digital business
a case history
A client of mine, The Lifeline Program, has a compelling business model. A life settlement company, they purchase life insurance policies from seniors who no longer need or want them, or who can no longer afford the premiums on a fixed income. Or who simply need the substantial amount of cash a life settlement can bring them to pay for medical expenses, necessities, or life-style pleasures like vacations, trips to see the grandkids, a new boat, or simply to have the peace-of-mind so that they would no longer have to worry about having enough money to thrive - or even comfortably survive - in their golden years.
The challenge was to increase awareness amongst the senior population - and financial professionals - of what a life settlement is. And the surprisingly - often shockingly - large amount of cash an unneeded life insurance policy can reap for them. The majority of seniors with life insurance policies they no longer need, want, or can afford, simply let them lapse. The remainder cash them in with their insurance carrier for pennies on the dollar.
And thus, there was a deficit of awareness of just how large a windfall they could realize.
But there was another challenge. The vast majority of life settlements are recommended and brokered by financial professionals to their senior clients, especially insurance agents. Many agents were not as aware as they might have been about the advantages of a life settlement, and most of their clients were either not aware or confused about the benefits of a life settlement. Plus agents did not have the digital marketing tools to increase awareness of their senior client base, or their universe of prospects.
creating a campaign that's a blast
My idea was to create a print campaign that humorously, simply, and impactfully dramatizes and defines, in essence, what a life settlement is for retired seniors vis a vis their policies - which is the sudden discovery of a potential windfall of cash that comes out of nowhere!
I likened it to imagined, easily understandable and amusing situations where one could realize an unexpected infusion of wealth. Once the campaign was produced, we then created a technical paradigm and infrastructure with our IT partners that would allow agents to send these digital cards via e mail blasts to their clients - with the agent's own imprimatur. The intent was for these high-impact messages and graphics to immediately grab attention, provide dual agent and client name recognition, with rapid benefit absorption. It would also allow us to be able to measure response rates via analytics.
Creatively, when conceiving this campaign (which was employed as well for a general print campaign) I had in mind to use one of the world's foremost comedic illustrators in the high-energy, attention-getting style the idea required: Rick Meyerowitz, one of the founders of the National Lampoon humor magazine. Happily, Rick was available and was able to illustrate the ads.
The campaign proved to be highly successful in achieving our goals.
A sampling of our executions are below. The initial execution of Betty you see first was the initial "Heads-Up" to introduce the concept of the digital e mail campaign to the agents and get them both prepared for and excited about the bottom-line benefits of the new effort we were offering them.
It allowed them to be, quite literally, an "agent of change" for their clients. In short, it enabled them to be the embodiment of our tag/branding line, The Life-Changing Solution.
