Getting smart in Singapore
I enjoyed the Social Media and Mobile conference organised by Asian Insurance Review in Singapore in early April 2014.
A couple of the other speakers have been kind enough to also share their slide presentations (thanks Carlos and Anisha!) and as a result I thought it would be worthwhile doing a post conference post.
The Digital Insurer was fortunate enough to be able to talk about the topic of smart content in insurance and it was a good opportunity to step back and think through the importance of content in marketing and sales. So I’d like to focus the post conference review on the growing important of content as a marketing strategy in insurance (and in all businesses).
This post has 3 sections:
- How to be a smart content producer
- Do insurers have the appetite?
- Speaker reviews – including sharing of presentation slides
1. How to be a smart content producer
My high level thoughts after the conference were that insurers can succeed if they develop strategies with the following principles :
- Quality content beats quantity: insurers need to build capabilities for quality content production using a combination of in-house and outsourced specialists. Content needs to be grounded in the written word but extended to video and audio deploying multi-media formats
- Content distribution needs to be planned: when insurers start to embark on a content strategy they will initially be hampered by a lack of distribution capability . So insurers need to leverage staff and salesforce to amplify content distribution and give new social media channels a push. In practice a good content strategy will go hand in had with the development of distribution capabilities for that content
- Commit for the long term: overnight success is unlikely and even if you are lucky to have a viral marketing campaign sustained engagement is needed with customers to build trust. Once you start a content strategy the option to stop is removed. This commitment does obviously come with a price tag.
2. Is the appetite there?
Are insurers in Asia willing to devote 20% of their marketing budgets to content production?
Can CMOs make the case for additional budget or do they need to accept rapid reduction in traditional marketing expenditure?
Do leadership teams understand the digital revolution is being driven by customer centricity? Even if you heart and head agrees that this is true what do you do if you are sitting on a highly profitable distribution centric model in Asia ?
The good news is that an increasing number of insurers are understanding that content can drive results and culture change in their organisations. What may have been seen as a minority marketing tool a couple of years ago is getting increasing acceptance – CMOs teamed up with supportive CEOs should be able to implement a long term smart content strategy.
3. Conference Speaker Reviews
We have reviewed and provided access to the presentation slides of three of the speakers at the conference.
Carlos Pallordet – digital marketing in financial services
Key points:
- Digital marketing forecast as the largest component of marketing expenditure. Within that the rising starts are social media and social marketing
- The emergence of Gen Y – the eldest of whom are now turning 34
- Some nice examples of the use of video and user driven content campaigns
- The use of charity as an engagement tool
- Some early adoption of allowing customer reviews on aggregator sites in the UK
View the slide deck:
Anisha Motwani – From Being Social to Buying Social
Key points:
- Makes the argument that building social capital will lead to social commerce
- How social needs to be embedded in business assets – and vice versa
- Presents the iGenius children and parent engagement campaign that has been very successful at Max Life
- Identifies the need for social customer service
View the slide deck:
The Digital Insurer’s talk: Smart content in Insurance
Key points:
- There is plenty of evidence to make the case for smart content
- Smart content is about creating a platform
- Frameworks for objectively assessing smart content are missing – The Digital insurer propose a new Smart Content Index
- Review 3 companies with smart content strategies – USAA, MoneySavingsExpert.com & Great Eastern
- How to implement a smart insurance content strategy
- Some predictions – what are the characteristics of the winners in the content wars in insurance?
View the full slide deck:
Share It
If you have some great stories to share on social content. or digital insurance, do let us know. We love giving a platform to people with an interesting perspective and wisdom to share !