Author: indiafreenotes

Value chain analysis is a process for identifying opportunities for and constraints to increased competitiveness of a sector. Value chain finance analysis prioritizes the financial needs within the context of specific upgrades of a value chain if it is to take advantage of end-market opportunities. This is a critical element of determining where expansion of financial services is tied to the growth and competitiveness of a value chain. A value-chain finance analysis looks not only at demand, but also the incentive structures and capacities of actors to deliver or facilitate financial access within the value chain. Additionally, constraints within the enabling environment and financial sector as a whole that may impact the availability of financing should be examined during the information-gathering stage. Importantly, as financial service delivery is rarely specific to one value chain, the value chain finance analysis should ideally identify key financial bottlenecks that affect the growth of multiple value chains.

Value chain analysis provides information on the upgrading investments needed to take advantage of identified end-market opportunities and improve competitiveness. Building on this, it gathers information on financing constraints to market opportunities from industry stakeholders, firms and financial institutions. Interviews are conducted with financial service providers in and outside the value chain to reveal the degree to which financing is already available. If finance gaps exist, the analysis probes finance providers’ perspectives on why the gaps exist. Interviews include formal financial institutions, (microfinance institutions, banks) as well as input suppliers, brokers and dealers that may provide working capital loans or input supplies on credit to their clients.

Once information is obtained on the availability of and/or gaps in financing, a schematic can be developed showing product and financial flows. This schematic helps identify overall finance gaps that can constrain the prioritized improvements in value chain performance.

Financing gaps are further analyzed to determine why they exist. In general, financing is absent because potential cost or risk is seen to outweigh the potential benefit. Financing may be absent because the finance provider or potential borrower cannot accurately determine the benefits of increased investment, or because the lender or borrower correctly assesses the risk of lending and investing as too high. The analysis of financing gaps can inform donors about what type of intervention may be needed, and whether the interventions should be on the financial side, the enterprise side, or both. A challenge for donors and governments is identifying ways to support a value chain without undermining or crowding out private-sector solutions. Interventions should be geared toward facilitating private-sector solutions, addressing market failures and ensuring a functioning enabling environment.

Opportunities

There are multiple benefits which flow from successful value chain financing arrangements. Through its ability to reduce risk and enhance incentives, value chain finance can enable the sustainable delivery of services, for example ensuring that farmers, brokers and wholesalers have continuous access to a line of products they need that are delivered in a timely manner and meet certain specifications. These arrangements can also improve working relationships (e.g., between buyers and suppliers) and facilitate intra-chain information that lowers the actual or perceived risks of lending. A successful arrangement can often provide a demonstration effect which may prompt larger-scale players and formal financial actors to enter into a new market once the investment opportunities are realized.

Example: In Ethiopia, financial institutions were unwilling to work with agricultural cooperatives until a bank tapped a Development Credit Authority mechanism which shared the risk of loans to cooperatives that provided advances against products deposited by their members. After a successful collaboration, the bank obtained a second guarantee, but did not use it, going on to lend to agricultural cooperatives using their own funds. The bank considered the partnership to be successful on its own merits and continued their on-lending to cooperatives for subsequent on-lending to its smallholder members.

Challenges

One challenge for value chain finance actors is the provision of longer-term loans for capital investments. Most value chain actors supply short-term working capital to clients that require limited monitoring, collateral or paperwork. As with formal financial institutions, value chain actors often struggle with weighing the risks and rewards of offering investment loans. Value chain actors who directly provide financing are also faced with challenges of working in a sector they know little about. There may be costs associated with becoming involved in the lending process; they assume risks for repayment if a guaranteed borrower does not fulfill the repayment obligation; and they risk diverting time and resources away from other activities that might provide a greater return and in which they have more skills and experience. Furthermore, value chain finance takes place within a market system and is based on commercial transactions between value chain actors. The viability of many value chain finance mechanisms can be limited by low or unreliable end-market demand for a product, mistrust among actors, and unsupportive regulatory and policy environment. Contract enforcement and side-selling are common issues that undermine many buyer-based finance mechanisms. Additionally, production and price risks can be major deterrents to finance if they are not provisioned for with other risk mechanisms.

Implications for Design and Implementation

Value chain financing offers a variety of opportunities for creative program design, including opportunities for interventions that strengthen linkages between producers and buyers; encouraging banks to lend to value chain actors; organizing smallholder producer associations to enable production of high value crops; and outreach to financial institutions to design warehouse receipts loan products.

A challenge for donors and governments is to determine ways to support a value chain without undermining private-sector solutions. Interventions should be geared toward facilitating private-sector solutions, addressing market failures and ensuring a functioning enabling environment – not becoming a player within the value chain itself. Below are some general implications for program designers interested in expanding financial services to value chain actors.

• Design sustainable value chain finance interventions.
• Facilitate information flow from the value chain to financial markets.
• Design interventions with ‘integrated components’ that focus on increasing access to finance.
• Identify sources of risk reduction and new incentives.
• Provide training and technical assistance to value chain connector firms.
• Introduce and link value chain firms with financial institutions.
• Identify ways to improve access to longer-term agricultural finance.
• Recognize the limits as well as the benefits of financing by value chain actors.
• Look for solutions for gender-based constraints to finance.

Insurance companies base their business models around assuming and diversifying risk. The essential insurance model involves pooling risk from individual payers and redistributing it across a larger portfolio. Most insurance companies generate revenue in two ways: Charging premiums in exchange for insurance coverage, then reinvesting those premiums into other interest-generating assets. Like all private businesses, insurance companies try to market effectively and minimize administrative costs.

Pricing and Assuming Risk

Revenue model specifics vary among health insurance companies, property insurance companies, and financial guarantors. The first task of any insurer, however, is to price risk and charge a premium for assuming it.

Suppose the insurance company is offering a policy with a $100,000 conditional payout. It needs to assess how likely a prospective buyer is to trigger the conditional payment and extend that risk based on the length of the policy.

