| | THE AUTHORITY ON MEASURABLE MARKETING & OPERATIONS . WWW .CHIEFMARKETER.C OM | |

A PENTON MEDIA PUBLICATION

INSIDE: INSIDE: TREA TS FOR TWEET S P.8 // E-MAIL METRICS THAT MA TTER P. 17 // PO WER OF INCENTIVE S P. 25 AUG/SEPT

2010

ROSE CAHILL >VP/Director of Marketing, SBLI

INTEGRATING

SOCIAL, DIRECT &

MASS MEDIA INSURES

SUCCESS FOR SBLI

10|FULL COVERAGEIntegrating social, direct and mass

media insures success for SBLI

17|E-Mail Metrics That MatterWhich numbers are the most important

to your marketing ROI?

20|Fixing LoyaltyForward-thinking brands shake up legacy programs, guided by customer comments

and user data

25|The Power of IncentivesA look at the best ways to use incentives

for customers—and employees

30|CM Corner Table: The Value of Loyalty

Experts talk about what loyalty programs should be—but seldom are

FEATURES

Volume 2 Number 4

Chief MarketerAUG/SEPT

10

EDITOR’S NOTE5|Measure—But Then Cut!

CM REPORT

“FOR US TO CREATE A TRUE MULTICHANNEL PLATFORM, THE FIRST STEP WAS TO GET OUR ARMS AROUND THE DATA.”—ROSE CAHILL, VP/DIRECTOR OF MARKETING, SBLI

CHIEFMARKETER.COM | AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2010 1

COVER STORY

Phot

os: J

ered

Haa

g

07| DEWmocracy in Action / NWF Moves Quickly on Oil Spill

08| Sweet Treats for a Tweet / Ben & Jerry’s Big Lid Score

09| Checking In With Top Travelers’ Needs / CM Poll: After the Party

>> Kids scream—and tweet—for ice cream/P.8

09 | Checking In WNeeds

>>

FINALISTS P.34

10 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2010 | CHIEFMARKETER.COM

BY BETH NEGUS VIVEIROS

INTEGRATING

SOCIAL, DIRECT AND MASS MEDIA INSURES SUCCESS

FOR SBLI

F

SBLI’S ROSE CAHILL, VP/Director of Marketing,

PHILIP CRAMPE, E-Commerce Manager

11

Phot

ogra

phy:

Jer

ed H

aag

When people get to

certain stages of their

time shuffling around

in this mortal coil—

say, getting married

or becoming parents—they realize that life

insurance is one thing they need to get in

order. SBLI had a similar epiphany a few years

ago when it came to its marketing database.

“We needed to build a database separate

from the one IT was maintaining,” says

Rose Cahill, vice president and director of

marketing for the Woburn, MA-based insur-

ance company. “For marketing purposes,

we didn’t have complete data, and it was

in different formats. For us to create a true

multichannel platform, the first step was to

get our arms around the data.”

Acxiom became a key business partner

for SBLI, which pulled together a team of

folks from marketing and IT, as well as reps

who worked regularly with the policy and

lead data, to look at what data SBLI had, the

condition of it, and what additional data

needed to be appended.

“It was a struggle at first,” she admits.

What was ultimately the most helpful strat-

egy was figuring out what end result SBLI

wanted from the data.

“We could tell you in excruciating detail

what policies our customers owned, how

they paid for them, all that kind of stuff—but

we didn’t have the demographic, psycho-

graphic and lifestage information we needed

for marketing,” Cahill explains.

And that was what SBLI needed in order

to move toward a multichannel strategy—

to employ not only traditional channels like

direct mail and print, but also newer media like

continued on page 12

CHIEFMARKETER.COM | AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2010 11

In New England, SBLI uses beloved

former Patriots footballer Tedy

Bruschi as a paid spokesperson.

Print campaigns feature the retired

linebacker, and SBLI also displays

signage at Celtics and Bruins

games. When SBLI analyzed its

customers’ social media behavior,

the sports-related groups were

among their favorite Facebook

activities. “Well,” laughs SBLI’s

Phil Crampe, “The Red Sox and

Dunkin’ Donuts— they’re both very

New England.”

GAMEIN THEW say , getting married

or becoming pare nts—the y r ealiz e that lif e In New England, SBLI us es belo ved

former Patriots footballer T edy

FullW

hen people get to

certain stages of the ir

time shuffling around

in this mortal co il—

saygettingmarriedGAMEIN THE

coverage

PROFILEROSE CAHILL, VICE PRESIDENT/DIRECTOR OF MARKETING /

PHILIP CRAMPE, E-COMMERCE MANAGER / SBLI

e-mail (see sidebar on page

14) and social networking.

