EP #44: Personalizing insurance customer experiences at scale like Philippines’ BPI-Philam

Miguel Lojo(Host): Hello and good afternoon. Welcome to another session with the Netcore podcast series. Today, I have a very special guest and he is currently one of our clients here at the Netcore from BPI Philam. We have Vonn Tanchuan, currently the assistant manager of the digital marketing team from BPI Philam. So Vonn, hello and welcome to our podcast.

Vonn(Guest): Hi, Lojo. Hello. Good afternoon.

Miguel: Yeah, have you been and how’s everything been going with Philam BPI recently?

Vonn: We’re working from home, but versus other Industries, we’re not intensely affected with the situation. So we’re kind of thing full but of course in general all businesses actually went through all these challenges, but somehow we saw the possibility of re-bouncing back sooner.

Miguel: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think you guys being in the insurance and sort of banking Industries, you know, a lot of people have sort of, you know, taking a look at their priorities and realized. Oh my God, are we insured for this or it brought the light like the needs of consumers and I think a lot of them have really gotten into that particular thing or have really double-checked their priorities once again, it’s like do we have insurance for life, for our health or like do we have everything we need it in case we do have to go pay some, you know hospital bills or health bills for that matter. So I think definitely you guys being in that industry because you know help you to bounce back for sure. So yes.

Vonn: That’s right more than ever people right now really have appreciated more the essence of the importance of having life and health protection because of what’s happening, the pandemic served as an eye-opener for a lot of them.

Miguel: Yes for sure.

Vonn: So good outlook so far coming from that.

Miguel: And fingers crossed, you know, this makes people smarter and you know a lot more attuned icons to really get into insurance and you know realize that it is something that you need and it is something that will help you in the long run. So one thing that you did mention that you did sort of, you know capitalize on is the needs of consumers and you know, what prioritizes them or what galvanizes them to sort of consuming whatever it is that the market is offering. So, I think one of the biggest things that are you know, or is happening right now within the marketing landscape is something called personalized marketing. Now as someone In banking or in the insurance industry. Can I get your opinion on what you understand and what you believe is personalized marketing?

Vonn: Yeah, coming from that perspective or you know as someone in the marketing field, I feel like personalized marketing is to be its kind of strategy. We’re in Brands like to deliver individualized content living up to their audiences, but this has to be or somehow supported by a good data collection analysis, of course of the data and eventually the use of automation technology, but at the same time it has the have to take note that talk about personalized marketing, content also really matters. So it has to be also on board on the specific insights or get a segment. That’s how we understood.

Miguel: All right, so that’s definitely a good point. Especially what you talked about with the market segment or what content is relevant for a particular segment. So I think that’s one of the more common mistakes that a lot of marketers do with personalization, you know, they think alright so we’re doing quote and quote personalization, but they still kind of do the same type of marketing or content for every single segment and I think that is one of the more common mistakes. Do you see any other common mistakes that marketers make when they are sort of starting with personalization? 

Vonn: One of the struggles week that I observed when brands actually adopt the personalization to personalization in their respective companies. They would usually don’t consider the integration of all the campaigns. So, let’s see they were just awesome for instance email, but then didn’t see me. Did you don’t really see the end state of it or how to integrate all the processes or all the campaigns within the established? So that’s the reason why sometimes we don’t really meet our KPIs because yes we automate but at the same time we really don’t integrate everything. It has to be integrated all that now in my opinion.

Miguel: For sure for sure. I actually really agree with you with the integration part, but now that you mentioned it I do and I am quite interested in sort of figuring out what types of Integrations or maybe even tools that you would recommend when it comes to you know doing personalization?

Vonn: Well, there’s a log in our case for a lot to me. To be honest with you. Everything is not super integrated yet, but internally were developing all these systems to make sure that the company is moving forward looking for more Hardware. Although we’re kind of getting there at this point, utilize some sort of different systems also late. We have our own. It’s management system integrators. Let’s see to our website at the same time. Of course, we have Netcore that we use for our email marketing campaigns the eventual end state for this is we are really planning the great that as well on our website so that for instance if a customer signs up in our religion for on the site, it can be directed by automatically look at the platform and then it can go to the nurturing journey in an automatic Manner and the night after that, of course, that can be transferred to the LMS. But all of these tools actually are in place order eighties to I feel like yeah, there are still some aspects that need to be fixed. But I think we’re getting very somehow. So that’s really not it’s like hundred percent integrated but definitely a mission for your financial institution.

Miguel: Oh sure. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. I think you know one of them you know, there’s a double-bladed thing or there’s a double-edged sword when it comes to technology and with let’s call them more mature Industries. There is a lot of hesitation or there’s a lot of let’s call it the Session when it comes to adoption. It’s a great thing with technology, especially for Industries like security Banking, and insurance. I mean the data that those Industries have is mine is quite Intense or is quite you know, useful for any marketer for any entity of yeah, exactly sensitive was the word I was looking for.