This is where insurance underwriting is critical. Without good underwriting, the insurance company would charge some customers too much and others too little for assuming risk. This could price out the least risky customers, eventually causing rates to increase even further. If a company prices its risk effectively, it should bring in more revenue in premiums than it spends on conditional payouts.

In a sense, an insurer’s real product is insurance claims. When a customer files a claim, the company must process it, check it for accuracy, and submit payment. This adjusting process is necessary to filter out fraudulent claims and minimize the risk of loss to the company.

Interest Earnings and Revenue

Suppose the insurance company receives $1 million in premiums for its policies. It could hold onto the money in cash or place it into a savings account, but that is not very efficient: At the very least, those savings are going to be exposed to inflation risk. Instead, the company can find safe, short-term assets to invest its funds. This generates additional interest revenue for the company while it waits for possible payouts. Common instruments of this type include Treasury bonds, high-grade corporate bonds, and interest-bearing cash equivalents.

Reinsurance

Some companies engage in reinsurance to reduce risk. Reinsurance is insurance that insurance companies buy to protect themselves from excessive losses due to high exposure. Reinsurance is an integral component of insurance companies’ efforts to keep themselves solvent and to avoid default due to payouts, and regulators mandate it for companies of a certain size and type.

For example, an insurance company may write too much hurricane insurance, based on models that show low chances of a hurricane inflicting a geographic area. If the inconceivable did happen with a hurricane hitting that region, considerable losses for the insurance company could ensue. Without reinsurance taking some of the risks off the table, insurance companies could go out of business whenever a natural disaster hits.

Regulators mandate that an insurance company must only issue a policy with a cap of 10% of its value unless it is reinsured. Thus, reinsurance allows insurance companies to be more aggressive in winning market share, as they can transfer risks. Additionally, reinsurance smooths out the natural fluctuations of insurance companies, which can see significant deviations in profits and losses.

For many insurance companies, it is like arbitrage. They charge a higher rate for insurance to individual consumers, and then they get cheaper rates reinsuring these policies on a bulk scale.2

Evaluating Insurers

By smoothing out the fluctuations of the business, reinsurance makes the entire insurance sector more appropriate for investors.

Insurance sector companies, like any other non-financial service, are evaluated based on their profitability, expected growth, payout, and risk. But there are also issues specific to the sector. Since insurance companies do not make investments in fixed assets, little depreciation and very small capital expenditures are recorded. Also, calculating the insurer’s working capital is a challenging exercise since there are no typical working capital accounts. Analysts do not use metrics involving firm and enterprise values; instead, they focus on equity metrics, such as price-to-earnings (P/E) and price-to-book (P/B) ratios. Analysts perform ratio analysis by calculating insurance-specific ratios to evaluate the companies.

The P/E ratio tends to be higher for insurance companies that exhibit high expected growth, high payout, and low risk. Similarly, P/B is higher for insurance companies with high expected earnings growth, low-risk profile, high payout, and high return on equity. Holding everything constant, return on equity has the largest effect on the P/B ratio.

When comparing P/E and P/B ratios across the insurance sector, analysts have to deal with additional complicating factors. Insurance companies make estimated provisions for their future claims expenses. If the insurer is too conservative or too aggressive in estimating such provisions, the P/E and P/B ratios may be too high or too low.

The degree of diversification also hampers comparability across the insurance sector. It is common for insurers to be involved in one or more distinct insurance businesses, such as life, property, and casualty insurance. Depending on the degree of diversification, insurance companies face different risks and returns, making their P/E and P/B ratios different across the sector.

Internal environment is a component of the business environment, which is composed of various elements present inside the organization, that can affect or can be affected with, the choices, activities and decisions of the organization.

It encompasses the climate, culture, machines/equipment, work and work processes, members, management and management practices.

In other words, the internal environment refers to the culture, members, events and factors within an organization that has the ability to influence the decisions of the organization, especially the behaviour of its human resource. Here, members refer to all those people which are directly or indirectly related to the organization such as owner, shareholders, managing director, board of directors, employees, and so forth.

Factors Influencing Internal Environment

The factors which are under the control of the organization, but can influence business strategy and other decisions are termed as internal factors. It includes:

1. Value System

Value system consists of all those components that are a part of regulatory frameworks, such as culture, climate, work processes, management practices and norms of the organization. The employees should perform the activities within the purview of this framework.

2. Vision, Mission and Objectives

The company’s vision describes its future position, mission defines the company’s business and the reason for its existence and objectives implies the ultimate aim of the company and the ways to reach those ends.

3. Organizational Structure

The structure of the organization determines the way in which activities are directed in the organization so as to reach the ultimate goal. These activities include the delegation of the task, coordination, the composition of the board of directors, level of professionalization, and supervision. It can be matrix structure, functional structure, divisional structure, bureaucratic structure, etc.

4. Corporate Culture

Corporate culture or otherwise called an organizational culture refers to the values, beliefs and behaviour of the organization that ascertains the way in which employees and management communicate and manage the external affairs.

5. Human Resources

Human resource is the most valuable asset of the organization, as the success or failure of an organization highly depends on the human resources of the organization.

6. Physical Resources and Technological Capabilities

Physical resources refers to the tangible assets of the organization that play an important role in ascertaining the competitive capability of the company. Further, technological capabilities imply the technical know-how of the organization.

Internal environmental factors have a direct impact on a firm. Further, these factors can be altered as per the needs and situation, so as to adapt accordingly in the dynamic business environment.

External environment analysis is an important part of strategic management.

PESTEL Analysis

PESTEL analysis includes Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal analysis. It is an external environment analysis for conducting a strategic analysis or carrying out market research. It offers a certain overview of the varied macro-environmental factors that the company has to consider.

