At this year’s ROMI, Diana Makaruk, Head of Marketing Insurance Biz at Finance.ua, shared her expertise in direct marketing. Over 7 years, her team has developed more than 500 marketing letters, and the “Finance.ua Insurance” project has been successfully developing since 2020.

What is Direct Marketing?

It’s a powerful product promotion method that allows establishing an emotional connection with customers and turning them into genuine brand promoters. One of the main advantages of direct marketing is the ability to personalize communication, creating unique offers for each customer based on their preferences. This can be achieved through:

• automated email newsletters,
• Viber messages, 
• SMS, 
• push notifications.

Direct marketing helps form an engaged audience, assess demand for specific products, and significantly increase sales effectiveness. In particular, it helps increase cross-sales volume and automate retention processes. The latter aspect deserves special attention. After all, retaining existing customers is much more cost-effective than acquiring new ones. Statistics show that regular customers spend 65% more, try new products twice as often, and are more likely to remain loyal.

Personalizing communication to user needs undoubtedly yields better results: if one communication method proves ineffective, there’s a smooth transition to other, more relevant channels (such as Viber or SMS). This flexible solution significantly increases message open rates. According to Finance.ua data, while email remains the most popular channel (77%), Viber (16%) and SMS (7%) also play important roles. An example of a scenario:

For successful customer retention, it’s recommended to build a clear Customer Journey Map that considers all touchpoints with the audience.

 If your company uses both marketing mailings and manager calls, it’s important to synchronize these communication channels. It’s recommended to start with email marketing and then, if necessary, connect other channels. This helps avoid information duplication and increase customer interaction effectiveness.

Content Marketing and Its Formats

Research shows that video content currently holds leading positions. However, other formats shouldn’t be underestimated, such as:

• articles,
• case studies,
• blog posts,
• thematic research,
• online events.

Finance.ua’s case showed that videos in email newsletters increase letter open rates by 5% and clickthrough rates by 2% compared to regular promotional letters. Interviews on current topics proved extremely effective. Additionally, the company actively uses interactive elements such as tests directly in email newsletters and on landing pages. That’s why Finance.ua experts recommend using similar tools for customer engagement.

As known, insurance topics are often perceived as dry and difficult to understand. This is due to the large amount of specific terminology and formal style of information presentation. To make this topic more accessible and interesting for a wide range of clients, the Finance.ua team decided to experiment with a new communication format — they created a series of stories about Max the Cat, who explains various aspects of insurance in a simple and understandable way.

And a detailed guide about paid roads in Europe, developed specifically for clients traveling abroad, not only increased interest in the company’s services by 20% but also received numerous positive reviews. This indicates that investments in quality expert content are justified and help build long-term relationships with the audience.

How to Implement Effective Client Reactivation

Various tools can be used to return clients: from personalized email newsletters and Viber messages with discounts and bonuses to phone calls. However, it’s worth considering that each method has its peculiarities. For instance, automated email campaigns with personalized offers can be more cost-effective than manager phone calls.

It’s also important to remember that regularly updating the contact database is crucial, as users often change their contacts. If neglected, sending newsletters to outdated addresses will not only reduce marketing campaign productivity but also negatively impact domain reputation.

About Loyalty and Pareto’s Law

As known, a small portion of clients (usually 20%) brings the lion’s share of profit. Therefore, investing in loyalty building is strategically important for any business. For this, Finance.ua specialists use the NPS (Net Promoter Score) method, which allows determining the number of promoters, passive clients, and detractors (those who have a negative attitude toward the product or service). According to research data, the company shows steady growth thanks to high customer satisfaction levels (80% promoters and only 4.5% detractors). It should also be noted that active use of digital tools such as email, Viber, and SMS newsletters allowed not only expanding the client base but also increasing sales volume by 20%. This only confirms the successful implementation of the omnichannel marketing strategy.

On one hand, the company has accumulated significant expertise in email marketing and developed several successful strategies. Some of the most successful were personalized stories, as well as holiday greetings and partner discounts, especially for entertainment services.

On the other hand, it was found that pushes were not an effective tool, and subscription forms without valuable content didn’t bring desired results. Additionally, company specialists optimized promotional letter frequency, moving from two to one per week. Regarding onboarding, everyone concluded that for insurance products, the most productive remains a personalized approach that provides necessary information when the client needs it most.

Best Time for Newsletters

This is an eternal question for marketers. According to Finance.ua data, the highest letter open rates occur on weekdays, particularly Tuesday and Friday. Regarding time of day, while morning newsletters have their supporters, they may be less effective due to users’ information overload. The optimal time for most campaigns is considered to be lunchtime. However, for niche products (flowers, food, clothing, etc.), evening time might be more appropriate.

How to Make Email Newsletters Effective

For maximum email newsletter effectiveness, we recommend following these recommendations:

Personalization is an integral component of a successful email marketing strategy. Although fully personalizing all newsletters can be quite difficult, it’s worth focusing on key stages of customer interaction. For example, for customer retention and reactivation, it’s worth using highly personalized messages, unlike mass mailings where general segmentation is sufficient. Time of sending should also be considered, as most clients interact with letters within the first 24 hours. Two-way communication is no less important: timely feedback contributes to significant loyalty increase.

Conclusion

Finance.ua achieved significant success in insurance services thanks to successful application of direct marketing strategies. The company successfully combines personalization, omnichannel approach, and quality content to create their marketing campaigns. In particular, using interactive elements such as tests and surveys increases audience engagement. Regular result analysis and approach optimization allow the company to constantly improve and maintain leading positions in the insurance services market.