Niche products can be very profitable for insurers, but no matter how large the company, marketing those products can be expensive. When marketing a niche product, you generally produce a low volume of high-quality materials, which drives up your unit cost considerably, says Gregg Cromeans, director of individual life marketingfor Prudential Financial. We recently launched a new niche product in our portfolio, which required us to make some educated guesses about the type and volume of support materials needed.
From an economic standpoint, Cromeans says, one of the challenges Prudential studied was whether there was a new way the company could approach the problem. We did print on demand in the past, but to address the question about making [the marketing] more relevant to the customer, we thought personalizing the marketing material would be an effective way to bring the conversation down to a one-on-one basis, he says.
Cromeans was aware of what Xerox offered through its Global Services unit and went through Prudentials consolidated fulfillment area to find other possible vendors, he states. Two other solution providers joined Xerox as possible candidates. One factor we considered was two of the quotes were from vendors that were focused on building a solution as a means of attaining the print business, says Cromeans. The approach Xerox took focused primarily on our needs, and it frankly didnt care where the output went, nor did I.
The primary concern for Prudential was solving the problem at the front end of the process. How do we make this easier to use, interactive, cost effective, he says. The important thing, according to Cromeans, was to solve the business problem, not start with the end result (a printing solution) of a particular vendor wanting the carriers printing business.
The two bidders that were rejected did not have the experience of building what Prudential needed to manage all the digital collateral that went along with marketing the carriers niche products, Cromeans says. What Xerox brought to the table was experience, and it demonstrated that to us through the work it had done with other companies, he explains.
The project went from concept to implementation in just three months, Cromeans notes, adding, We really rolled up our sleeves and focused on what we needed to do collectively.
Cromeans says he recently published an article on the new platform in an internal company e-newsletter, and he received calls from many business units within Prudential seeking more information. We have a platform we could leverage across other business units, and were engaged in dialogue with other [Prudential] units.
Being a former agent himself, Cromeans has personal experience with what producers want. If its not quick and easy to use, they wont use it, he says. To ease the producers into it, the system first was rolled out through Prudentials producer call centers. In December, the system was rolled out directly to producers so they could order the marketing material themselves.
This is all part of Prudentials commitment to clients and producers, he maintains. Part of our objective was not only to make the material more relevant to the individual customer, but also enhance the value of the producer. The materials include the clients name and a choice of demographically correct photos. Also included are a photograph of the producer and all relevant contact information. When clients pick up that brochure in the future, they will be reminded of the value of the producer and see [the producers] photo, name, and contact information.
The platform was built in a flexible method that allows us to go wherever we want to go with it, not only creating printed collateral materials that are used at point of sale, but potentially developing personalized promotional flyers and sales ideas targeted to the producers, says Cromeans. Being able to bring [the product] to market so quickly and understanding we were looking at this to be a short-term deliverable but with the long term in mind, Id say we were successful in doing that.
ROBERT REGIS HYLE
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