Ensure Success

Numbers may numb the senses, but that does not mean insurers should forsake the chance to achieve something that, in contrast to their current approach to marketing, can be numinous, relatively speaking, because neither a lack of communication nor communication that lacks style can yield anything of substance. Insurers need not go back to the drawing board, when they should go to the photography studio instead: a place for photographers, artists, designers, writers, and directors—all of them working in a studio spacious enough for them to realize their vision, which itself is a study in the transformation of space. It is the conversion of space into living space—the way a studio lends itself to interpretation by way of a camera lens—that can allow insurers to further their message through the medium of video or photography. Achieving this goal starts with finding a studio in which a room has plenty of space for invention, and reinvention. To have such a studio is to have the solution to a challenge that is otherwise a logistical mess and a financial disaster. Enter FD Photo Studio, literally or virtually, because this is where insurers can begin to turn their message into effective marketing. I mention this disruption in how photographers do business, or how businesses can leverage a series of photography studios that have low hourly rates and a suite of equipment and services, because the biggest barrier to a shift in marketing is the refusal of most studios to change their prices—to change, period—in the face of changing needs and demands. See also: 10 Essential Actions for Digital Success  With the solution now available, insurers have no reason not to banish the banal, to erase the execrable, to delete the detestable. They do, however, have every reason to express themselves visually—to have a vision that verbalizes a specific set of values—so their marketing speaks for itself. They have to articulate what they believe. They have to believe what they say—they have to know what they believe—so what they say is not only believable but true, so what consumers see is a picture of what insurance is, so what appears on paper or develops on-screen is the summation of a collection of ideals like honor and integrity and hope and opportunity. That honesty is the best policy, for insurers, is both a matter of justice and a measure of goodness. To have a marketing campaign that blurs what should be clear, or to perpetuate a message that fails to clarify what is right, is neither good for business nor a good to possess. It is bad optics, as pundits are wont to say, because it is just plain bad. See also: Engaging Employees: Key to Success Let insurers, therefore, resolve to make excellence a priority and professionalism a promise to keep. Let them produce an actual snapshot of their industry, which says a lot without having to say a word; unless words are necessary; unless the words condense a thousand words into a memorable sentence; unless the sentence implies what consumers will likely infer: that insurers are great marketers.