Insurers aren’t the only entities finding opportunity in a technology-driven market.
Elizabeth Sullivan, vice president at EG Bowman, a New York-based commercial and personal lines insurance broker, says that technology has helped her smaller firm increase market presence.
“We’ve been allowed to get into the conversation and upload articles about current hot topics,” says Sullivan. “It’s been very helpful in that it generates conversation with consumer and clients, and it’s creating a potential pipeline of clients and prospects.”
Sullivan is already seeing new areas opening up for her company. Online commentary and social media interaction, she says, have given her company name recognition. Clients are finding the company more easily, and Sullivan says the ability to quote and bind online with the various carrier portals has made the marketing of insurance that much more streamlined. “It’s a huge opportunity for us to get into conversations and be present,” she adds.
For Dean Davison, director of communications at Lockton, the largest privately held global insurance broker, creating that personalized connection establishes relevancy—and to his mind, relevancy is the most important factor in marketing.
Relevancy, he says, means being where the clients are looking. “Mobile is the issue of the moment,” Davison says. Putting the right information in front of clients and colleagues involves use of mobile technology tools that allow for easy access to information via computer, mobile phone or tablet, he adds.
However, Davison says technology tools and apps introduce a new wrinkle—having to stay on top of innovation. “Technology gets better every day. That’s great, of course, unless you have already decided to use technology X 1.0, then you discover the next day that it’s hopelessly out of date now that X 1.1 has been launched,” he says.
“What’s key is not to get too caught up in any single technology but to keep your eye on what’s going to help colleagues solve problems for clients and to do your best to put it in their hands.”
Still, Davison sees technology as the missing link in bringing necessary information to clients and prospective clients in order to help them solve a problem. “That’s where we as communications professionals can excel,” he says. “Packaging, promoting and connecting people with information they value.”