1. Political factors

Political factors analysis is related with how and to what extent a government interferes in the economy. Specifically, political factors include tax policy, labor law, environmental law, trade restrictions, tariffs, and political stability. Political factors may also be related with goods and services which the government allows (merit goods) and those that the government does not want to allow (demerit goods). The government can have a great influence on the overall health, education, and infrastructure of a country.

2. Economic factors

Economic factors contain factors such as economic growth, interest rates, exchange rates and the inflation rate. These factors may have an influential effect on how the businesses operate and make decisions. For example, interest rates can affect the firm’s cost of capital and thereby influence business growth and expansion. Exchange rates can affect the costs of export and the supply and price of imports.

3. Social factors

Social factors contain issues such as health consciousness, population growth rate, age distribution, career attitudes and emphasis on safety. Trends in the social factors may affect the demand for a company’s goods and how the company operates. For example, ageing population leads to smaller and less-willing workforce (and increases the cost of labor). Moreover, companies may change various management strategies in sync with the social trends (such as recruiting more females).

4. Technological factors

Technological factors include ecological and environmental aspects, such as R&D activity, automation, technology incentives and the rate of technological change. They can determine barriers to entry, minimum efficient production level and influence outsourcing decisions. Furthermore, technological shifts can affect costs, quality, and lead to innovation.

5. Environmental factors

Environmental factors are the conditions such as weather, climate, and climate change, which may especially influence tourism, farming, and insurance sectors. Growing awareness to climate change are increasing the interest in how companies operate and what products they offer; it is both creating new markets and damaging the existing ones.

6. Legal factors

Legal factors include laws pertaining to discrimination, consumer affairs, antitrust, employment, and health and safety. These factors can affect the operations, costs, and the demand for the products. Legal factors can also influence the brand value and reputation of a company. They are increasingly paid more attention to in the current decade.

While in external analysis, three correlated environment should be studied and analyzed:

• Immediate / industry environment
• National environment
• Broader socio-economic environment / macro-environment

Examining the industry environment needs an appraisal of the competitive structure of the organization’s industry, including the competitive position of a particular organization and it’s main rivals. Also, an assessment of the nature, stage, dynamics and history of the industry is essential. It also implies evaluating the effect of globalization on competition within the industry. Analyzing the national environment needs an appraisal of whether the national framework helps in achieving competitive advantage in the globalized environment. Analysis of macro-environment includes exploring macro-economic, social, government, legal, technological and international factors that may influence the environment. The analysis of organization’s external environment reveals opportunities and threats for an organization.

Strategic managers must not only recognize the present state of the environment and their industry but also be able to predict its future positions.

If a business wants to be successful in the marketplace, it is necessary for them to fully understand what factors exert impact on the development of their company. Once they know about both positive and negative effects within and outside the company, they can produce suitable strategies to handle any predicted situation. Therefore, examining internal and external factors is considered the most important task for an enterprise before launch any strategic marketing plan.

Internal Environment Factors

The internal factors refer to anything within the company and under the control of the company no matter whether they are tangible or intangible. These factors after being figured out are grouped into the strengths and weaknesses of the company. If one element brings positive effects to the company, it is considered as strength.

On the other hand, if a factor prevents the development of the company, it is a weakness. Within the company, there are numerous criteria need to be taken into consideration.

(i) Corporate objectives

As with all the functional areas, corporate objectives are the most important internal influence. A marketing objective should not conflict with a corporate objective.

(ii) Finance

The financial position of the business (profitability, cash flow, liquidity) directly affects the scope and scale or marketing activities.

(iii) Human resources

For a services business in particular, the quality and capacity of the workforce is a key factor in affecting marketing objectives. A motivated and well-trained workforce can deliver market-leading customer service and productivity to create a competitive marketing advantage

(iv) Operational issues

Operations has a key role to play in enabling the business to compete on cost (efficiency / productivity) and quality. Effective capacity management also plays a part in determining whether a business can achieve its revenue objectives

(iv) Business culture

E.g. a marketing-orientated business is constantly looking for ways to meet customer needs. A production-orientated culture may result in management setting unrealistic or irrelevant marketing objectives.

Other Internal Environment Factors

• Plans & Policies
• Value Proposition
• Human Resource
• Financial and Marketing Resources
• Corporate Image and brand equity
• Plant/Machinery/Equipments (or you can say Physical assets)
• Labour Management
• Inter-personal Relationship with employees
• Internal Technology Resources & Dependencies
• Organizational structure or in some cases Code of Conduct
• Quality and size of Infrastructure
• Task Executions or Operations
• Financial Forecast
• The founders relationship and their decision making power.

External Environmental Factors

On the contrary to internal factors, external elements are affecting factors outside and under no control of the company. Considering the outside environment allows businessmen to take suitable adjustments to their marketing plan to make it more adaptable to the external environment.

There are numerous criteria considered as external elements. Among them, some of the most outstanding and important factors need to listed the are current economic situation, laws, surrounding infrastructure, and customer demands.

(i) Economic environment

The key factor in determining demand. E.g. many marketing objectives have been thwarted or changed as a result of the recession. Factors such as exchange rates would also impact objectives concerned with international marketing.

(ii) Competitor actions

Marketing objectives have to take account of likely / possible competitor response. E.g. an objective of increasing market share by definition means that competitor response will not be effective

(iii) Market dynamics

The key market dynamics are market size, growth and segmentation. Changes in any of these undoubtedly influence marketing objectives. A market whose growth slows is less likely to support an objective of significant revenue growth or new product development

(iv) Technological change

Consumer and other markets are now affected by rapid technological change, shortening product life cycles and creating great opportunities for innovation. These have to be taken into account when setting marketing objectives.

(v) Social & political change

Changes to legislation may create or prevent marketing opportunities. Change in the structure and attitudes of society also have major implications for many markets.

