Marketing efforts run on customer data and loyal customers. In an ideal world, you have a low-risk, high-reward product or service that you can sell directly to an easily identifiable customer base. It's an inexpensive product or service, and everyone has a need for it. You are able to drive effective marketing efforts based on an ongoing influx of data that comes from your customers, and drive a steady profit from your efforts. Marketing for major life purchases (MLPs), by contrast, is notoriously difficult. From insurance to homeownership to transportation, these markets pose a specific challenge for effective marketing. Limited data points, high-value products, and a fickle customer base can make for marketing efforts that come off as fragmented at best and pestersome at worst. But, even though it may seem impossible to narrow down effective marketing efforts, there's hope. A shift in mentality is crucial for businesses that deal in MLPs — going from lead gen to customer gen.

From whence we came

Lead gen is the standard when it comes to marketing strategy. But for those in major life purchases (MLPs), shifting away from a traditional lead gen mentality can be a game-changer. Driven by data and customer behavior, "customer gen" presents a shift in mentality for leading marketing efforts. It means creating a better understanding of the people that you're selling to, and an added human element to your marketing strategy. Customer marketing provides invaluable benefits to your overall marketing and sales methodologies, creating better relationships between your business and your customers. Try the more human approach of customer gen, which over time, leads to increased understanding, trust — and a better chance of closing that sale.

Lead gen vs. customer gen

Lead generation is the orthodox thinking behind marketing efforts. Marketing generates leads that can be contacted, re-targeted, and eventually converted into customers. Securing the lead is the goal of the efforts, and the meaningful engagement comes towards the end of the sales funnel. Lead gen looks for payoff late in the game — leads are seen more as metrics than as people, and they're generated by tactics that aim for volume rather than value. For businesses in the MLP sector, this methodology presents problems. For starters, MLP customers are far and few between — the likelihood of one customer buying multiple homes or cars in a short span of time is improbable. With this in mind, customers investigating options for major purchases need more targeted, meaningful engagement upfront than other strategies demand. A customer gen mentality focuses on personalizing marketing efforts from the beginning, concentrating on customers — not leads — and how efforts can accommodate what they are looking for.

Creating an effective customer gen approach

So how can you shift your marketing efforts from lead gen to customer gen? The key is to paint a picture of the customer within their own context. Take a look at the best practices for getting started with a customer gen approach, which are outlined in the slideshow above. Changing from lead gen to customer gen is a game-changer for insurers. Rather than focusing on singular points of contact with customers that may or may not continue through your sales funnel, customer generation brings back the human element. By building detailed pictures of behavioral, real-time data from first- and third-party sources, your business will be more likely to create a meaningful interaction with a potential customer. Doing so establishes understanding and trust — both critical elements in closing MLP sales. Are you looking beyond leads to find your true customer base? Get started to discover the difference. Jaimie Pickles is general manager of insurance at Jornaya. He can be reached by sending an email to [email protected]. See also:

• The no-fail lead-generation system
• Optimize your lead-handling process
• 3 tips for becoming a lead-generation master