2021 Group Benefits: Continuing Rise of Benefits Admin Platforms-as-a-Channel
Channel Partner Enablement
A massively fragmented Benefits Administration (BenAdmin), HR, Payroll, Carrier, and PEO drives more frustration than a utility for many. Carriers and brokers will have to start thinking and acting much more like technology marketers and systems integrators moving forward in the benefits admin platform-as-a-channel inevitable …
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Where Subscription Marketers Need to Focus Their Energy
Cross-Selling, Customer Retention, Lead Generation and Nurturing
With limited dollars to place on subscription services, subscription marketers must focus on 4 customer lifecycle stages to engage and delight consumers.
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3 “Must-Have” Foundational Marketing Assets for Success
Buyer Journeys
While there are several foundational marketing assets businesses should develop, we share three that every business MUST have.
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2021 Group Benefits: Shifting the Mindset from Products to Solutions
Uncategorized
In Part 3, our team shares why Brokers and Providers are bundling coverages, the innovation potential for group benefits leaders that are transitioning from products to solutions, and 5 steps to building a customer-centric solutions strategy.
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2021 Group Benefits: Personalizing the Benefits Experience Via Employee Segmentation
Buyer Journeys, Customer Experience
In Part 2, our team shares how the pandemic has altered employee engagement in the benefits enrollment process, what employers and employees need from carriers/brokers during this accelerated transition, and what this means for…
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2021 Group Benefits: Changing Distribution and Go-to-Market Models
Go-to-Market Strategy, Growth Pathways, Sales Enablement
In Part 1 of our series, we dive into the specific go-to-market models for benefits providers as they face challenges. From employer-via-broker to direct-to consumer models, read on to see what’s happening and where things are going. We share strategies, imperatives, and foreseeable opportunities for …
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Optimizing Marketing Mix in the Subscription Economy
Marketing Analytics, Marketing ROI, Multichannel Marketing
The subscription economy has impacted all industries and is driving massive changes in business processes and operating models. The dramatic change in customer preferences away from ownership and towards outcomes and increased flexibility has changed the game…
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4 Signs of Stagnant Marketing Analytics
Marketing Analytics
Marketing analytics organizations are under incredible pressure from business stakeholders. Business owners want everything—and they want it quickly. This insatiable appetite for analytics can lead to demoralized teams who get “C” grades on all their assignments, at best. The result: no one is happy. At …
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What Financial Advisors Need to Digitally Succeed
Market Insights
The Power of Digital Readiness Financial Advisors (FAs), and almost all professionals used to in-person business relationships, experienced a dramatic shift in 2020 in terms of how they interact and operate. Virtually overnight, advisors had to adapt their go-to-market practices to ensure business-as-usual and client …
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Measuring Marketing’s Effectiveness in 2021
Marketing Analytics, Marketing ROI, Multichannel Marketing
Measuring marketing’s effectiveness in 2021 remains a top priority for CMOs as return on marketing remains frustratingly squishy.
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4 Strategies Group Benefits Providers Must Consider to Drive Growth
Market Insights
Our market intelligence team listened to 1,000’s of digital conversations this Fall around Open Enrollment to identify the top topics and themes that emerged. We combined this digital listening with client insights, competitive analysis, and our expertise to arrive at several key go-to-market themes that we believe will be critical to driving growth in the 2021 group benefits market, and beyond. An Industry …
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Research on Changing Consumer Perceptions in Financial Services
Market Insights
This blog is based on an interview conducted by Bill Hortz, Founder of the Institute for Innovation Development with Bill Sheldon, SVP at MarketBridge Disruption breeds change, but the right kind of change is driven by building from your customers’ needs and perceptions. In a …
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Six Go-to-Market Themes for 2021 Success
Uncategorized
With 2021 underway, and the world appearing to be transitioning from the pandemic, we took a look at how certain market trends are crystallizing going forward. We identified 6 key market trends and themes for revenue leaders to understand and react to…
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Executing on Your Immediate Response to FinTech Disruption
Market Insights
This blog is based on an interview conducted by Bill Hortz, Founder of the Institute for Innovation Development with Steven Lewis, SVP at MarketBridge. In any important endeavor, the proverbial rubber hits the road in its attempted execution. While “execution” per the dictionary has a primary …
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Digital Advertising 2020: A Lot More Quality Digital Eyeballs
Content Marketing, Digital Sales, Go-to-Market Operations, Lead Generation and Nurturing
Of all of the emergent phenomena that have occurred over the past nine months, one that hasn’t gotten much press is the dramatic increase in the supply of quality digital impressions. There isn’t a published source measuring this very real metric—it has to be triangulated …
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Developing Your Immediate Response to FinTech Disruption
Market Insights
This blog is based on an interview conducted by Bill Hortz, Founder of the Institute for Innovation Development with Steven Lewis, SVP at MarketBridge Fintech entrants are creating financial services industry disruption by changing the customer value equation and causing a major impact on consumers’ …
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Levers for Disruption: How Incumbents Can Compete Against Fintech
Customer Experience
The history of fintech (financial technologies) may be rightfully traced to 1915 with the advent of wire funds transfer via telegraph and Morse code. The ensuing confluence of technology, digitization, and globalization throughout the twentieth century revolutionized all aspects of global financial systems…
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Be Bold and Innovate Your Sales Enablement
Sales Enablement
When it comes to the impact of COVID-19 on sales channels, we’ve seen startling data on the short-term shift in channel usage by both sellers and buyers. Traditional FTF and inside sales channels have taken steep hits in usage — dropping by over 30 percentage …
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The COVID-19 Catalyst: Brick-and-Mortar Retail’s Future
Uncategorized
(Part II of the Hammer and the Dance Series) I started writing this post as a sequel to the “Hammer and the Dance” post about health care. This one is focused on retail. As soon as I started writing it, the scope expanded significantly. I’ve been doing …
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Two Core Go-to-Market Principles to Future Proof Growth Post-Disruption
Uncategorized
The most pronounced issue this pandemic has brought front and center for revenue leaders is the imperative to operate in ever smaller ‘windows of certainty’. While this is undoubtedly true in the midst of disruption, it will also be true post-disruption. In fact, it is …
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Potential COVID-Driven Go-to-Market Adjustments for the Healthcare Industry
Market Insights
Early on in the pandemic, an influential article—The Hammer and the Dance—was published in The Medium attempting to predict the course of society’s response to COVID-19. Whether you agreed with the data science, it was an interesting thought piece that most definitely affected policy. It …
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Partners in Peril: 5 Strategies for Channel Adaptation
Channel Partner Enablement
In 2019, Forrester stated that the indirect channel was transformed more in the previous 18 months than the almost 40 years preceding – combined. And according to a recent Accenture survey of channel professionals, 76% think the channel will be unrecognizable in the next 5 …
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Are Geographic Sales Territories Dying?
Sales Coverage
As the COVID impact increases remote working, virtual conference calls, and online purchasing, sales leaders need to be asking a simple question: Should we actually eliminate geographic territories? The simple answer is “No, but…..”. We all must recognize that for >100 years the entire DNA …
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Executing Customer Retention in Times of Disruption
Customer Experience, Customer Retention
We are living through an era of ‘what’s old is new’ as it relates to retention. While executives have always understood the value of keeping loyal customers, massive market transformations have raised the stakes and forced what often was a behind the scenes ‘autopilot’ type …
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How to Navigate Sharp Changes in Consumer Behavior Using Data – Big and Small
Marketing Analytics
The essential ways we live and work have changed virtually overnight. As a result, companies are monitoring and assessing what consumers are doing at heightened new levels. Here is how integrating big data and small data insights lead to top-line growth…
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