Content is the king and marketing its queen

Rushabh Gandhi, Deputy CEO, IndiaFirst Life Insurance writes that one could make the most engaging content, but if it weren't marketed well, it would never build trust and loyalty that reap business benefits. This understanding forms the basis of content marketing strategy – make great content consistently but market it even more intelligently

author-image
Rushabh Gandhi
New Update
Post Thumb

They don’t call content, ‘King’ without reason. If you think about it, finding good quality content is the main reason ‘search’ came into existence. And just like every ‘King’ has a worthy ‘Queen’ by his side, with content - ‘Marketing’ is Queen. You could make the most engaging content, but if it weren’t marketed well, it would never build trust and loyalty that reaps business benefits. This understanding forms the basis of our content marketing strategy – make great content consistently but market it even more intelligently.

For us at IndiaFirst Life Insurance, we took the most off-beat approach to content creation ever taken by an insurance company. David Beebe, former head of content at Marriott put it really well when he said, “Content marketing is really like a first date. If all you do is talk about yourself, there won’t be a second date”. That is why, we did a lot of listening before we actually got into talking about ourselves to our customers. While the category narrative in insurance constantly plays on ‘fear’, we simply decided to, ‘Talk Life, Not death’. This understanding stemmed from the primary insight that the certainties in life will far outweigh the uncertain. Most people study, they get married, they have children, they educate their children and then retire. Life follows a certain trajectory in most cases and without smartly planning for each of those stages, you might end up in a fix. From here was born the brand campaign, ‘Because life is full of certainties’.

With our ‘king’ defined – it was now time to find the most ideal ‘Queen’. How could we take this thought, create content around it that boosted awareness and distribute it effectively? It so happened that just one ‘Queen’ wouldn’t be enough to get the job done. Given the infinite number of marketing channels available and the fact that our messaging is targeted at all age segments; multiple mediums had to be chosen. It meant having multiple ‘Queens’ (marketing vehicles) - billboards, OOH, print, radio, website and digital media to appeal to various age groups and demographics.

With millennials we recognised that they value relationships – the ones they forge with others online as well as with brands. At IndiaFirst Life, the approach was to spend on creating content that would help us build a relationship with this younger population. We wanted them to keep coming back to us. We had to be consistent and fine-tune linguistics to appeal to this generation, who make buying decisions for themselves based on their experiences online. Therefore, we went to where they were (online) and spoke in a language they understood, constantly re-iterating the importance of insurance.

We adopt an entirely different strategy for each social platform. Video content on digital is a core part of our digital initiatives, but we also have blogs, social media posts and thought leadership videos both in long and short format that engages and educates. For us, content marketing is no longer a numbers game. It's a game of relevance.

Our Bollywood inspired videos continue to engage our audience about our brand proposition as well as educate them. Whether it was the ‘Lagaan’ inspired tax saving video or the ‘Ghajini’ video on the importance of planning your finances for the certainty of marriage, the content saw one million views with engagement levels hitting the roof. We even created Facebook LIVE videos with MTV VJ Anusha Dandekar on New Year’s Eve 2018 as well as with comedians Sahil Shah and Sorabh Pant which led to winning multiple awards because no one else in the industry was creating this highly engaging creative content.

It has always been a commitment we make to our customers that we will consistently deliver quality content. We want to succeed in the long-term, not just have short spurts of engagement with no real customer trust or loyalty built. We have a strong strategy in place, we’re sure we’ll leave competition behind soon to really add value to the lives of our customer.

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of www.buzzincontent.com and we do not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.)

Rushabh Gandhi IndiaFirst Life Insurance Content is the king and marketing its queen