What’s Changed In My 15 Years Of Marketing Leadership

In his 27 years of marketing leadership experience, Steven Handmaker has seen the industry evolve tremendously. Over the years, marketing has become equal parts creative and data science melded together, connecting the dots to help increase sales. Steven has been on the marketing team at Assurance since 2004 and on this episode, he shares with Bernie Borges how marketing has evolved in his time there.

Assurance is a B2B commercial insurance brokerage managing over 6,000 clients for all things insurance, including property and casualty, employee benefits, life insurance, worker’s compensation, etc. Steven was the first full-time marketing person on staff and has worked to build the brand of not only the company but also the individual brokers. Listen as he shares how Assurance has evolved from the days of cold calling into the world of digital sales in an industry that has been around since the 19th century.

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Get the Vengreso State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn 2019 report to learn how sales professionals stack up on requisite modern selling skills. You’ll also hear from 15 executives with their insights and key recommendations. You’ll also learn how you can arrange to get your own custom digital selling benchmark for your sales team. Just go to stateofdigitalselling.com.

Why Building A Brand Is The First Priority Of Marketing

When Steven first started at Assurance, his initial focus was to build the brand of the company. Their goal was to be the “Google” of insurance in workplace morale and environment. They wanted to attract the top brokers, to their company and in Steven’s opinion, they’ve succeeded. 

After building the Assurance brand, the marketing focus shifted toward its online presence. Steven realized that while Assurance needed a strong brand, so too did its brokers. The modern buyer does their research prior to interacting with a company, so their brokers need to be prepared to enter into conversations with potential clients at any point in their journey. Building the individual brands of their brokers became the new focus to widen the Assurance net of influence.

How Social Platforms Affect Marketing Strategy

To build their broker’s individual brands, Steven and the marketing department focused on building professional, branded social profiles. They recognized that the buyer was interested in what their brokers were sharing online both on their personal and professional profiles. They encourage their client-facing employees to share valuable content on their branded social profiles to establish their expert status in the industry. 

Once their client-facing employees’ profiles were established, Steven’s team turned toward the entire company workforce. Assurance encourages every employee to brand their profile and share information about the company and the industry, expanding the online presence of Assurance. By using the digital signals of their potential clients, the marketing team creates content that speaks to their client’s pain points. That content is shared by their employees across all of their professional profiles.

Why In Today’s World Marketing IS Sales

In Steven’s words, gone are the days of marketing being singularly creative. They are no longer only the “make it pretty people.” Every marketing interaction is a potential sales opportunity and marketing and sales have become one. Marketing enables sales to do their jobs by providing useful data on the modern buyer. 

The sales team uses the data provided to them through their marketing channels to reach out to pre-qualified clients. Every piece of content that the marketing department creates aims at bringing the modern buyer deeper into the sales process so that the sales team is working with qualified leads. Marketing continues to nurture those potential buyers making them warmer through every interaction with the company.

How Marketing Leadership Has Evolved 

As digital selling has become more prominent, the role of the marketing leader has turned toward being an educator. The marketing professional has to train and help salespeople use the tools provided to reach their target audience more effectively. The salesperson has to know their market. Not every interaction needs to happen online, but regardless of the industry, the broker needs to know how to engage using social platforms.

No matter the industry or the target, salespeople need to prepare to be available and willing to respond quickly. Speed is important because the modern buyer is always on and so too should be the sales professional. Listen in to this episode with Steven Handmaker, CMO of Assurance to hear why education, speed, and marketing and sales alignment are the key focal points in Assurance’s marketing strategy. 

Featured on This Episode

• Steven Handmaker on LinkedIn
• Steven Handmaker on Twitter: @handmaker
• Assurance
• Assurance on LinkedIn
• Assurance on Twitter: @AssuranceATeam

Outline of This Marketing Leadership Episode

• [01:12] Welcome to the show Steven Handmaker, CMO at Assurance.
• [01:55] Learn more about Assurance and Steven’s role there.
• [05:00] Steven shares how marketing has evolved since he started at Assurance.
• [08:47] How did they deal with individual broker branding along with corporate branding?
• [10:14] Why salespeople alone are no longer the only brand ambassadors in a company.
• [11:36] How has Assurance prepared their brokers for digital selling? 
• [16:23] At Assurance marketing and sales are not just aligned, they are the same.
• [17:45] Learn how Steven empowers his brokers to view sales and marketing holistically.
• [19:38] How has marketing leadership evolved to succeed in today’s digital world?
• [21:52] Are the brokers adopting the new digital sales concepts quickly?
• [24:25] There’s a new expectation amongst modern buyers regarding speed and communication.
• [26:10] Hear Bernie’s recap of the episode.
• [29:52] Steven shares exactly how marketing has changed in his time with Assurance.
• [31:16] Connect with Steven.

Resources & People Mentioned on this Marketing Leadership Episode

Get the Vengreso State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn 2019 report to learn how sales professionals stack up on requisite modern selling skills. You’ll also hear from 15 executives with their insights and key recommendations. You’ll also learn how you can arrange to get your own custom digital selling benchmark for your sales team. Just go to stateofdigitalselling.com.

• The State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn Report

• The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr

Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine

• https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/
• https://twitter.com/bernieborges
• https://instagram.com/bernieborges
• https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast

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