Other External Environmental Factors

Micro factors

• Customers
• Input or Suppliers
• Competitors
• Public
• Marketing & Media
• Talent

Macro factors

• Economic
• Political/legal
• Technology
• Social an
• Natural

The insurance industry is saturated with national brands making a lot of noise, making it tough for local insurance agencies to be heard by consumers. Smart marketing strategies are necessary so that an insurance agency can stand out from the national and local competition. These are but a few examples of marketing strategies an insurance agency can employ, but every agency should consider the market and exactly what the target market is looking for before implementing any new program.

(i) Go Grassroots in the Community

Most agencies seek to capture the market close to the office. It’s easier to build relationships with customers when you can meet with them. There are a lot of ways to become known and visible within the community that surrounds your insurance agency.

Look at broad marketing strategies such as billboards, bus benches and grocery store advertising as a way to get your agency name and your image out in the world. This develops general credibility but really, it’s a shotgun approach.

More active approaches to marketing will build community goodwill and have a more targeted approach to drive the leads in. Visit local high schools to speak to students about the dangers of drunk or distracted driving. Hold workshops that discuss the benefits of life insurance at a local church. Get a booth at the local chamber of commerce event.

(ii) Piggyback Off the Brand

Big brands such as Allstate, Farmers and State Farm spend a tremendous amount of their annual budgets on marketing. If you have an agency with one of these companies, you know the limitations of being a captive agent. But there are advantages to the marketing funnels these big brands pump money into, and you can piggyback off these funnels.

Allstate agents can host local community cleanups that partner with the city council, using the Allstate tagline, “You’re in good hands.” Farmers’ agents can hold regular insurance and financial workshops, bringing Farmers University directly to consumers. State Farm agents can have fun with, “Jake from State Farm,” an agent who’s wearing khakis and the signature red shirt in the office and to all community events.

When you have the brand behind you, use its well-paid marketing department to create the programs that you only need to execute.

(iii) Build a Referral Network

A referral network is one of the best ways insurance agencies grow the business. Strategic partners for insurance agencies include real estate agents, mortgage lenders, estate planning attorneys and even other insurance agents. If your agency specializes in a specific type of insurance – for example, worker’s compensation – many other agencies are instead focused on auto and home insurance, and they can refer business clients to you.

When it comes to building strategic partners, plan it out and be consistent. Take a box of donuts to a mortgage lender’s office once a week with a stack of your cards and a note thanking them for thinking of you. Offer to sit in open houses with real estate agents. Add value and partners will emerge to provide you with solid referrals.

(iv) Spend Ad Money in Local Social Media

Social media ads allow the insurance agency owner to target specific clients. It also gets them in front of Millennials in ways other traditional advertising might not. Use the tools social media provides to set demographics for certain products. For example, target young families with small children for life insurance prospects.

Effective digital marketing techniques for insurance companies

The modern concept of insurance might have started in the 17th century, but consumers and their decision-making processes have changed drastically over time. Modern-day consumers, with the power of the internet at their fingertips, are more informed now than ever before. Prior to making a purchase decision, they extensively research various plans, read reviews about different providers and ask their peers for recommendations. Insurance companies need to adapt to this changing funnel and target their consumers at every stage of the customer journey. Here’s how digital marketing for insurance companies can help brands widen their audience and revamp their marketing strategies.

1. Cohesive brand message across channels

Insurance companies in India today largely operate in the offline space, both in terms of marketing and operations. When transitioning to digital, companies need to ensure that their branding is cohesive on all platforms. Having a uniform, strong brand image is crucial to improving recall value among customers. All of your future communications, promotions and other marketing activities will depend upon the brand image that your company creates.

In some cases, companies might need to rebrand themselves to adapt to the digital space. If you do decide to update the look and feel of your brand to make it stand out better on digital platforms, you also need to ensure that your offline branding follows suit. Consistency between your online and offline personas is key to creating a strong brand.

2. Create a comprehensive & performance driven website

When it comes to digital marketing for insurance companies, a website is more than just a tool for branding. While one of the most important uses of a website is to communicate your brand image to your audience, it should also be a useful resource of information for them. When it comes to making a decision about which insurance provider to partner with, customers do so only after carrying out extensive research. The Customer Behaviour and Loyalty in Insurance report by Bain & Company found that more than half of all insurance holders choose a provider only after conducting research on digital platforms. Does your website provide consumers with all the information they need to make a decision?

When developing a website for your insurance brand, you need to ensure that it isn’t just aesthetically pleasing, but is also easy to navigate and user-friendly. Personalization of home pages is becoming increasingly important for a positive user experience. It’s also important to ensure that the pages are focussed on driving action and driving enquiries or purchases. You can consider creating a login for your customers, which allows them to see details of their plans and customised suggestions based on their needs. It’s also important that you optimise your website with strong SEO techniques to drive organic traffic and gain greater visibility. Apart from supporting your content marketing, local SEO techniques like getting featured on Google Local Listings and Google My Business can help your audience learn more about your company.

3. Build thought leadership through content marketing

Content marketing is uniquely suited to the marketing needs of insurance brands. Choosing an insurance provider isn’t a quick decision, nor is it a one-time process. Customers need to renew their plans periodically, at which time they can even decide to switch providers. Effective content marketing techniques can help you gain the trust of your audience by establishing your brand as a thought leader in the field. When backed by effective SEO strategies to increase organic traffic and help your content rank higher, content marketing can be one of the most useful ways to reach a wider audience.

Content marketing can take the form of blog posts, informative videos and how-to guides. This can help engage with your customers right from the awareness stage to acquisition and finally the retention phase. When developing a content marketing strategy it’s important that you think from the perspective of your audience and create content that they will actually find useful. The blog by Sundaram Business Services, for example, doesn’t just have information related directly to their services. Instead, it caters to all related queries that their audience might have. In this way, your customers will be able to recall your brand when they need to choose an insurance provider.

