Insurance marketing that humanizes the purchase experience

For many people, the challenge of shopping for property, casualty and life insurance often feels like a check-the-box kind of chore, where math and statistics point to an objective answer on what kind of coverage to purchase.

But objectivity has its limits, as insurance marketers are increasingly realizing. Emotions and attitudes play a greater role in insurance purchasing decisions than it might seem on the surface.

Customers often follow feelings such as anxiety, fear, depression and even greed when engaging on financial matters, according to Max Alberhasky, Assistant Professor of Marketing at California State University Long Beach. Writing in Psychology Today, Alberhasky says: “We tend to feel positive or negative about something immediately. It’s only later that we try to develop reasons or arguments to support this feeling.”

Surveys suggest that the emotional aspects of money are particularly prominent in younger generations. For example, Credit Karma found almost 40% of Americans describe themselves as “emotional spenders” — people who make purchases to cope with life’s ups and down. This trend is particularly pronounced for Gen Z (58%) and millennials (52%). (In comparison, only about 20% of Baby Boomers say they are emotional spenders.)

Emotions offer a paradox for insurance marketers: the need to build marketing campaigns grounded in data that also speak to how customers feel in the moment. (See also: “Highlighting the human side in financial services marketing,” from Quad Insights.)

Custom-curated data can provide answers. But for financial services such as insurance, data collection and use is complicated by privacy and regulatory requirements. And those considerations are surfacing in new ways, with the growing popularity of embedded insurance (building insurance into the purchase of other items, such as cars) and the increasing influence of both artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things on the ability to deliver hyper-personalized offers. 

Given the inherently personal nature of insurance, and the prospect of disruption in business models, it’s more important than ever for insurers to build data strategies on a foundation of trust. Consumers need assurance that information gleaned on consumer emotions and attitudes will be used responsibly and only for legitimate business purposes. 

At a time when traditional data-collection methods are in transition, insurance marketers will need to look elsewhere for data they need to be effective.

One promising approach: offline data that originates from the flow of publications, catalogs, marketing mail and direct mail sent to the household. Often that flow of mail reflects individual emotions, attitudes and preferences.

Not only is this data available at scale — the U.S. Postal Service delivers 127 billion pieces of mail yearly, touching 164 million households and businesses — it can also be used by marketers in ways that feel less intrusive to the individual.

The publications, catalogs and other printed materials that make up the mail offer a unique view of the passions of an individual household. Through this channel, Quad has access to data on the emotions and attitudes that fuel those passions, allowing marketers to target the right customers and focus on developing personalized messaging — without having to ask for additional personal information.

It’s a challenge for insurance marketers to do this in a privacy-compliant way. Household data serves as a complement to other customer intelligence, leading to more robust omnichannel strategies in the property, casualty and life insurance market.

Find out what this means to you in Quad’s recent guide, “The Data You’re Missing,” which offers nine emerging truths about data-informed marketing.