Case Study

Driving customer engagement for a direct-to-consumer insurance company

EY Yello helped a single-platform insurance business create the right social media strategy and consistent brand image across markets.

1

The better the question

How can a new social media strategy help insurers expand their reach?

An online affiliate of an insurance provider looked at unifying its fragmented social media presence.

Improving its customer engagement and increasing the number of followers became critical for a single-platform, direct-to-consumer insurance company that was expanding to new markets. Launched in October 2020 in Germany, the insurance company had expanded to the Netherlands, Italy and Spain by 2021, mainly through rebranding and re-platforming of previously acquired direct insurance companies.

During the course of its expansion, the insurance company had different brand images across multiple countries owing to the legacy of the companies that were acquired. It grappled with the challenge of disparate communication channels and inconsistent content and messaging. Upon entering the Instagram platform in October 2021 to boost its existing social media presence, the need to have a consistent social media strategy became more pronounced.

By projecting a consistent global brand image in social media, the digital insurer could enhance brand awareness and influence product purchase among consumers. Besides, this aligned with the insurer’s mission to become the market’s “most customer-oriented and efficient insurer” — delivering the best customer experience possible. Furthermore, having a uniform social media strategy and centralized production for every market would avoid duplication of costs brought in by multiple local social media agencies.

The insurer wanted to shift their approach from having multiple agencies handling their local accounts to a sole agency being in charge. They reached out to EY Yello to help consolidate the fragmented social media and content strategy and portray a unified identity for the insurance brand across social media.

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2

The better the answer

A unified approach for a uniform brand image

EY Yello reframed the social media and content strategy to boost customer engagement.

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As the sole agency managing the insurer’s social media profile globally, the task for EY Yello was multi-fold. This included activities to define the client’s social media strategy and manage its content strategy and production.

To devise a consolidated and uniform social media strategy for the insurer, EY Yello decided to place every piece of content within a content hierarchy. This would help leverage the main conversational topics linked to various products offered by the insurer at a global level, and later localize it for specific markets. It could be achieved by adopting a three-layer content strategy:

Product-based content layer that directly speaks about products such as car insurance, travel insurance or home insurance
Engaging content layer covering topics that indirectly address those interested in each type of insurance that the client offers — essentially, arguments or topics relevant to those looking for such insurance
Institutional or brand content layer wherein the global marketing campaigns such as TV commercials get localized and used on social media

EY Yello also proposed a refreshed channel strategy defining the precise role of different social media channels. However, working out a global social media strategy came with a fair share of obstacles too. There were significant cultural and language barriers to overcome as the client teams and customers were from multiple geographies. Localization of content was a necessity, yet it had to be achieved without compromising on a single tone and voice for the brand.

EY Yello worked closely with the client’s marketing team and various media agencies, often adopting a consulting role.

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3

The better the world works

When effective customer engagement means more business

Rolling out a new social media strategy increased the number of followers and created better customer engagement.

Within three months of putting the new social media strategy in place, there have been notable results. For instance, in Italy, the number of social media followers on the client’s official page increased from 500 to 5,000, wherein the original plan was to reach the 2,000-follower mark by the end of 2022. In the Netherlands, the follower mark has already reached 3,800 as against the original target of 3,500 for 2022. Apart from adding new followers, the new social media strategy will ultimately boost the engagement rate of the social assets.

EY Yello helped the insurer harmonize its social media channel presence in markets with significant presence as well as in those with a limited customer base. The new social media strategy helped the insurer to directly captivate the customers with various products and increase their customer base.

“We typically play with the social media content and deliver a lot of creative ideas. We try to keep customers engaged while increasing the awareness on various products that our client offers. Many a times, customers come back for information,” says Fabio Dotti, EY Yello Founder.

EY teams remain responsive to the client needs and recently supported the development and delivery of a three-day workshop, which enables them to refresh their social media strategy by bringing together the EY Yello team, the client, their accounts, strategists and creative teams.

EY Yello is also embedding a comprehensive global social media governance and co-creation process for the client.

We typically play with the social media content and deliver a lot of creative ideas. We try to keep customers engaged while increasing the awareness on various products that our client offers.

Fabio Dotti

EY EMEIA Business Transformation Leader

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Related topics

Financial Services EMEIA

The team

Fabio Dotti

EY EMEIA Business Transformation Leader

Basketball and sports lover. Modern art collector. Traveler.

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