4. Engage consumers actively on social media

Social media isn’t commonly associated with insurance brands, but it is as important for this segment as it is for any other. There are currently around 240 million Indians on Facebook and this number is only going to grow from here. Insurance, on the other hand, hasn’t penetrated as far in India. Currently, only 20 per cent of women and 23 per cent of men in the country are covered by health insurance. Social media is a powerful way to develop your brand identity and consistently engage with your target audience. Through creative posts, digital marketing for insurance can develop awareness of your product, while at the same time, entertaining your audience.

5. Use chatbots for improved customer service

Large insurance companies typically handle huge volumes of customer queries every single day. The Google India 2017 Year In Search Report revealed that there has been a 64 per cent growth in queries related to motor insurance, which has also been a key driver in generating leads. Timely resolution of these queries is crucial to improve a customer’s experience with your brand and to generate leads. But insurance companies might not always have the manpower to do this effectively. To streamline their processes and handle large-scale customer queries, many insurance brands are turning to AI-powered solutions like chatbots.

6. Leverage digital advertising to acquire leads

Paid advertising can be a fast and effective lead generation tool in digital marketing for insurance companies. There are over 25 platforms available today for insurance companies to advertise their services and gain customers. Some of these include Google Search and Display, LinkedIn, Times Internet, Native and Affiliate ad networks. When coupled with high-performing landing pages, these tools can turn your insurance marketing strategy into a lead generation machine. The advanced targeting options available in digital advertising platforms make it easy for insurance companies to find their target audience online. Companies can target audiences by age, locality and intent, which can help them generate high-quality leads. Since insurance companies are also interested in finding younger audiences to build a relationship with them from the start, advertising on Facebook through video ads, carousel ads and more can help them engage with this segment.

Bijlipay was able to capitalise on the power of Google ads to achieve an unprecedented number of leads in a cost-effective way. They used A/B testing to run different landing pages and altered the copies to communicate with different segments of their audience in a targeted manner. This strategy helped Bijlipay achieve 3,569 conversions at a cost-per-conversion of just Rs. 285. Here are some tips on improving the quality of your leads via digital advertising.

7. Nurture leads through digital media

Digital platforms have helped to improve the quality of audience targeting and retention in a way traditional media hasn’t been able to. The variety of lead targeting and nurturing methods available today makes it possible to engage with your customers at various touchpoints. In the insurance segment, this is very important to gain new policyholders and to retain existing ones even after their plan expires.

One of the most effective lead nurturing strategies for insurance companies is drip email marketing. With this technique, you can create targeted communications for your customers in every phase of their purchase decision process.

A drip email marketing campaign can be broadly categorised into three phases:

• Welcome emails: This is an automated email sent out as soon as a consumer expresses interest in your brand by signing up on your website or filling out a form. A consumer in this stage is usually evaluating various insurance providers and hasn’t made a decision about which one to choose. A welcome email can provide them with details of your company and your USPs, to give them a clearer idea of your brand.
• Nurturing emails: The second stage goes deeper to provide consumers with more specific details about your various services, details of your plans and your value propositions. Each of these emails should provide consumers with a clear reason as to why they should convert. The exact number of nurturing emails can vary.
• Activation emails: If you have effectively used strong lead nurturing emails, your audience should be ready to convert into actual customers. Activation emails can include a link to sign up for an insurance plan or to get in touch with a representative from your company. These emails include a clear call-to-action which gives your audience the final push to convert.

Apart from email marketing, the introduction of WhatsApp for Business offers insurance companies another medium for lead nurturing. However, since WhatsApp is still largely a personal inbox, companies need to ensure that they keep their communications through this app concise. Sending too many messages to consumers can be seen as spam.

Digital marketing has a number of clear advantages for insurance companies. While this segment has traditionally not been active on digital platforms, it’s clear that making the shift will help insurance companies widen their audience and gain more visibility.

Insurance companies, no matter their size, need to be constantly building their customer base if they want to stay competitive and profitable. There are many different ways for an insurance agency to reach out to new clients, so it’s important to choose the ways that will have the most impact and focus marketing and advertising efforts on those specific areas. Whether your agency is well-established or just starting, you can always step up your marketing by looking into a new area.

Marketing of Insurance

First of all, it’s important to understand the strengths of your agency and what makes your insurance company different than all the rest. Look at the plans you offer and the price points, of course, but also evaluate your customer service side as well. Being able to provide friendly, helpful tech support and answer most questions customers have about insurance plans is becoming as important to some customers as the cost of the plan itself. Having a system in place that ensures current and potential customers can get information quickly — since today’s world moves faster than ever — can be a key strength separating one agency from another.

The marketing strategy will want to focus on these strengths in a way that allows the message to be about those advantages. Consider your resources and your team. An incredibly efficient agency might focus on the speed with which they can get answers quickly; an agency with a lot of industry contacts might focus on the variety of insurance packages they can offer.

Personable people make good service a notable highlight; coverage options mean a competitive price. Review your current strengths and decide what makes sense to be the central message from your agency.

Networking and Referrals

Most new customers traditionally find insurance agencies through word-of-mouth, based on recommendations from current customers. This is a critical way to find new clients, and yet, the agency is entirely dependent on their existing clients to do so. To take advantage of this, make it as easy as possible for current clients to refer you.

• Brush up on the insurance company’s website. Make sure it’s professional-looking, that it contains helpful information and other content and that it gives an easy way to contact your agency with questions or for a quote.
• Make sure current clients are highly satisfied with the quality of service and coverage they have. Before they leave or hang up the phone, be sure to ask whether they’re pleased with the results and if there’s anything else they might need. Make sure all agents are leaving a good impression on their customers.
• Make business cards or magnets with the agency’s information on them, including a phone number leading directly to a person and the website address. Encourage clients to take them, to give out to other people.
• Consider offering a small reward for every referral, like a one-time discount or a small gift card. It lets people know you appreciate the business being brought in and makes your clients more likely to remember to recommend you when an opportunity arises.

