography and a collection of images now used with clear purpose and intent. We then redesigned and rebuilt the Smarter Contracts website, in a way that is uniquely ownable by the brand. Building in custom elements of the visual language for a slick, professional experience their audience expects. 

Read more here.

Know your audience

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Creating pen portraits is a good way to summarise what’s important to your audience - where they shop, what they read, their values and opinions. The more niche you get with your audience’s need states the better the insight, the better the creative and the more your message will resonate with that group of people. You’re never going to be able to win everyone over, so really focus on the ones you can. 

By getting this right, you can become more than just a brand that they only hear from when something bad has happened or payment is due. Understanding why they have insurance in the first place, means you can tailor messaging and products specifically to them, and become more relevant in their lives rather than just at times of crisis. Creating regular touch points and building a relationship throughout the year makes your brand more personal and because you’ve taken the time to really get to know them, they will pay you back in loyalty. 

Your Life campaign with ALA Insurance featuring Louise Boyce (@mamastillgotit_) did exactly that. Understanding the needs of Louise’s audience at that time, identifying relatable content and meticulously planning the campaign in a way that didn’t feel like they were being sold to. In the end, we had a script that could only work for Louise and her audience and as a result, generated a 31% conversion rate (average being 3%*), 6.6% engagement rate (the average being 0.98%**), 405,000 organic reach and an ROI of over 9.25%. It also won an award.

Read more about this campaign here.

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*https://www.ruleranalytics.com/blog/insight/conversion-rate-by-industry/ 

** https://sproutsocial.com/insights/instagram-stats/

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The big idea 

Be brave! A lot of brands say they’re brave, but when it comes down to the execution of the creative idea, they’re often not quite brave enough. And brave doesn’t mean risky. Risky and insurance tends not to go hand-in-hand, but daring to be bold and speak directly to a certain sub-set of your target audience is what cuts through and gets you noticed. As we said above, you won’t win everyone over, but if the idea is born out of genuine insight and is communicated in a way that is tailored for the channels you know your audience are on, the audience you want will convert and the audience you don’t will be filtered out.  

For their inaugural influencer marketing campaign, ALA Insurance partnered with renown and respected self-development coach Roxie Nafousi and breathwork coach Martin Covill for a campaign that reframed GAP Insurance from a rational financial services product, into an emotional lifestyle choice. With the help of Roxie and Martin, ALA Insurance provided their target audience with content they could use to help them gain greater control of stressful situations – like a vehicle write off or theft - while at the same time, instilling that same feeling of inner calm you have when you know you've got GAP Insurance. 

Read more about this campaign.

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Using influencers 

Using influential figures to carry your campaign message can generate a powerful, long-term ROI for your insurance brand that lives on long after the initial campaign ends. Plus, they don't have to have millions of followers to work. On the contrary, micro and nano-influencers can, and have proved to be, invaluable when used correctly. Not Just a Nice to Have campaign for ALA Insurance using Anna Lawlor (@TheLongMum) who had a conservative 17k followers at the time, but a highly engaged following of 8% (average at the time was 3%, current average is 1.4%). This was the final campaign of an eight-month brand partnership where Anna had taken her followers on a journey of discovery and education about GAP Insurance, ending with this campaign on why it is so important, especially in light of the cost-of-living crisis. 

Someone who reflects your target audience as someone they can relate to is crucial. The influencer should fit with the brand personality, becoming more than just an influencer for a single campaign but a brand ambassador, who can talk authentically about the brand and product. Treating the influencer like a new employee with a brand immersion session and giving them the product can really help enrich and make their content more genuine, less salesy and more like a recommendation from a trusted source. In today’s world, we are just as connected to influencers via social media in the same way and frequency that we are connected to friends. We know a lot about them, from what they had for breakfast to their Mum’s name so they are able to deliver a brand message to the target audience just like a friend sharing word of mouth.  

By vetting your influencers’ followers, you can be sure at least 60% are based in the location you sell your products, they are age appropriate and are real users (not bot accounts). Influencers are brilliant for being mouth pieces for the brand but due diligence must be exercised, if the partnership and messaging doesn't seem authentic, consumers won't engage.  

Building a community

A community is built on trust and trust can only be gained once you have a relevant message, delivered at the right time, to the right people, on the right channels, using authentic influencers and smart paid media to help you.  

Social media allows brands to gather a community of existing and potential customers together as followers and through comments, facilitate conversations about the things that are important to them, all while your brand remains at the heart of it all. However, from experience, some insurance brands believe that customers want to hear from them less, rather than more, and have concluded that social media isn’t relevant for them. However, without that regular communication or community, the brand risks being seen only as a monthly direct debit.  

Customers want to see value from the brands they buy from, and not just value in terms of cost, but value to their everyday lives. Whether this be through money-saving tips, making them aware of other products that would suit them or simply answering frequently asked questions. With online UK audiences spending on average 108 minutes a day on social media (Statista, 2022) this is where your target audience are living, and brands who are not present will drop down the consideration list.   

BIG little LDN have transformed ALA Insurance from a brand with no social presence, into the most engaging insurance brand on Instagram***. Our clear underlying strategy from the outset was to highlight the lifestyle benefits of the brand and products, so the brand became one their target audiences can easily relate to. Our mix of influencer activity, PR and a regular social content has consistently added value, acting as a reminder that the brand is not just there for them in times of crisis, but for when you need a lifestyle partner too.

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***Research into the UK’s top ten insurance companies on Instagram reveals they all have poor organic reach, low engagement (1%) and poorly designed content not fit for the channel. 

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To find out more or to speak to the team about how we can help you with brand growth, make an impact online and drive sales email us at talk@biglittlelondon.com