If you sell insurance, there are probably thousands — potentially millions — of consumers who could theoretically buy from you.
But that’s not really the question, is it?
The question is: Who is worth speaking to now?
Because there is a big difference between finding somebody who could buy insurance and somebody who actually has a reason to think about it.
And this is where consumer data can get really interesting.
What if you could target consumers by their insurance renewal month?
When businesses ask me about consumer data for telemarketing, they’ll often start with the obvious selections.
Age. Location. Income. Homeowner.
All perfectly sensible… But for an insurance campaign, we can potentially go one step further.
We can select consumers based on their:
- Car insurance renewal month
- Buildings & Contents insurance renewal month
And suddenly you’ve added another piece to the puzzle: Timing.
Instead of simply saying: “Find me homeowners aged 35–60.”
You could potentially say: “Find me homeowners aged 35–60 in these postcode areas whose buildings or contents insurance is due for renewal in the month I want to target.”
That’s a very different campaign.
Right person. Right message. Right time.
I’ve talked about this for years.
Good marketing isn’t just about finding the right person.
You also need a reason to speak to them.
Imagine receiving a call about your car insurance six months after you’ve renewed it.
Brilliant.
You’ve probably got another six months before you’re remotely interested.
Now imagine having the same conversation as your renewal is approaching.
Same person.
Same product.
Completely different timing.
That’s why I think businesses need to stop looking at marketing data as simply a list of names and telephone numbers.
The selections behind the data can be just as important as the volume.
What could an insurance prospecting campaign look like?
Let’s take home insurance as an example.
Rather than asking for 10,000 random homeowners, we could look at building a much more defined audience using selections such as:
Homeowner status – Start with people who actually own their property.
Property information – Depending on the campaign, we can look at property type, number of bedrooms, property age and other household information.
Age – Perhaps your ideal customer tends to fall within a particular age range.
Household income – If appropriate to the product, income can help refine the audience further.
Location – Target nationally, regionally or right down to the postcode areas your sales team covers.
Insurance renewal month
And then add the timing. That’s the clever bit. Not because it magically guarantees somebody will buy.
It doesn’t…. But because you’re giving the campaign a more sensible reason for contacting that person at that particular time.
The same thinking works for car insurance
Car owner data can be selected using information such as vehicle make and model, registration year, vehicle classification, car size and number of cars in the household.
Combine that with demographic and geographic selections and then potentially select by car insurance renewal month.
Again, we’re narrowing the audience. Not because smaller is automatically better. Because more relevant is better.
I’d much rather give a sales team a sensible group of prospects and a reason for contacting them than hand them an enormous spreadsheet and say:
“Off you go.”
Don’t go mad with the filters
There is a danger here.
Once people realise how many selections are available, they sometimes want ALL of them.
Homeowner. Age 42–47. Detached house. Two cars. Very specific income. Specific postcode. Specific renewal month.
And before you know it we’ve created an audience consisting of Dave from Stockport and possibly his next-door neighbour.
Every filter reduces the available volume.
So the job isn’t to tick every box.
It’s to work out which selections genuinely make somebody more relevant to your campaign.
That’s normally where I start with clients… What are you actually trying to achieve?
Then we work backwards.
What about telemarketing compliance?
This bit matters.
If you’re buying consumer data for telemarketing, don’t just ask how many records a supplier can give you.
Ask where the data came from.
Ask how it can be used.
Ask about TPS screening.
Ask when telephone numbers were checked.
Ask what selections have actually been used to create the audience.
And make sure the data is suitable for the campaign you’re planning.
Cheap consumer data isn’t cheap if your salespeople spend hours calling the wrong people.
So, do you need more insurance prospect data?
Maybe.
But I’d ask a different question first.
Do you need more people to call — or better reasons to call them?
For an insurance campaign, knowing that somebody is a homeowner, fits your customer profile and lives in the right area is useful.
Knowing their insurance renewal period could make that audience considerably more relevant to the campaign you’re planning.
That’s what good consumer targeting should be about.
Not buying the biggest database you can afford.