Use a Personal Network

In addition to customer referrals, agents can use their own professional and personal networks to help attract potential new clients. To encourage this, consider things like a community day, where your team might get involved in a local volunteer project.

Connecting with people on a personal level makes referrals and suggestions much more meaningful, and more likely to stick. It also never hurts to give back to the community and will help the agents feel more engaged with their work.

Online Marketing

There are so many aspects of online marketing that it’s easy to get lost. Remember, the top priority of your insurance business strategy is to build awareness and interest in your particular agency and its brand. Spend resources on the kinds of marketing that best reflect the brand and will easily get the message across. There’s no need to do everything; depending on location, size and specialty, some will be more effective than others.

1. Website

As mentioned above, having a clean-looking, professional website that’s easy to navigate and contains useful information is key to an online presence. Consider hiring a designer to be sure the look is inviting and engaging, but easy to update from the back end. Keep information current and check thoroughly to make sure everything works both on computer and mobile platforms.

2. Website Content/Blog

One way to draw readers to a website is to regularly post interesting things for them to see, watch or read. For this, you’ll need to offer knowledgeable information that will help readers understand why they need your insurance products and what your agency can do for them. Consider hiring a professional or technical writer for this content; in order for it to stand out among the millions of internet sites, it needs to be excellently and flawlessly written. And don’t stop with words: photos of satisfied customers will help personalize your brand and brief videos with agents remind consumers that there’s a skilled individual waiting to help them.

3. Social Media

Pervasively everywhere, social media has become a key part of life for many people, so it may seem an obvious place to start, but do consider whether your agency fits the type of social media you’re looking to set up. An insurance company marketing long-term client relationships and stable packages may not have much use for a Twitter account, for example, but could likely use Facebook to its benefit.

4. Advertisements

Social media, content websites, even Google advertisements are everywhere, and that can be used to your benefit. Offering promoted posts and advertisements on Facebook can increase the number of hits your page gets; likewise, a Google ad or a sponsored link can increase traffic. Many advertising agencies will tailor this as needed to a known demographic, which can make costs reasonable. Ask them what insurance ad ideas they might have, if you’re stumped.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Customer relationship management is the industry name for the set of strategies, tools and processes used to examine customer relationships and work to improve them. CRM software, or a CRM agency, will help streamline the existing information on clients, examine current growth and customer relationships and make suggestions as to how the business can expand and where it should focus its efforts.

CRM packages start with current customer information. They’ll build an automated database so that the contact information is available for access no matter which agent is working with that particular customer that day; this includes customer history like policy changes, previous phone calls and so on. This saves time and makes sure the customer doesn’t have to spend their valuable time repeating information.

They can also automate processes, like sending reminder emails to existing customers when it’s time for a policy renewal, highlighting potential changes or new deals. This level of service helps agents keep up on where customers are at any point in their policy cycle, which lets them adjust their service to fit that individual’s specific needs.

Benefits of CRM

CRM services also make it easy to reach out to new potential customers. By integrating CRM with the business website, queries looking for information or a quote can be directly sent on to the first available agent, for example, including all available contact information. Over time, historical data can be used to project customer base expansion and identify new opportunities for advertisements or special offers. It’ll make it clear which advertising efforts have been fruitful and which have not, so that going forward you can spend your time more efficiently on marketing strategies that will yield the most fruit.

Effective Marketing Plans

In order to be successful, all the elements above need to be streamlined into a coherent marketing plan that makes strategic sense. Individual efforts in certain areas can be fruitful, but being able to combine methods into a powerful overall plan is the best way to effectively grow clientele and build the business.

1. Research

This step includes defining the agency’s strengths and its message, and researching target groups that will respond positively to that message. Also, research the competition — local and online — and compare their latest offerings against yours. Determine what differentiates your agency and add it to the message.

2. Objectives

Review the agency’s short-term and long-term goals. If possible, break down goals to monthly targets, to help the company understand what you’re working toward. Setting a target for new customers is a good start, but also consider milestones like daily hits to a website, questions answered or the number of phone queries. This will help focus on the methods being used, not just the overall outcome.

3. Choose Tactics

Looking at the goals should help narrow down marketing options. Decide what you want to do, how you intend to do it and what your budget is for it. Budget is important: employee hours cost the company, so be careful about the division of work between internal and external resources. For things like building a website or maintaining a social media presence, it can be more effective for the cost to hire a professional, so don’t assume everything will be done with the agency’s existing staff.

4. Measure

Keep track of new customers as well as loyal customers who choose to expand services. Consider asking how they heard of you was it a personal referral, an online ad, a Google search? Listen to what’s working to bring customers in, but also what’s keeping customers with your agency. Then recycle this information, compare it to the objectives set and reevaluate your tactics as needed.

Insurance as a Competitive Field

Insurance today is such a competitive field because the competition isn’t just local, it’s online as well. Customers don’t even have to leave their house to get a quote and sign up for insurance policies. So the marketing plan also has to focus on what your insurance agency offers over those other options, especially if you want to encourage office visits over online signups and phone calls.

This is another piece of the strategy and objectives to consider; your agency may want to reward office visits or you may want to do your best to automate things online as much as possible. What sort of service best fits the brand of this agency? Keep in mind, also, that this focus might change over time.

In the end, that’s the best kind of marketing plan: one that fits the strengths of the agency while also representing what the agency is looking to grow into. Tailoring the marketing strategy makes more sense than simply, say, buying out a set of online ads or printing a bunch of brochures: It focuses resources and will have the most impact with the most value. While it might seem like more offerings means more business, remember that it’s also about the quality of offerings, and the quality of service, not just the number of things in your insurance portfolio. You’ll draw in more customers who’ll stay longer by focusing on the things that build that important customer loyalty.

Marketing may be defined as the collection of activities undertaken by the firm to relate profitability to its market. Marketing in the modem context goes beyond its immediate role as a process through which exchange of goods and services takes place and is viewed as an integral part of the total socio­economic system which provides the framework within which activities take place.