SBLI’s core products are

term life insurance, whole

life insurance and fixed

annuities. The company

offers no variable products,

“so what you see is what you

get with our products. They

are not subject to the vaga-

ries of the stock market,” says

Cahill, who joined the company

after spending over a decade

with competitor John Hancock.

Not-So-Secret AgentsIn the traditional sales model, SBLI

sells through a network of over

6,000 outside insurance brokers who

are licensed to sell SBLI products

through their agencies throughout

with young children and suburban.

They’re very involved with their

kids’ academic and extracurricular

activities (think soccer moms and

Little League dads), have mortgages

and lead extremely busy lives.

Because the company started in

New England—former Supreme

Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who

had a practice in Boston, founded

the company in 1907 as a way to

offer the average person afford-

able coverage—SBLI’s presence is

strong in the Northeast. “So bro-

kerage has been a good way for us

to expand,” says Cahill.

Products were sold through

banks in Massachusetts in the

beginning, and the direct sales

model was instituted about 20

years ago, when new management

saw it as a way to expand across

the country. Today, SBLI has over

a half million customers, and 10

million records (prospects, inquir-

12 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2010 | CHIEFMARKETER.COM

continued from page 11

the country. The other side of the

business is direct sales; SBLI has its

own internal group of agents who

sell to customers who inquire direct-

ly to the company about policies—

the marketing department sends

leads to the agents for follow-up. For

the most part, SBLI’s internal agents

do not do prospecting.

Is there channel conflict? “I’d

be lying if I said no,” Cahill chuck-

les. “Of course there is, but we

find that, for the most part, the

things we do to support our inter-

nal agents also help drive broker-

age sales. So when you net it out, it

helps the company overall because

we’re able to provide products to

where people want to get them.”

That means by calling the com-

pany direct, visiting an agent at

an independent brokerage, visiting

SBLI.com or getting a quote via

SBLI’s mobile Web site. And while

there are some slight differences,

for the most part the company’s

core prospect is the same, regard-

less of channel: age 30-55, married

e

e

d

mpany

ts,

you

hey

aga-

says

mpan y

ecade

anc oc k.

tsel, SBLI

of ove r

ers w ho

roducts

oughou t

While fairly traditional direct mail is still part of SBLI’s mix, the Woburn, MA-based insurer is taking full advantage of talking with prospects in various social media channels.

continued on page 14

-b ased insurer alking with prospects in various

“I’D BE LYING IF I SAID

WE DIDN’T HAVE

CHANNEL CONFLICT.

BUT WE FIND THAT, FOR

THE MOST PART, THE

THINGS WE DO TO

SUPPORT OUR INTERNAL

AGENTS ALSO HELP

DRIVE BROKERAGE

SALES.”—ROSE CAHILL

PROFILEROSE CAHILL, VICE PRESIDENT/DIRECTOR OF MARKETING /

PHILIP CRAMPE, E-COMMERCE MANAGER / SBLI

Rather than barge in with a

hard sell, says Crampe, he’ll just

congratulate them and send a link

to SBLI’s quote calculator, just so

they can see how much a policy

might cost. Or he’ll offer a link

to an article on planning to pay

for college tuition on the learning

center area of SBLI’s Web site.

“If you hit them with ‘buy

now,’ that’s a fast way to turn them

off,” he says. “It’s an extremely

soft sell, just a way to keep SBLI

as a point of reference.”

He also finds that Twitter can

be useful for brand and reputa-

tion management. If, for example,

there is negative press involving

other companies using

the name SBLI across the

country, Crampe can use

Twitter to clarify that the

Massachusetts firm was

not affiliated with them.

On Facebook, SBLI

created a “Smart Money

Tips” fan page featur-

ing SBLI spokesperson

and financial expert

Jonathan Pond; the page

now has more than 2,500 fans.

Pleased with the success of that,

the company began running ads

on Facebook this summer. SBLI

is currently doing A/B testing on

creative to see what works best and

then will start segmenting those

offers. “As far as how that trans-

lated to paid policies, we’ll have to

wait and see,” he says, noting that

SBLI is tracking which landing

pages prospects land on from the

ads, as well as what time of the day

the ads are served.

Back in the physical world,

ers and customers) in its database.

The average sales cycle varies

depending on the policy. Because

all products are underwritten,

people do need to have a medical

exam and, in most cases, provide

doctor’s records. People who get

paperwork done on time can

have a policy issued in as little

as 30 days, but it is all based on

risk. Individuals who do things

like scuba dive or fly airplanes,

it could take up to 90 days. Sixty

days is the common timeframe.

“In our business, customers

need multiple contacts to move

forward,” says Phil Crampe,

e-commerce manager for SBLI.

