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 …
Read More
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 …
Read More
Six Go-to-Market Themes for 2021 Success
Account-Based Marketing, Buyer Journeys, Customer Experience, Go-to-Market Strategy, Marketing Analytics
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…
Read More
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 …
Read More
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 …
Read More
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’ …
Read More
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…
Read More
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 …
Read More
The COVID-19 Catalyst: Brick-and-Mortar Retail’s Future
Other
(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 …
Read More
Two Core Go-to-Market Principles to Future Proof Growth Post-Disruption
Other
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 …
Read More
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 …
Read More
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 …
Read More
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 …
Read More
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 …
Read More
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…
Read More
The Cookie-pocalypse: Understanding the Implications for Digital Marketing and Customer Experience
Buyer Journeys, Market Insights
How is your company preparing for the coming cookie-pocalypse? The end of third-party cookies will fundamentally change digital marketing strategies across industries and have major implications for delivering a great customer experience…
Read More
Post-Disruption Go-to-Market Strategy
Other
This pandemic will be over soon. While the costs will be high, scientific innovation and “social distancing” will eventually eliminate this catastrophic disease transmission. To help revenue leaders operationalize strategic change, we have put together a basic three-step process and a sample “checklist” of strategies …
Read More
Establishing a Customer Success Function Primed for Value Creation: Three Go-dos to Avoid Common Pitfalls in Tech
Customer Experience
The biggest issue we see technology companies making today is using the investments in the CS role to define their CX strategy as opposed to defining their CX strategy and using the CS role as a critical enabler to that strategy. There are three very …
Read More
Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA) Beyond Digital Channels
Marketing ROI
Multi-touch attribution is critical for marketers who want to truly understand ROI of their various channels. While the term “MTA” is en vogue right now, this has been a problem for marketers for a long time. In the 1960s, television advertising might be driving some …
Read More
Go-to-Market 2025 Forecast: Two Disciplines to Separate Winners from Also-Rans in Next 5 Years
Other
Driven by digital transformation, the 2020s will be known for massive behavioral change in both buyers and sellers. This is already apparent across every industry where venture-backed digital disruptors are growing rapidly – they are driving go-to-market and customer behavior change. Yet, many disruptors have …
Read More
AEP Digital Listening Bulletin #3
Other
With only one day to go before AEP closes, consumer fatigue with MA advertising appears to have set in. Despite significant advertising and marketing investment, KFF just released a study that shows how few people actually voluntarily switch plans during AEP. Consumers get smarter about …
Read More
Open Enrollment Digital Listening Bulletin #3
Other
The last few weeks we have picked up a lot more discussion around emerging categories of enhanced benefits as new products are “digested” by the market throughout this open enrollment; a continued focus on cost control and driving employee engagement; and ultimately, discussions about the …
Read More
AEP Digital Listening Bulletin #2
Other
Not surprisingly, the rhetoric has heated up as consumers began to react to the multiple messages and plan options being received around Medicare Advantage across nearly all media channels as AEP shifts to full speed. The “improved” CMS Star Rating system results were released on …
Read More
Open Enrollment Digital Listening Bulletin #2
Other
Welcome to week two of our Fall 2019 Group Benefits Open Enrollment Digital Listening Bulletin. Even more of the benefits conversation turned to the rising costs of the healthcare portion of group benefits over the last two weeks as the reality of 2020 plan options …
Read More
Think Small to Win Big: How Carriers Should Approach Small Business Buyers at an Individual Level
Market Insights
To meet the needs of small businesses, it is important to remember that inside that account there are individuals making the decisions. And just like consumers, small business buyers have distinct communication preferences, servicing needs, and day–to-day pain points. For example, in our survey of …
Read More