Marketing may be defined as the collection of activities undertaken by the firm to relate profitability to its market. Marketing in the modem context goes beyond its immediate role as a process through which exchange of goods and services takes place and is viewed as an integral part of the total socio­economic system which provides the framework within which activities take place. It is, therefore, imperative to understand the total structure of the society in order to gain an insight into the true character of the marketing system.

Marketing involves the performance of operation in a business system. It includes those operations that determine existing and obtained changes in the market. It also includes those operations that influence existing and potential demand. It is concerned with all activities that are concerned with the physical distribution of goods and their exchange in the market place, including channel of selection, transportation, shipping, warehousing, storage, inventory control and so on and so forth.

Thus marketing covers a wide range of interrelated business activities that enlarge the role of a marketer from one of selling, what has been produced, to one of influencing, what is to be produced. The main concern of marketing is to identify and satisfy specific customer needs by means of specific products or services; wherein lies the key to profit.

The term marketing can be broadly described as:

(i) Micro-marketing

Micro-marketing may be described as the process of formulating and implementing certain strategies by a firm that ensures flow of need satisfying goods and services at a profit, Micro-marketing is responsible for effective performance of the strategies of product planning pricing, promoting and distributing.

(ii) Macro-marketing

Macro-marketing is concerned with how effectively a society uses its resources and how fairly it allocates its output of goods and services. Macro-marketing is responsible for effective performance of functions like information function, equalising and distribution function and centralised exchange function.

Marketing environment refers to external factors and forces that affect the company’s ability to develop and maintain successful transactions and relationships with its target consumers.

Role of Marketing

Marketing innovations and technical changes now occur at an ever increasing rate in the field of FMCGs and electronics. Industrial products, however, in the industrial field are often a case of changing technology. The needs of consumers undergo a change.

New competition is coming from all directions—from global competitors eager to grow sales in new markets; from online competitors seeking cost-efficient ways to expand distribution; from private label and store-brands designed to low price alternatives, and brand extensions from strong megabrands leveraging their strengths to move into new categories. The global market pattern is made possible by the development of international transportation and communication system and liberalisation policies adopted by different countries at present.

Modem marketing has much deviated from the past and undergone radical changes in recent years. Marketing is a managerial function, primarily economic, consisting of activities like research into markets, demand forecasting, product planning, pricing, distribution and advertising, organised into a system of interdependencies and directed at yielding profits to the enterprises, providing satisfaction to the consumers and indirectly benefiting society at large.

Marketing has to play an important role. It is the most important multiplier and an effective engine of economic development. It mobilises latent economic energy and thus is the creator of small business. Marketing is the developer of the standard of product and services.

Besides, economic integration is made possible through proper distribution of the product. Distribution is the key area in modem marketing. The importance of distribution will become clearer when it is realised that most of the marketing failures are in fact distribution failures.

Shortage of raw materials, escalating cost of energy, high level of pollution, changing role of government in environmental protection are some of the dangers that the present world is facing on environmental forces. Advances in technology are an important uncontrollable environment for marketers. Technological progress creates new avenues of opportunity and also poses threat for individual companies.

Certain types of technological developments by competitors may result in loss of markets.

Markets are efficient when the price of a good or service attracts exactly as much demand as the market can currently supply. The chief function of the market is to adjust prices to accommodate fluctuations in supply and demand in order to achieve allocative efficiency. An economic system in which goods and services are exchanged by market functions is called a market economy.

Current Concepts in Marketing

(i) Social Marketing

Philip Kotler has defined his social marketing concept as a management orientation aimed at generating customer satisfaction and long-run consumer and public welfare and as the key to satisfying organizational goals and responsibilities. Social marketing is the application of marketing theories and techniques to social situations.

(ii) Over Marketing

It constitutes the striving by a firm to generate increased sales while neglecting quality control, production efficiency and cash flow management.

(iii) Meta Marketing

It is the synthesis of all managerial, traditional, scientific, social and historical foundations of marketing and includes specialization on the inter-relationships of mental and physical processes to supplement the facts and empirical observations of marketing practice.

(iv) De-marketing

It is a situation which may come about as a result of temporary shortages occasioned by short-term excess demand for a company’s products. De-marketing is that aspect of marketing that deals with discouraging customers in general or a certain class of customers in particular on either a temporary or a permanent basis.

(v) Remarketing

It takes the form of finding or creating new uses of users for an existing product. Actually, marketing is a method by which new type of satisfactions are created for old products. But de-marketing is the opposite of the marketing concept, while at the same time remarketing creates new satisfaction for the consumer.

(vi) Relationship Marketing

It is the process of building long-term trusting win-win relationship with customers, distributors, dealers and suppliers. It also promises and delivers high quality efficient services and fair prices to the other party over time. It requires building mutual trust and rapport between the business and its customers.

(vii) Controversial Marketing

Negative demand is common to many products. Controversial marketing is that type of planned marketing which aims at causing demand to rise from negative to positive, and eventually equals the positive supply level. Here the marketer has to take necessary measures to counter it.

(viii) Stimulational Marketing

Stimulational marketing is that type of marketing which transforms a no demand situation into one of positive demand by connecting a product to some existing need through change of environment or spread of knowledge about it.

(ix) Developmental Marketing

Developmental marketing relates to innovation. The marketing has to bring out altogether new useful products or improving existing products so as to have new uses.

Growth of Marketing

In the growth of marketing, the marketing era began virtually after the Second World War. Producers found that consumers in general, particularly in the advanced countries of the west, had their basic needs more or less satisfied. They had become more selective about their purchases. It was a challenging situation.

Marketing came to the rescue by helping to find out what goods were needed the most, who needed them most, in what quantities they were needed and so on. Manufacturing organizations set up separate departments of marketing which provided guidelines to the plants about the right kind of products, right quantities and right prices.

