6 trigger marketing best practices for insurance marketers

Many marketers in the insurance industry are feeling the pressure of being in a highly competitive market with huge marketing and branding budgets. While the market is focused on building brand dominance through TV, print and other channels, there is an opportunity for savvy insurance marketers to “wow” customers and prospects with relevant messaging in near real-time, thanks to an abundance of trigger and life event data.

While this data availability means the sky is the limit when it comes to driving results, the same is true for trigger campaign development. The sheer abundance of consumer data options can be overwhelming for even the most seasoned marketer. This is why we wrote our white paper, The Insurance Marketers Guide to Life Event Marketing to help marketers confidently build and deploy smarter, more effective trigger marketing campaigns. Here are six best practices we share with our clients.

1. Close the back door

In a hyper-competitive market, like the insurance industry, retaining your existing customers is not only important, it's job number one! While many consumers don’t realize they can leave mid-term on their policy, insurance marketers know they need to be watching for customers looking to leave year-round.

Many companies, across all industries, use first-party data, like website traffic, as well as demographic and CRM data, to stay on top of customers who are shopping around for a new provider. But savvier marketers will take that first-party data and pair it with third-party triggers from companies like Deluxe to gain a better understanding of their customers' other activity. Doing this allows you to identify at-risk customers, and then either alert their agents that they need to reengage the customer or send a series of marketing messages to extend an offer to keep that business.

2. Triage the triggers

No two triggers are quite the same. For some, creating order amidst an abundance of trigger data will require you to prioritize which data is most actionable and important. For instance, an expecting parent trigger might be a more long-term nurturing opportunity to sell a life policy for the child or to take out a larger policy for one or both soon-to-be parents. Meanwhile, someone planning to move will have a much more urgent need that demands a much more aggressive approach. That is a bottom-of-the-funnel, top-of-the-priority-list situation. Treat the most pressing triggers immediately.

3. Prioritize your channels

Much like assessing the value and urgency of triggers, it’s important to do the same for your channels. While it's vital to have the ability to reach consumers in any channel, the channels often are more effective when used for the right purpose. For instance, consumers conducting early-stage product shopping may be best nurtured via programmatic display and paid social, while those indicating greater intent could be effectively reached by direct mail with the support of email and other digital channels. Of course, these aren’t hard and fast rules, but assessing your channel mix is vital to delivering an effective, efficient omnichannel strategy.

4. Leverage FOMO in your messaging

The fear of missing out, or FOMO, is the sense that you may not have made the best choice, which in the insurance industry can translate into tangible – and costly – consequences. You can easily do this by developing creative ad messaging in your campaign that makes them question their decision, prompting the consumer to wonder if they are getting the best rate or company that will support them when disaster strikes.

One word of caution as it relates to messaging around life event triggers: Make your messaging targeted, but not intrusive. Getting too specific can make consumers feel big brother is looking over their shoulder. Aim for relevance (e.g., “We’re here for you through life’s stages”), rather than creepiness (e.g., “Congratulations on your pregnancy!”).

5. Drive alignment

A strong brand is built through years of messaging. The insurance industry has some of the strongest brands and messaging in the industry so make sure your trigger marketing touchpoints consistently ladder up to your core principles and mission. It’s vital for insurance marketers to make sure the campaign messaging both lives up to your bold brand identity as well as hits the mark with the consumers’ current needs.

Team alignment matters, too. The speed and responsiveness of trigger campaigns require your marketing team to work in lockstep to build a process that keeps your communications on brand and compliant without slowing your ability to get to the consumer first!

6. Monitor your metrics

Not only does trigger marketing give you insights to consumer behaviors and trends, but it’s also far more quantifiable than most other campaign types, making it the darling of CMOs and CFOs alike. The ability to drill down into conversion and revenue metrics based on consumer and business trigger types allows you to make quick adjustments and fine-tune your strategy, which in turn should improve your ROI.