DocuStar’s MarketHUB+ Helps Insurance Client Easily Centralize Marketing Functions
Solution Helps to Better Manage Digital Assets and Establish Easy Approval Process While Minimizing Regulatory Exposure
Often, insurance companies leave marketing up to their agents and assume their offerings are being effectively promoted. However, when insurance companies offer sales and marketing assistance to independent brokers or agents, it can help to increase policies sold, cross-sell products and strengthen customer relationships. At the same time, legal and brand compliance is vital to companies within the insurance industry due to high regulation. Compliance enforcement is typically accomplished through a cumbersome administrative approval processes.
The Situation
A large, national insurance company that operates across all 50 states in the US and Canada approached DocuStar for help with streamlining the personalization of their marketing collateral. This insurance company functions under five separate brands, offering three main product lines: life insurance, annuities and asset protection. The specific challenge that faced this company is a common one facing most marketers today – how to build in central control of the brand and overall marketing budget and to maintain brand and legal compliance, without usurping local control of incremental spending and localized messaging.
The Need
The company wished to provide agents and brokers the tools and resources necessary to meet ever-evolving customer needs while growing their business. They wanted to provide access to personalized sales and marketing resources so agents and brokers could easily share relevant, up-to-date information with end customers, including:
Product information
Prospecting materials
Consumer seminar invitations.
In addition, they required an efficient and effective administrative approval process to eliminate exposure to regulatory and compliance issues and to deliver its brand professionally and consistently across customer-facing collateral. Interest rates, disclosures, and open text were just some of the many items that needed to be reviewed prior to distribution to prospects.
They also wished to provide cooperative funding at an individual user level. This would allow the company to subsidize particular lines, work groups or products. The allocation, billing and tracking process that they had been using was performed manually and was cumbersome.
The DocuStar Solution
DocuStar worked with the company to provide a solution comprised of customized marketing resources accessible via a secure, user-friendly web interface called MarketHUB+. This web-based marketing resource management system simplifies the process of managing marketing materials and marketing campaigns in coordination with a distributed sales force, such as insurance agents. It enables local agents the ability to localize and personalize marketing communications while streamlining the process of maintaining regulatory and brand compliance and keeping materials up-to-date. This system would effectively manage the insurance company’s digital assets for agent and broker access.
MarketHUB+ is easy for the company’s agents to use. DocuStar worked with the company to create a single sign-on so the application is available through the company’s secure website. Once an agent has signed-in, the software displays specified marketing materials, logos and funding available to the agent (available depending on the agent’s security permissions). Select materials are customizable by the local agent with specific assets automatically routed to an administrator to review and approve, deny, or comment on the proof prior to distribution to customers and prospects.
MarketHUB+ simplifies the process of keeping materials up-to-date. When the company updates products or modifies their brands, they can quickly adjust their marketing materials to accommodate these changes using the MarketHUB+ solution. They can search for particular branding or key products and go back and update those pieces themselves, or DocuStar manages the update process. The MarketHUB+ solution also enabled a way for the insurance company corporate office to import the daily and weekly interest rates on all digital assets so that they would be current and accurate. This functionality is particularly useful in short run, quick turnaround printed collateral or instant e-mail distributions which are distributed to prospects within hours or days of being purchased.
DocuStar met this company’s need for high-impact marketing collateral by developing customizable templates (postcards, posters, sales sheets, e-mails, etc.) loaded into the MarketHUB+ software. Each of the templates, today numbering over 400, can be customized by the agent or broker – populating event information, rep contact information, brand logo, etc.
Additionally, a list manager function was made available for agents to communicate to customers and prospects via direct mail or email using 1-to-1 mail lists. Upon attaching a mailing list to a direct mail piece, DocuStar groups the mailer runs for print and postal discounts, allowing the insurance company to save money.
Cooperative funding was established so that particular marketing products and lines were subsidized by the insurance company corporate office. Using MarketHUB+ “GasTank technology,” DocuStar enabled the company to allocate, fund, bill and track their cooperative marketing budgets while automating the process. In turn, the insurance company is able to deploy funds by work group or marketing department—even at an individual user level. Upon logging into the system, each user and administrator sees the GasTank feature showing how much money they have left. All aspects of managing and distributing marketing budget, promotional dollars and co-op dollars, are configured in a centralized manner, while leaving local decisions to the local experts. And progress and usage are monitored via several customized reports available to administrators.
The MarketHUB+ implementation was easily and quickly completed by DocuStar’s on-staff developers and uniquely assigned account managers. Because DocuStar hosts and manages MarketHUB+, it requires minimal IT resources or maintenance from the insurance company. Weekly updates are provided with no download or action required by the agent. DocusStar’s on-staff development team is also able to address any new functionality requests from the insurance company moving forward.
The Results
Using MarketHUB+, DocuStar was able to help this insurance company execute several process improvements that reduce costs and make it easier for brokers and agents to do business with them. The MarketHUB+ solution helped the company be more efficient by putting their most popular marketing materials online for agents and brokers to select, personalize and/or co-brand for print or email distribution - saving the cost of having people at a desk manually processing these requests. Since it is now easier for agents to create co-branded marketing materials, there have been more effective joint marketing events. Thus, the MarketHUB+ solution has helped the insurance company build awareness, promote their products and to capture market share.
MarketHUB+ solved the insurance company’s branding and compliance issues by automating the approval process of marketing materials. As a result, DocuStar has helped to strengthen their brand and reduce their risk exposure.
Competitive forces are intense, and insurance institutions find themselves needing marketing solutions that set them apart while reducing costs. In this instance, MarketHUB+ reduced opportunity costs. In the past, it was very expensive and time consuming for the insurance company to manage co-branded and personalized marketing initiatives – so they didn’t do them as often, resulting in missed opportunities. MarketHUB+ gave this company and avenue to generate more effective marketing programs in partnership with their agents and brokers, increasing opportunities for customer sales.
Today over 1,500 active users, across three distribution segments located in all 50 states, utilize MarketHUB+ and actively retain and grow market share.
