Direct Mail for Insurance Marketers: Q&A with Franklin Madison’s Senior VP of Insurance Marketing, Sally Dickter

Data has long been the backbone of direct mail for insurance marketers, but savvy brands know that creative strategies can’t afford to be left behind. By testing, refining, and enhancing your mailers, you can significantly boost the trajectory of a campaign—and its results.

We sat down with Sally Dickter, Franklin Madison’s Senior VP of Insurance Marketing, to discuss the best use of data-driven insurance direct marketing to increase engagement, response, and long-term loyalty.

Insurance is a highly regulated industry. What’s one mistake marketers make in compliance with direct mail creative?

Dickter: The biggest mistake in insurance direct marketing is not understanding the product—not just the restrictions and regulations but also the key benefits and ease of engagement that are hallmarks of effective direct marketable policies. This creates misleading statements that compliance and legal teams challenge, and leads to the omission of valuable or new selling points that creative teams can add.

Let’s also discuss the creative lethargy of just dropping in the enrollment form without appreciating that this is the critical marketing piece where the sale is closed. Though it’s typically a legal document filed with regulators, there is always an opportunity to use graphics and add copy above and below the filed application content to re-sell benefits and reiterate the ease of engagement.

What offers tend to drive the highest response rates in direct mail for insurance marketers?

Dickter: Personal insurance is highly regulated and often requires approvals by each state’s insurance department to change product features. However, we still have the power of positioning:  the art of transforming policy features into what ’s-in-it-for-me benefits. For example, issue age-based rates can become “lock-in your best rate for life, waiver of pre-existing conditions exclusion presented as “even covers health conditions you may have right now”, and so on.

Though you usually can’t just make up a discount, you can offer a gift of truly nominal value to motivate a sale or quote, like a relevant guide or digital content. Just remember that retailers’ gifts with purchase “incentives” can become a prohibited “inducement” in the insurance world, so your compliance team rules here.

Yes, there are usually underwriting, actuarial, and/or regulatory pricing restrictions that prevent discounting unless it is an approved feature of the plan. You can still introduce “risk relief” by positioning money-back guarantees or free review periods as enjoying coverage risk-free before you owe a penny.

Some direct marketable insurance products were built with a “deviated” premium (such as $1 for the first month) or had a recent rate reduction that helped overcome obstacles to initial engagement and price sensitivity. The challenge is to keep the person insured beyond the initial discount period or first payment because insurance profitability and risk management are based on ongoing premium income.

Franklin Madison invented another way to engage by enhancing accidental death insurance with introductory $1,000 coverage at no cost to the customer. The key is that it’s paid by the person’s financial institution. This creates strong affinity and credibility, with a higher propensity to buy more coverage at the customer’s own expense. I’d say that’s even better than a free month or $1 coverage for affinity marketers because this offer has been going strong for over 50 years.

What are the most effective direct mail formats for driving response in insurance marketing, and how can marketers optimize them for maximum performance?

Dickter: The most effective format is a direct mail package with at least an outer envelope and a letter, encouraging recipients to engage through a toll-free call or website. Additionally, if the enrollment process is guaranteed acceptance or has highly simplified approvals, the package should contain an application and a postage-paid reply envelope, too. Direct mail is an expensive medium due to the ever-rising costs of paper, printing, and postage. So, it can be broadly distributed only for products and segments where the projected premium per campaign is higher than the marketing cost.

Direct mail for insurance marketing can be inexpensively enhanced by lower-cost digital media: emails, social media, and search ads before, during, and/or after the mailing to create a cohesive campaign. Test, test, and test again to define the multi-media configuration that drives more profit than mail alone. 85% of insurance marketers say that integrating direct mail and digital channels has a positive impact on campaign performance.

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Interested in learning more? Reach out to a SeQuel strategist and discover how to get more out of your marketing budget. For more insurance industry insights, head to Franklin Madison’s blog today.