Are you currently reaching back out to consumers who have engaged with your business?

If not, you likely have a treasure trove of new (and returning) customers right under your nose. Effective remarketing enhances your insurance direct marketing strategy. This effect is amplified if you’re coupling direct mail efforts with omnichannel digital tactics.

Here we’ll discuss why remarketing is an important component to your overall direct marketing strategy. We’ll also share the benefits of using it in your direct marketing campaigns—both online and off.

Why is remarketing an important part of a direct marketing strategy? 

As a refresher, direct marketing gives insurance companies full control over the customer experience from product presentation to pricing, and it allows for first-party customer data to improve campaigns over time.

Remarketing takes this a step further by using that data to specifically target consumers who have engaged with your content previously. This is whether they opened an email, started a purchase process, or visited a link from a piece of mail.

Reacting to these touchpoints is beneficial since your foot is already in the door, and the consumer has provided valuable information on how best to reach them with their preferred channel or product. Couple that behavioral data with the rest of their customer profile (demographic, geographic, and psychographic data), and you have the recipe for a highly relevant message.

In this way remarketing is an indispensable tool, especially within a well-oiled omnichannel program. It allows insurance companies to nurture relationships between touchpoints on the customer journey—potentially months down the line—through direct mail, digitally, or weaving between the two. As a matter of fact, consumer attention increases 39% with direct mail ads followed by display ads.

This is an especially potent effect when you consider that prospects who have interacted with you in the past are more primed for a purchase. Remarketing gives you the opportunity to nurture these prospects by educating them about your insurance products, offering additional value, or even cross-selling other products.

Benefits of using remarketing in your direct marketing campaigns

It’s certainly clear that remarketing is an integral part of a successful omnichannel direct marketing strategy. Now let’s take a look at some of the benefits as they relate to marketing insurance products.

Drive awareness to nurture top-of-funnel prospects 

Direct remarketing (online and off) is an effective follow-up to digital display ads, video campaigns, traditional advertising, direct mail, or other tactics you’re engaging in. Start with a curated list of prospects backed by audience data to create introductory content that isn’t focused on hard sells. Instead, inform prospects about your business and your insurance offerings to create awareness then hone in on what resonates with them.

Improve relevancy of messages using data from previous engagements 

After starting with available customer data to create initial campaigns, use the information gleaned to improve the relevancy of your remarketing. After all, personalization is incredibly important for effective insurance marketing, and this is that principle in action.

Different segments—and even specific individuals—will react to and engage with your content in different ways. This will clue you in to the insurance products they’re interested in, their preferred communication channels, and even their propensity to buy similar insurance products.

Furthermore, remarketing is a long game, and it’s ok if someone doesn’t convert on the second or even the third message. You’ll still be gathering valuable first-party data and nurturing them through your funnel until they are ready to complete a purchase.

Build brand loyalty by focusing on personally relevant messages 

As consumers move through your marketing funnel from awareness to consideration, continue to use remarketing to focus on building affinity for your brand. This applies to both prospects and existing customers. For the former, you can now introduce more direct calls to action in an effort to convert them for the first time.

For the latter, use personalized value-adds, rewards, and special offers to help strengthen relationships with your existing customers. This will enable cross-selling opportunities with loyal customers who are already primed to purchase, which is a great way to increase customer lifetime value.

Re-engage middle- and bottom-of-funnel prospects 

Prospects who have fallen out of contact after initial messages aren’t dead in the water—far from it. Remarketing and retargeting campaigns re-engage these individuals with messages designed to bring them back into the fold. These can come in the form of education about similar products, special offers, or personalized discounts.

Whether it’s by mail or digital is up to you, and, in fact, it’s best when you combine the two: 

• Using both digital and direct mail increases the number of available touchpoints in a campaign
• Digital marketing is highly saturated. Direct mail provides a reprieve for consumers, with 73% of American consumers preferring direct mail because they can read it whenever they want
• Digital marketing is an effective testing ground to determine the best audience and creative for direct mail (and vice versa)

Remarketing is a top-down approach to winning over customers

The main strength of remarketing is that it can be highly personalized to target individual people, which leads to better engagement from new customers and increased brand loyalty from existing customers. If you need help with your direct marketing strategy or want to understand more about effective remarketing, FM Engage has your back.

With over 50 years of experience in the insurance industry and a wealth of proprietary data, we can supercharge every aspect of your direct marketing, from creative design and digital strategy to market positioning and direct mail fulfillment. Our end-to-end approach means you can focus on what you do best, and we’ll take care of the rest.

Ready to learn more? Reach out to see how we can help.