Being part of a larger marketing agency allowed us to draw in additional resources to help support a new and exciting challenge from a client. They wanted to really understand more about the key segments of their SME target audience and the current risks and business factors that they were talking about and were of concern to them.
Rather than deploy a traditional omnibus survey approach, we set up a ‘social listening’ programme with our colleagues at brandformula and began to listen to and engage with small business owners using methodically-selected social channels and conversation streams – talking directly to them about the business and insurance issues that were causing them concern. Each individual business segment had a bespoke approach – building on the knowledge that we gained to share content and ideas. The programme is still ongoing, but we have already used the insight that we have gained to improve the clarity of communication, share insight and knowledge from the underwriters, and suggest updates and improvements to coverage and policy wordings.
The benefit of this approach is not only a direct line of communication to the end customer, but also the ability of gain knowledge from each segment – understanding their issues rather than a combined market view, and getting this information much more quickly that any traditional research approach.