How leaders in the insurance industry are building digital teams

As a brand, you want to stay relevant for your customers and will always have to make an emotional connection with them. Sarah Catoul, Head of Digital Marketing at AG Insurance agrees. “AG Insurance favours a model that combines digitalization and human contact. We have seen in recent years that the two are really complementary and do not replace each other, especially in a field like ours."

Within the insurance industry it is therefore important to not forget about the human aspects when you are digitising and to find a good balance between both. Digital solutions in the insurance industry must always meet customer needs such as facilitating access to information, allowing them to find the right answer to their questions whenever they need it. Digital marketing also allows insurers to relay their brand values / DNA. In line with this, making use of the right digital marketing tools is essential to be efficient and quick in decisions and implementations, as there is always a challenge related to the technology behind the digital strategy.
 

The role of digitalisation

Also for the big players in the insurance industry, who work hand in hand with its distributors, digital marketing is a crucial part of their strategy. The way to do it and the objectives may be different for each insurer, depending on the type of products they sell, their distribution model, their place in the market etc., but it is for certain that the last few years have strongly accelerated the need for digitisation for insurance companies, Digitalisation allows insurers to be efficient, to be close to their partners and customers quickly, and at any time.”

To emotionally connect with your clients, it becomes more important than ever to offer the right insurance product to the right customer at the right time. To do this, you need to know your customers inside out. This can be done with customer data, which allows you to segment your customers more finely (within the limits of what is legally allowed, of course).

At the same time, we see ecosystems emerging around the insured parties. A range of digital services, within different customer journeys that the insurer is part of. Think, for example, of services where policy holders get damage to their car repaired, rather than reimbursed. For this, insurtechs develop the necessary digital solutions, which then interact digitally via APIs with brokers' management systems and your IT systems as an insurer.

The result of these ecosystems? The number of positive touchpoints with your customers keeps increasing, further improving your relationship with them and increasing their satisfaction. This can help you to have more prominent contact with the customer. Ultimately, as an insurer, you have no choice but to avoid turning into an anonymous risk carrier.
 

“To maximally enjoy the benefits of digitalisation as an insurance company, you need specialised profiles. Especially in digital marketing.”

How to begin building digital success

To make all this happen, you need the right specialised profiles, especially in digital marketing. From UX designers to SEO copywriters and specialised digital marketers. Expertise is really important, as well as the ability to integrate quickly into a new environment. Whether you have a small or large team, having people who can take on projects quickly and efficiently is essential. Recruitment is often cited as the main challenge in building a digital marketing team. So, how can insurersfind these profiles? One option is to organise recruitment internally. But as there are a series of other profiles to look for besides digital marketers (such as administrative staff or salespeople), it is impossible to delve into this completely. Which is a must, given the many complex specialisations within this field. Just try finding a rock-solid SEO analyst or copywriter if you do not work in this niche on a day-to-day basis.

Choosing a talent partner

AG Insurance's solution has been turning to Ariad for their specialised staffing needs. And some consultants have been with them for years, contributing with their expertise to long term objectives. Others are hired on a short-term basis, to fill a temporary need, for example while waiting for an internal commitment. Ariad offers profiles in line with their needs, whether for a short-term or longer-term assignment, for more specific or more generalist profiles. Beyond understanding the needs of large organisations, Ariad has a network of more than 10,000 specialised profiles in digital marketing. A great benefit of a talent partner like Ariad is access to the best digital talents for your business in no time, particularly for the insurance industry.

Speed is just as important as specialised knowledge. Per professional domain in digital marketing (UX, SEA, social media, digital communication...) Ariad has a recruiter who is completely dedicated to this specialisation and who consequently knows the network of specialists in these niches inside out. Therefore, they easily find interesting candidates, within each professional domain in digital marketing. Generalist partners can handle a variety of positions, but are unlikely to deliver high-quality candidates within specialised fields like digital marketing.

In selecting the right talent for a team, markers should not only specialise in their field of expertise, but also in the sector for which they apply those skills. For this reason, Ariad’s top profiles in digital marketing are already working at AG Insurance and AXA, in addition to many major Belgian banks such as ING, BNP Paribas Fortis and Belfius, always to the great satisfaction of these customers. Ariad selects these strong profiles carefully to make sure they are a great match for your roles.