“It’s not like waking up and

thinking ‘Oh, I’d like to buy an

iPad’ and you just do it. You don’t

wake up and think, ‘I’ll buy life

insurance today.’ You know you

need to, but no one really wants

to do it. The process scares peo-

ple, so it takes multiple contacts

before people move forward. And

today, because people are educat-

ing themselves online, they want

more information, and there are

more touch-points.”

Softly SocialThose touch-points, natural-

ly, include social media. SBLI

started out slowly in the social

realm, using Tweetdeck to moni-

tor conversations about term or

whole life insurance. Not sur-

prisingly, these often occurred

among folks just getting married

or expecting their first children,

who were asking for recommen-

dations from friends.

14 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2010 | CHIEFMARKETER.COM

continued from page 12

profile

When SBLI began revamping its marketing database, it realized that a glaring flaw in its customer information was up-to-date e-mail addresses.

At the time many of the insurer’s customers had first signed on the dotted line for their policies, getting an e-mail address wasn’t a top priority for SBLI, simply because e-mail marketing wasn’t yet an important part of the marketing process. “We weren’t yet using e-mail to communicate with our customers, so we didn’t bother trying to update that information,” says Rose Cahill, vice president/director of marketing.

SBLI contracted Fresh Address to help it append e-mail informa-tion to its house file. “When we started, we had maybe 10% to 15% of our file with e-mail addresses—and when we looked at what was actually valid, it was even less than that,” Cahill notes.

Today, of course, capturing e-mail at the first point of contact is a clear priority for everyone in the organization, from customer service reps to brokers and agents.

E-mail is used for both prospecting and reten-tion by SBLI. One e-newsletter features advice from financial expert Jonathan Pond, who updates recipi-ents on what is happening in the stock market. “We repurpose his content every two weeks and send it out to customers and prospects,” says Cahill. “It’s a good way to keep our name in front of them and provide value-added information, in a soft-sell way.”

SBLI had in the past contacted people who had inquired about insurance via a solicita-

tion e-mail every two weeks. But the company realized that the audience soon became immune to the pitches, and the strategy stopped working. Now, SBLI is focusing more on marketing auto-mation and lead nurturing, looking at stats like what landing pages a prospect has most recently arrived at on the company’s site. “We’re finding its better to focus on segmenting our e-mail file into core segments based on things like lifestage or where they are in the buying process,” she says.

Once SBLI has looked at this data, it sends different segments a series of messages targeted to their specific situation over a period of, say, two and a half weeks.

“Each e-mail they get depends on how or if they answered the previous e-mail, so it’s all response-based and much more targeted to where they are in the process and what they need,” says Cahill. “We’re finding that approach works much better, because you’re get-ting people information they need when they’re looking for it.”—BNV

ROSE CAHILL, VICE PRESIDENT/DIRECTOR OF MARKETING / PHILIP CRAMPE, E-COMMERCE MANAGER / SBLI

E-MAIl POlICy CHAnGE

CHIEFMARKETER.COM |AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2010 15

SBLI still uses traditional media

such as print targeting publica-

tions reaching the core lifestages

of new marriage and parenthood.

As for direct mail, Cahill estimates

that SBLI’s volume is probably

75% of what it was five years ago.

“If direct mail was still driving

great response rates for us, we’d be

doing more of it, “ she says.

What is really driving the shift,

of course, are budgets and what

the customer wants.

“When we think about who is

to be able to try tactics used by

retailers, like discounting. “But the

insurance industry is so regulated

that you can’t do anything that

would be perceived as a rebate to

entice someone to buy. So we have

to provide valuable content.” n

in our sweet spot—Gen X is there

now, Gen Y is approaching it and

the Millennials will be there next—

they do everything digitally,” she

says. “And I can tell you we’ve

doubled the number of leads that

come from online initiatives.”

When SBLI does mail, pieces

are fairly straightforward and not

heavily designed: #10 envelopes

with strong copy are the winners.

“Especially in this economy, any-

thing that looks too promotional

will just be thrown out without

being opened,” says Cahill.

The SBLI.com address is

included in all communications

both online and off as a response

mechanism, but a fair amount

of folks still like to pick up the

phone and call. And all direct mail

pieces still have coupons, even in

this day and age. “We tried doing

pieces without and response fell,”

she says. “Sometimes people even

hold on to the mailings and send

in the coupons a year later.”

Cahill notes that she’d love

“In socIal medIa, If you hIt people wIth ‘buy now,’ that’s a fast way to

turn them off. so we keep [our communIcatIons] extremely soft sell,

to keep sblI out there as a poInt of reference.”—phIl crampe