Vonn: That’s true because you know, we handle a lot of sensitive customer information especially for insurance.

Miguel: Yeah for sure, so in that situation that I mean do you think there is a risk for these particular Industries in banking or insurance? Is there a risk that they’re running if they actually don’t do personalization especially in today’s market or in today with the low tech-savvy consumers that we have today?

Vonn: Yes, definitely Lojo, right now a lot of factors actually externally including the pandemic have actually shifted the behavior of our customers. A lot of them are being in the digital sphere and are bombarded with a lot of communications from multiple Brands. So at this point, If companies don’t really take into consideration personalization integrate it into their strategy. I feel like there’s a tendency that costumers the way we’re a team and you would invent new points because how can you be able to stand out in the pool of content online right now and you know, a lot of people are relying online on and You’re not anymore sir online, but then again once you’re there your attention span, the womb of content that you actually see every day. All of these are actually competing for your attention. And so for you to really target specifically those who you want to target. I feel like one of the key factors or one of the key strategies that you’ve been there is personality usual and so it can go a long way to it could affect all your KPIs from let’s say even you generate your engagement even the actual conversions.

Miguel: Perfect. And I think that’s a very good Insight. Especially what you said about KPI’S. So I think this is another mistake that a lot of marketers make especially when they adopt something you or Something different to their current practices. So let’s say I’m a new thing what I call this. Let’s say I’m a marketing advisor and I just say hey, I want to I want to add personalization to my strategy. So I do it and then you know, it’s sort of just disappears. It’s of that flow. It’s kind of like I just said I’m doing Mark personalization, but at the end of the day, I’m sort of not seeing the ROI behind it. So numbers her metrics aren’t KPIs tied to personalization is something that I think a lot of people are lacking. So in your situation bought what numbers do you think need to be tracked when using personalization? 

Vonn: Actually in our case Lojo, I know we do have a lot of numbers screening because you know how we apply to present personalization and multiple Channels, so email is one. Also personalization in social media marketing. So there’s a lot of KPIs involved but in terms of email for the sake of you know, this is somehow relevant, you know and probably your audience, of course, number one, personalization will always be there but the primary KPI looking at every time I do a personalized campaign would be the click grades or the in each method. That’s definitely the equivalent of engagement rate. If we look into CDR and CTO,  CTO is very important because it kind of provides me that inside that, okay people not just open my emails but team time they’re really interested in the content and what’s in it and they actually click and then we kind of online that the website is it so there are tracking IDs also that we put on our emails wherein week from those who actually click this search you can email, how many of them actually visited the website and how many of them actually complete the sign off form. So all of those things we’re really looking at from an end-to-end piece. 

Miguel: Yeah, so basically Vonn it’s really looking at from the beginning to the end like making sure that each step throughout the personalization contributes to your KPI or conversions, am I right?

Vonn: It’s true, it is true, it has to be ampere on your entire marketing Journey or a double the training of your customers, but forests in terms of email marketing we use middle Feast of the Journey of the customer Journey. So it’s very important that for us to be able to entice further our customers for allowing them to worry let them consider the brand or the products that we offer, We have the book to them on a more personal basis, which where personalization comes in.

Miguel: I see I see, so I guess in the spirit of you know, lending our knowledge to newer or to you know companies that are just starting out with personalization what sort of advice which you want to give these people who are just about to adopt or still considering personalization for their marketing strategy?

Vonn: I think it’s very crucial for people to go back to the basics. You have to map out first your objectives, your objectives of your brand, or the objectives of your business. So what do you want to achieve and then from that, you can be able to probably map out. It has to be important that you know, the Journey of your customer from the awareness face up to the conversion phase. So that once you’ve already but out you can be able to integrate already the personalization strategy along the way because a personality is for me is just a tool for you to actually achieve your objective. So you have to see the bigger picture first and then you have to look into all the faces and see where you can actually inject or Incorporated. Personality choice because once you that I feel like it’s not going to be difficult for you to see how everything is connected and eventually isn’t have more resources in the future. It’s going to be easier also to integrate all your processes and campaign. 

Miguel: That’s a wonderful way to wrap up our session on personalization here Vonn. So thank you once again for joining us with this podcast of all our listeners out there. Please do take note that with personalization. It’s all about mapping out your objectives and see how personalization can work for you as a marketer. 

Vonn: So it has to be, needs to be really tailored to your brand itself because a lot of us really have different Journeys, our customers go through different Journeys all the time. So it has an anchored on your own brand or your old, your own customers’ journey.

Miguel: Perfect. And that’s a wonderful way to sort of end our podcast here today Vonn. Thank you so much again for joining us. 

Vonn: Thank you Lojo.

Miguel: Yeah, and this again is that this is Miguel from that Netcore, and I hope you all stay safe and stay healthy. Have a great day.