Marketing for Boring Industries: 3 Important Lessons to Learn From Insurance Companies

It’s important for Insurance companies to acknowledge that what they’re offering isn’t appealing to most people in the demographic of 18-34 years old. The under 35 years age group happens to be the largest group of internet users, consisting of over half of all internet users worldwide.

This creates a huge roadblock when it comes to online marketing. Because not only are the majority of internet users not interested in insurance, but the portion that is interested still wouldn’t be compelled to read an article on such a boring topic. To our surprise, despite these obstacles, insurance companies have still been able to take internet marketing by storm. Today, we learn how they did it exactly.

Esurance Tackles Content Strategy Head-on With Innovation

Without a doubt, content marketing for an insurance company is a difficult task; however, as Neil Patel from Quicksprout once put:

There is no such thing as a boring industry. There are just bad writers who aren’t creative.

When writing content, writers often make the mistake of focusing on their unique selling proposition (USP). It might make sense to do this since it gives readers a reason to buy their product. But this will only work in a fun niche. In a boring industry such as insurance, the writer will just be neglecting what the audience wants to read. And so he ends up with a horrible article like ‘why you need insurance and why you should choose us’. No one will want to read this. Esurance, a car insurance company, recognized this and took an innovative approach to their content strategy.

They realized that while it is true that most under 35-year-olds won’t have an interest in insurance, that doesn’t mean one should limit their articles to insurance. Esurance became a brand publisher with Buzzfeed and was able to produce “10 Car Accessories That You Never Knew You Needed.” The article consists of cute toys, decorations or utilities that appealed to a younger demographic. Therefore, while insurance is a market that appeals mostly to older people, Esurance took advantage of this and targeted younger people when no-one else was doing it.

The article received 115 reactions on Buzzfeed, which is a LOT. I don’t have the exact numbers, but a rough estimate is that the post received 150k views. In fact, they had so much success that they are still continuing their Buzzfeed marketing campaign up until today. Their other articles all target a particular demographic, for example:

The lesson to take out of this no matters the industry you are in; content marketing is always a viable option. Being in a boring industry might be a great advantage since the competition will be lower. If you can be innovative, you can certainly take the industry by storm, just like Esurance did.

Ovid Life Makes Their Main Objective “To Educate”

There is a rare segment in the insurance industry, known as “Life Settlements,” which very few finance workers are even aware of. Ovid Life is a leader in this small niche, and they got there by placing education as their primary focus.

There’s one thing that the most boring industries have in common with each other. They’re about complex topics which the majority of us don’t know very well. For instance, insurance, accounting, IT, programming and recruitment. This is why it’s pertinent to make education a primary focus in these industries, as the success of Ovid Life reflects.

On the Ovid Life website, there is a blog filled with interesting and informative content, and there are chapter guides on Life Settlements. Several reasons why their content works:

In addition to the educational guides, they offer scholarships for US students. On their scholarship page, they make their experience relatable by stating that two Stanford students found them. Why is this important? It’s important because scholarships not only draw eyes but also backlinks for SEO. Schools, colleges, and universities will be more than happy to link to a site that’s offering a scholarship, especially one found by two Stanford students.

University links are one of the strongest links one can acquire regarding SEO, and Ovid manages to secure links/mentions from the University of Massachusetts, University of Texas, California State University, Adler University, Southwestern College, Clinton Community College, Post Independent School and several more. In a field where obtaining natural backlinks is extremely difficult, scholarships are a valuable asset to boosting search engine presence while offering financial aid to students.

Ryan Hanley Identifies What the Consumer Really Wants to Know

Sometimes, educational content isn’t enough, because that information can be found everywhere on the web. In Ovid Life’s case, the reason for their success was due to be in the life settlements niche, a rather unknown market. Had they been in a more known market such as car insurance, would they still be successful with education as their top priority?

The answer is still yes, but they will need to make an adjustment. They need to ask the right questions and find out what people really want to know. Sometimes, when someone is an expert and wants to create educational content, they’ll miss out some important details, assuming the reader will know it.

Ryan Hanley, the marketer of ‘The Murray Group,’ recognized this and demonstrated the effectiveness of an educational marketing campaign by creating an educational video series. He did a poll where he asked as many people as he could (on Facebook, through email, and at work) on ‘if they could ask one question related to insurance, what would it be?’ After receiving 147 answers, he made a video series called 100 questions answered in 100 days.

The agency was only receiving 70 hits per week on their website, before Hanley’s video series. During their video campaign, the traffic went up to over 500 hits per week. Hanley states that the main reason for his success was that these questions weren’t featured on New York State Department of Insurance’s website.

Final Thoughts

This goes to show that even reputable organizations will miss out on things which the general public want to be covered. The only way to find out what they want to know is by asking them directly. Luckily, sites like SurveyMonkey (a much underutilized marketing tool) make this information incredibly easy to obtain.

Overall, if there’s one thing to learn from all three companies, it’s that they placed the consumer’s needs/wants ahead of their own and were rewarded for it.

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