The current cost-of-living crisis continues to have a crippling effect across the UK, and both businesses and consumers are feeling the squeeze. As people continue to look for ways to reduce spending, they are cutting services they feel aren’t as valuable or essential – and according to a recent survey, insurance is in the firing line.
In the last 12 months, 29% of UK customers have stopped or reduced their insurance cover – with 45% citing the cost-of-living crisis as the biggest cause of these cutbacks. According to this research, 41% of people will cut out life insurance first, closely followed by both home insurance and car insurance.
With this in mind, it is vitally important that insurance businesses ensure that consumers recognise the value of keeping and renewing their policies and understand what their particular provider can offer them. By implementing an effective communications strategy, you can increase brand visibility and raise awareness around your value.
One key element of any communications strategy is securing impactful and positive media coverage. Consumers are becoming increasingly sceptical of traditional forms of advertising and marketing. Instead, they would rather buy into businesses through a recommendation which feels genuine and authentic.
Positive reviews within the media can offer your businesses the opportunity to connect with customers or audiences on a more personal level and gain their trust. Each review is a form of promotion, as it exposes your business’ name, product, or service to its readers – thus increasing their awareness of who you are and what you have to offer.
A glowing review within a newspaper, magazine, online, or on the TV and Radio, is extremely powerful, as it has the power to reach large audiences and encourage people to invest time and money into your business.
Social media is another element which can’t be ignored, and this often includes harnessing the power of influencers – particularly if you are targeting a Gen Z audience. Utilising influencers as brand ambassadors can help reach more audiences on these platforms and convert them to trying a service, by sharing their opinions and recommendations.
Some brands looking to stand out from the crowd may also want to invest in larger scale creative campaigns, however you’ll need to carefully consider what messages you want to communicate through this and to be wary of seemingly capitilising on the current economic downturn to sell your services.
Again, education will need to be at the heart of everything, as well as visibility, you need to not just ensure you are seen but that your key messages are heard in a way that win over both the hearts and minds of consumers.
Here are three top tips on creating an effective communication strategy for your insurance brand:
Use communication to build trust with your audience
Utilise key company spokespeople and experts to be authoritative voices within the media by offering and placing thought leadership and expert commentary on topics of relevance including breaking news stories in key media titles. Also, don’t forget social media, which is another brilliant channel for your spokespeople. Whilst LinkedIn is the go-to for business stories, channels such as TikTok are becoming popular platforms to maximise impact from an educational perspective, especially with younger audiences. Almost half of Gen Z get their news from social media vs. traditional platforms.
Focus on making an emotional connection
Implement an emotive PR campaign to ensure your message not only cuts through the crowd and sticks in consumer’s minds, but that showcases your brand’s core values or what your services enable your customers to achieve.
Consider third party advocacy
Recruiting an ‘army’ of ambassadors can be a great way to humanise your brand and speak directly to consumers about the value you service can provide, in a more relatable way that speaks peer-to-peer. For example, this can be done through creating video content for social media that includes easily digestible tips and advice from employees or testimonials from other customers.
If you would like to discuss how our award-winning PR and social media specialists could help your business communicate its value to your target audience, get in touch with our team of experts today.
