“Insurance is not a high-interest category for someone aged 18 to 35. They want to spend as little time as possible thinking about insurance.”—that’s State Farm’s former head of digital marketing Matt Johnson speaking to Contently about how the insurance industry needs a boost of creativity and innovation in terms of marketing. Just like every other insurance company out there (or any company out there, really), the goal is to “create engagement” with the people that matter the most: your customers. Throughout the years, customer engagement has evolved from merely sending a message to your customers to nurturing actual meaningful relationships with them. Paired with the impact of technology changing the way businesses and customers communicate, the marketing landscape has become a challenging path filled with roadblocks. How do you truly capture your customer’s attention and get them interested in insurance? How can you improve your insurance marketing strategy in the age of rapidly evolving technologies? What can you do to improve your content marketing in an era where messages are delivered rapidly and in large volumes?

Boosting Your Insurance Marketing Content in 2020

Back in 2017, the Content Marketing Institute (via Hubspot) famously reported that content marketing earns three times more leads than paid search advertising. And this makes sense because content marketing meets customers at the need-to-know-now moments, or what Think With Google calls micro moments. These micro moments an opportunity for you to put your business in front of customers. These micro moments are when customers take to their phones or computers and search for answers to questions or solutions to a problem they’re facing.

Google found out that there are three main motives for customers to perform a search, the first being to “spark excitement about an upcoming experience.” While this might seem like a B2C experience, it can also apply to your insurance marketing content strategy. Interactive tools such as investment calculators and life planners can increase engagement because it gives customers an idea of details that they would otherwise need to call a customer service representative for. The two other motives are to “build confidence before heading to a new destination” and “make the most of a budget.” Consumers are smart and they want to be equipped with information. Again, to apply this to an insurance scenario, customers will always want to know more about you and your offers well before they make that first phone call. They’ll equip themselves with information, research on your competitors, and bookmark products and services that they are already interested in.

So what does this mean for marketers like yourself? It means that you need to create a unique insurance marketing content strategy that considers what your customers need and when they need it. Find out their motivations and build your messaging around those motivations. In 2020, content marketing is set to remain a major player in the way B2B businesses market their products and services. Here’s how you can improve on your existing strategies.

Tell a story.

Storytelling has been around since humans learned to document their experiences through drawings in caves. Today, storytelling is used by marketers to capture and maintain customers’ attention, especially in a competitive market that barrages customers with multiple messages daily. The reason why marketers use it is because it is effective. In fact, messages that are delivered in story format are 22 times more memorable than when presented through facts, One Spot reported. In an infographic, the company revealed that 92% of consumers want brands to make ads that feel like a story, with 68% of consumers finding that content that “informs” and “educates” are the most valuable to them.

Start meaningful conversations.

Social media networks like LinkedIn make it easier for B2B companies to publish content where their customers are. Such social media networks are also a venue for group discussions. This is where you can start meaningful conversations. Lou Casale, Head of Communications at Hiscox USA and VIP contributor at Entrepreneur suggests starting meaningful conversations through “[identifying] the topic gaps in current discussions and [offering] a social-by-design topic that everyone should be talking about.” In doing so, you avoid repeating what every other thought leader has already talked about and forged your own path, creating a more interesting conversation that’s fresh and unique.

Choose your words carefully.

Most of the time when B2B marketers develop insurance marketing content strategies, they easily get caught up with their brand’s message. What they often overlook is that at the root of the message is the language, a fundamental part of communication. Relative Insight, a firm that analyses brand and consumer language, points out that “language in advertising isn’t just informative—it can have an important effect on behaviour,” which is why it’s important for marketers to understand what type of language they use in creating messages and how it affects consumer behaviour. Mirroring audiences by mimicking the vocabulary of a group encourages a sense of belonging among customers, viewing the brand or the company as an entity or persona they can relate to. What Relative Insight calls “consumer level vocabulary” should be used as it encourages customers to feel closer to a brand. This closeness directly impacts sales and overall brand equity.

Be more emphatic.

The 2019 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, North America report by the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs revealed some interesting insights on how B2B content marketers approach content creation. For starters, 73% of B2B content marketers and 90% of the most successful B2B content marketers have been found to prioritise their audience’s informational needs over their sales or promotional message. This is a reflection of how B2B marketers are learning to be more emphatic with their messaging, to create deeper, more meaningful relationships with their customers. Showing empathy to customers not only creates stronger bonds (which, as mentioned in the last bullet, directly impacts sales), it also humanizes the business. Head over to Hubspot to check out brilliant examples of empathic marketing content.

As State Farm’s Matt Johnson told Contently, it’s not about who can spend the most on insurance marketing. Instead, it’s about who will spend their marketing budgets most wisely and the wiser choice is content marketing. If you are looking to boost your content marketing strategy in 2020 or are looking to build one from scratch, consult a B2B marketing specialist today.

A B2B marketing agency offers specialized B2B marketing services that deliver more leads and better quality leads. Such specialised services may include any of the following.

• Financial services marketing – specialized B2B marketing strategy services designed for the financial services industry, focusing on branding, content marketing, marketing strategy, sales and marketing, marketing collateral, and value proposition.
• Education marketing – B2B digital marketing services tailored for the education sector, focusing on activities such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), B2B Ad Words (SEM), Content Marketing Creation, LinkedIn Marketing, Email Marketing and Lead Nurturing, Social Media Marketing (SMM), and Remarketing for B2B, among others.
• Manufacturing marketing and industrial marketing – effective marketing solutions dedicated to the manufacturing and industrial sector, with activities designed to attract new customers, increase sales to existing customers, cross sell other services to existing customers, and find new customers in complementary markets.
• IT marketing and technology marketing – strategic marketing methods especially designed for B2B businesses in the IT and technology sectors, with an integrated approach that compliments existing marketing activities to ensure that strategies are aligned with your business objectives.

Consult with a B2B marketing agency to find out ways you can build better, more impactful strategies for your business in 2020.