Strategies, best practices, and case studies of top insurance brands who have created successful millennial-oriented content marketing campaigns.

Content Marketing and Millennials

The insurance industry is facing marketing challenges posed by a market shift in customer demand towards digital business processes. Millennials in particular are catching the attention of marketers, and for good reason. At present, millennials (age 18-30) represent 25% of the world’s population, and by 2025 will account for 75% of the workforce. Given these statistics, it’s clear that this generation offers a huge business opportunity for insurance providers.

According to the 2016 World Insurance Report, conducted by Capgemini and Efma, millennials are generally dissatisfied with the customer experience they’ve received within the insurance industry.

For this reason, this article will outline some best practices for engaging millennials and optimizing their customer experience.

Benefits for Insurers

The first priority for targeting millennials is digitizing marketing strategies and simplifying customer experience. On the topic, Thomas Buberl, CEO of the leading insurance company AXA said the following:

“The key is to be where customers are. We have already launched our customer service on Facebook and Twitter. Last year, AXA France launched its customer services on Facebook Messenger to impressive results: 81% of questions on social media came from Messenger, and we’ve reduced negative comments on the AXA France Facebook page by 53%.”

An effective content marketing strategy, in addition to allowing a brand to position itself on relevant social media, offers a platform for insurers to create and promote engaging content for the target audience. Content marketing allows brands to capture the attention of millennials, segment their target audience, and to choose the most effective platforms for engaging customers and increasing conversion rates.

Social listening enables brands to generate consumer insights useful for gaining an understanding of what kind of content is most appreciated by the target audience. For instance, millennials often respond well to pop culture references, music, and celebrities.

Best Practices

Below are 5 content marketing strategies which have been successful in increasing engagement and brand visibility among millennials for international insurance companies.

1. Allianz’s Snapchat Campaign

Road safety has always been a core concern for the insurance industry. In May of 2017, Allianz launched a digital marketing campaign on Snapchat consisting of 5 videos centralized on the tagline “Let your Snaps disappear; not your loved ones.” The use of Snapchat in the insurance industry represents an innovative solution for reaching millennials on a social platform which they are already very familiar with.

One of the Snapchat advertisements by Allianz: “5 Ways to Hide Car Keys from Your Friend Who Drank Too Much."

2. MAIF & the Sharing Economy

Millennials are accustomed to collaborative economics - particularly through social media platforms and apps such as Uber and Lyft. To successfully engage millennials, insurance companies must consider this new business model as a viable and profitable option. French insurance company MAIF, for example, launched its Social Club, a social media community focused on collaborative consumption.

3. Esurance: Influencer Marketing

Sponsorships often offer great ROI in terms of brand advocacy and influencer marketing. Last year, Esurance worked with the MLB and created advertisements with San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey. This partnership achieved great results, increasing brand visibility among millennials by leveraging the influence of a popular athlete.

4. Jam, The French Chatbot

French mutual insurer MGEN sought to reach millennials with engaging content presented in an innovative manner. To accomplish this goal, they collaborated with Jam - the tech company which designed a chatbot to interact with users over Facebook Messenger. Jam is designed to help millennials make the most of their free time by chatting with users about a wide range of topics including restaurants, bars, entertainment, shopping, and more. In collaboration with MGEN, Jam covers health, well-being, and other insurance-related topics when users mention specific keywords. Jam serves 200,000 users and exchanges 2 million messages per week - making the bot an incredible platform for MGEN to reach millennials. Jam's co-founder Marjolaine Grondin said that the bot was a “great opportunity to reinvent the way [we bring] value directly [to consumers.]”

A sample conversation with the French chatbot, Jam.

5. Flo from Progressive

More and more insurance companies are using characters and mascots to offer a familiar face to represent the brand. Flo, the fictional insurance saleswoman created by Progressive, has gathered a remarkable fan base on social media - on Twitter, Flo has more than 48,000 followers. Thanks to Flo, Progressive has created a ‘friendlier’ brand reputation, attracting customers that may not have considered the insurer before.

The strategies presented in this article demonstrate that data analysis and creativity don’t need to be mutually exclusive. With these techniques, brands can generate insights to inform effective content marketing strategies.