Life Support

Marketing life insurance and annuity products never has been an easy task, but as more products become available and the complexity of those products tests the understanding of even trained professionals, insurance carriers search for better ways to get their message across to sales reps, agents, and customers.

The complexity of products and services is the biggest challenge facing the life insurance industry today, asserts David Sprague, senior vice president of marketing strategy for Jackson National Life. That complexity made evident some of the shortcomings in marketing materials available to agents and sales reps for the carrier. “For instance, a lot of benefits build over time, have different crediting methodology, and use different calculations,” says Sprague. “If you just put that in a static graph or chart, it really loses its impact.”

Jackson found a solution in building charts and graphs through the software offered by Brainshark Presentations. “We were looking for a low-cost, high-touch method that basically would make the complex simple,” says Sprague. “We use [the software] for our external audience as well as our internal audience to train our folks on the new concepts and products coming out.”

The beauty of the product for Jackson, Sprague continues, is Brainshark fit right in with the carrier's business model. Implementation was simple along with the administration of the product, he explains. Brainshark allows Jackson to send PowerPoint presentations and print material to a large number of varied users. Each presentation has a unique URL that can be posted and included in other marketing materials.

One of the marketing challenges Jackson faced involved taking a complex thought process and putting it into a short presentation the carrier's staff actually would follow, relates Sprague. “Whether it is a new product or a new strategy for an existing product, we come up with a suite of support materials for [the sales staff],” he says.

Jackson officials can see who's looked at the material and how long a particular slide was viewed. “If we are showing a graph or a chart and it's a new concept and maybe a little complex, we can draw some good data from the folks who have used the Brainshark,” says Sprague. For example, if the carrier has had X number of people look at the slide pages for Y amount of time, maybe the slide is too complex and the carrier needs to better explain the message. “You know who's using it and how long they are using it,” says Sprague. “If our folks know how to do a good presentation and how to use PowerPoint, there is a quick learning curve,” he remarks.

Beside product complexity, regulators have made the job of marketing life insurance products more difficult, contends Sprague. “If we go too deep in trying to explain a certain feature or benefit, the regulatory world requires us to throw in a lot more language that can be very confusing,” he says. “Now, we have to make some critical calls on how much is too much information.”

Speed to market is key for life insurers, and Sprague points out, the Brainshark tool has made marketing new products one of the easier aspects of introducing products to the market. “I'd love to have the kind of efficiency we picked up with Brainshark in our other marketing materials and processes,” he says.

When Jackson staffers first viewed the Brainshark product, it made intuitive sense to them, recalls Sprague. “It's done what we've asked it to do,” he says. “If we had a wish list, our next step would be to have it automatically tied into our contact management system and putting three- to five-minute sound bites from clients in place.” Such improvements make things better for everyone involved. “Ultimately the producer gets more business, end users get a product that is appropriate for them, and we sell more stuff,” he concludes. “Most people in our industry want a path to model. Tying Brainshark into our traditional marketing can put the crowning blow on a good campaign.”