During this period, special importance came to be attached to markets and consumers. At present, marketing starts with assessing the needs of the consumers and then tries to meet them via product planning, pricing and other ways.

Functions of Marketing

1. Gathering and Analyzing Market Information

Gathering and analyzing market information is an important function of marketing. Under it, an effort is made to understand the consumer thoroughly in the following ways:

• What do the consumers want?
• In what quantity?
• At what price?
• When do they want (it)?
• What kind of advertisement do they like?
• Where do they want (it)?

What kind of distribution system do they like? All the relevant information about the consumer is collected and analysed. On the basis of this analysis an effort is made to find out as to which product has the best opportunities in the market.

2. Marketing Planning

In order to achieve the objectives of an organization with regard to its marketing, the marketeer chalks out his marketing plan. For example, a company has a 25% market share of a particular product.

The company wants to raise it to 40%. In order to achieve this objective the marketer has to prepare a plan in respect of the level of production and promotion efforts. It will also be decided as to who will do what, when and how. To do this is known as marketing planning.

3. Product Designing and Development

Product designing plays an important role in product selling. The company whose product is better and attractively designed sells more than the product of a company whose design happens to be weak and unattractive.

In this way, it can be said that the possession of a special design affords a company to a competitive advantage. It is important to remember that it is not sufficient to prepare a design in respect of a product, but it is more important to develop it continuously.

4. Standardization and Grading

Standardization refers to determining of standard regarding size, quality, design, weight, colour, raw material to be used, etc., in respect of a particular product. By doing so, it is ascertained that the given product will have some peculiarities.

This way, sale is made possible on the basis of samples. Mostly, it is the practice that the traders look at the samples and place purchase order for a large quantity of the product concerned. The basis of it is that goods supplied conform to the same standard as shown in the sample.

Products having the same characteristics (or standard) are placed in a given category or grade. This placing is called grading. For example, a company produces commodity – X, having three grades, namely A’. ‘B’ and ‘C’, representing three levels of quality; best, medium and ordinary respectively.

Customers who want best quality will be shown ‘A’ grade product. This way, the customer will have no doubt in his mind that a low grade product has been palmed off to him. Grading, therefore, makes sale-purchase easy. Grading process is mostly used in case of agricultural products like food grains, cotton, tobacco, apples, mangoes, etc.

5. Packaging and Labelling

Packaging aims at avoiding breakage, damage, destruction, etc., of the goods during transit and storage. Packaging facilitates handling, lifting, conveying of the goods. Many a time, customers demand goods in different quantities. It necessitates special packaging. Packing material includes bottles, canister, plastic bags, tin or wooden boxes, jute bags etc.

Label is a slip which is found on the product itself or on the package providing all the information regarding the product and its producer. This can either be in the form of a cover or a seal.

For example, the name of the medicine on its bottle along with the manufacturer’s name, the formula used for making the medicine, date of manufacturing, expiry date, batch no., price etc., are printed on the slip thereby giving all the information regarding the medicine to the consumer. The slip carrying all these is details called Label and the process of preparing it as Labelling.

6. Branding

Every producer/seller wants that his product should have special identity in the market. In order to realise his wish he has to give a name to his product which has to be distinct from other competitors.

Giving of distinct name to one’s product is called branding. Thus, the objective of branding is to show that the products of a given company are different from that of the competitors, so that it has its own identity.

For instance, if a company wants to popularise its commodity – X under the name of “777” (triple seven) then its brand will be called “777”. It is possible that another company is selling a similar commodity under AAA (Triple ‘A’) brand name.

Under these circumstances, both the companies will succeed in establishing a distinct identity of their products in the market. When a brand is not registered under the trade Mark Act, 1999, it becomes a Trade Mark.

7. Customer Support Service

Customer is the king of market. Therefore, it is one of the chief functions of marketer to offer every possible help to the customers. A marketer offers primarily the following services to the customers:

• After-sales-services
• Handling customers’ complaints
• Technical services
• Credit facilities
• Maintenance services

Helping the customer in this way offers him satisfaction and in today’s competitive age customer’s satisfaction happens to be the top-most priority. This encourages a customer’s attachment to a particular product and he starts buying that product time and again.

8. Pricing of Products

It is the most important function of a marketing manager to fix price of a product. The price of a product is affected by its cost, rate of profit, price of competing product, policy of the government, etc. The price of a product should be fixed in a manner that it should not appear to be too high and at the same time it should earn enough profit for the organization.

9. Promotion

Promotion means informing the consumers about the products of the company and encouraging them to buy these products. There are four methods of promotion:

• Advertising
• Personal selling
• Sales promotion
• Publicity

Every decision taken by the marketer in this respect affects the sales. These decisions are taken keeping in view the budget of the company.

10. Physical Distribution

Under this function of marketing the decision about carrying things from the place of production to the place of consumption is taken into account. To accomplish this task, decision about four factors are taken. They are:

• Transportation
• Inventory
• Warehousing
• Order Processing

Physical distribution, by taking things, at the right place and at the right time creates time and place utility.

11. Transportation

Production, sale and consumption-all the three activities need not be at one place. Had it been so, transportation of goods for physical distribution would have become irrelevant. But generally it is not possible. Production is carried out at one place, sale at another place and consumption at yet another place.

Transport facility is needed for the produced goods to reach the hands of consumers. So the enterprise must have an easy access to means of transportation.

Mostly we see on the road side’s private vehicles belonging to Pepsi, Coca Cola, LML, Britannia, etc. These private carriers are the living examples of transportation function of marketing. Place utility is thus created by transportation activity.

12. Storage or Warehousing

There is a time-lag between the purchase or production of goods and their sale. It is very essential to store the goods at a safe place during this time-interval. Godowns are used for this purpose. Keeping of goods in godowns till the same are sold is called storage.

For the marketing manager storage is an important function. Any negligence on his part may damage the entire stock. Time utility is thus created by storage activity.