Brian Tervo is president and CEO of TIE Kinetix, NorthAmerica

Quick, name the best known insurance carriers on the markettoday. Are Progressive, GEICO and Aflac the first that come tomind? That's no accident. These 'new kids on the block' have goneto great lengths to make their companies household names.

In addition to flashy TV ads featuring geckos and ducks, thesecompanies are also taking advantage of key disruptivetechnologies—mobile, telematics, social media—that lure businessaway from the likes of older and more established insurers. Assuch, the current state of the insurance market is in flux for manycarriers.

One of the drivers behind the market shift is the ever-changingdigital landscape. It is more common now than ever for customers toshop for insurance products and services online and quickly switchto carriers that deliver the most enjoyable digital user experiencebalanced with a manageable price. This gives the advantage to thecustomers, allowing them to shop around and compare prices moreeasily, which naturally leads to more churn and instability for thecarrier. Thus, those providers that heavily invest in digital mediaare in a commanding position to increase market share.

For carriers that are slower to the digital game, customerretention and acquisition currently hangs in the balance. The timehas come for insurers to react to opportunities and threatsquickly, rather than surrender to their 'business as usual'routine, risking customer loss and drops in revenue. If the abovedescription sounds all too familiar, take a look at the recipebelow and follow it closely to help you stay ahead of the game.

Begin with Rich Digital Content

Traditional insurance carriers usually have an enormous amountof rich content assets sitting on the “virtual shelf space” oftheir own websites, but unfortunately, this content does not appearwhere it needs to be—on your agent and affiliate websites whereprospective customers are orienting themselves to your products andservices. These same content assets can be easily made availableand fully integrated into a content syndication platform andreassembled into microsites, campaigns, and other digitalpromotions that can be instantly converted to drive traffic, leads,and optimize sales processes right at the agent website—without anylarge investments and time in distributing and managing contentwith partners. Content syndication providers are experts incrafting micro-digital content spaces with your existing contentstreams and placing them in consumer channels that driveconversion.

Stir in a Content Syndication Base

Think about it: distributing digital content, collateral, andother key selling assets through agents and brokers is difficult,time consuming, and expensive. But, with SaaS-based contentsyndication solutions, insurance carriers can seamlessly deliverpersonalized campaigns, assets and tools to an intermediarypartner's website. This type of marketing automation allowsinsurers to control, track and analyze exactly how their brand iscommunicated through the channel.

Imagine sending over 25,000 customized messages a month whilealso continually acquiring new customers and developing marketingmaterials – staff and budgets can get overwhelmed quickly. Contentsyndication can help make the most of a limited budget byminimizing time to market and offering carriers access to newsources of revenue and information. As a result, carriers canenhance both the brick-and-mortar and digital consumerexperience.

Mix in Some Social

Insurance carriers leverage social channels to create dialoguethat informs and communicates to consumer channels, yet it's aconstant struggle to personalize messages and localize content thatbrings the agent community into the conversation. Socialsyndication solutions push your targeted content through localintermediaries and stimulate interaction directly with the consumerwithout alienating your partners. Messages and conversions oncontent can be tracked by the carrier, which benefits the agentthrough increased mindshare, opportunity and leads.

Sprinkle in a Dash of Analytics

Once you have a content syndication strategy in place, it's timeto optimize it for performance—this is where analytics comes in.Using the analytics dashboard that comes with many contentsyndication solution packages, digital strategy, marketing, andmanagement departments are able to directly analyze consumerbehavior and adjust business strategy in real-time. With some agentand broker communities numbering well into the thousands, SaaSsolutions can effectively unlock big data by using businessintelligence and data collection tools that, if purchasedseparately, would quickly break any operating budget. SaaScustomers benefit by using a “share” of the combined technology,delivery services, security, uptime, and expertise at only afraction of the expense (yet still derive all the benefits).

Season with the Cloud

Carriers selling through intermediaries that are looking toupdate their digital strategy need to find the quickest, mosteffective path to success. In the past, that journey began in theIT department. Now, with the growth of SaaS solutions, decisionmakers are able to focus on strategy and precision by leveragingmarketing solutions in the cloud. This takes the pressure off ITand streamlines the technological landscape.

Cloud solutions dramatically cut expenses and processing timewhen crunching and interpreting enterprise level data. This givesdecision makers information in minutes rather than days. The cloudalso removes impediments that block traditional insurance providersfrom combining the local and digital experience, such asinformation silos, differences in technologies, processes, andexpertise. SaaS solution providers are able to connect disparatesystems and employ agile software delivery methods, providing theinsurer with more time to focus on enhancing timeliness andeffectiveness.

Now that the recipe is out there, it's up to insurance carriersto close the technology gap and regain market share with digital“shelf-ready” SaaS solutions that can help them focus on theirbusiness, stay ahead of the curve and concentrate on the bottomline. We've already seen how successfully these marketing, businessintelligence, and integration solutions have been deployed by someof the more savvy insurers. Traditional carriers can makethemselves more marketable as well—making it easier to keep up withthe GEICOs and Aflacs of the world. Best of luck during yourdigital content into 'dough.'