The Zimnat Digital Journey
The internet has taken over as the source of information for anything that people need to know. No wonder all the talk around us is about the digital age, internet of things, big data,
the list goes on. Unless you contextualize this and bring it home to what exactly it means to your business you will forever see it as a foreign concept.
Our drive at Zimnat has been to do just that, bring it home and see how it impacts us as a business! The Posts and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe puts the active internet penetration rate at 49.5% of the country’s population as at 30 September 2017.
The most active age groups online are between the ages of 18 to 44. This is largely through handheld devices like cellphones and tablets. So why would that be of interest one would ask? These statistics were useless until we started to ask ourselves the really uncomfortable question……...What does this mean to my business?
The job of any commercial business is to grow its profits. Elementary business courses will speak to the fact that one of the ways to grow profit is to grow the Topline (driven by penetration) and in this case the client base.
In growing this client base it’s not only about getting the numbers but getting the right quality of clients (targeting clients who are not only willing but able to pay for the service). A concept of fishing where the fish are!
Since the fish are on the internet, Zimnat has undertaken to drive digital as additional channel to capture relevant target audiences. Traditional print media has been declining in relevance generation by generation but is still significant. What we have seen is that the print runs of newspapers have declined but readership has remained steady, growth due to the sharing communities.
So, newspapers are now also more than the physical paper but are also going digital as well. The plan was to make use of it as a complementary low cost but high impact channel.
Part of that journey has been with online and social media advertising. On social media we decided to focus on Facebook first and grow our presence which sat at 13K Likes before the
launch of the digital campaign.
True to our drive to “make life better” we took an angle to say how do we communicate our products but also make sure we are indeed making the consumer’s lives better. We took our ordinary products and took a view to say how these really serve our clients and better their lives.
It was this deep understanding of the consumer and our purpose that led to a digital campaign that was highly emotional yet answering the consumer’s needs. We drove that angle that
showed how our product could change or impact their lives for the better.
This was topped off with the relevant targeting. We served the ads to the relevant target audience that fit the age, income and lifestyle fit. We kicked off the campaign on the 19th of March
and what we found was amazing. When you talk to people they actually talk back! Especially when you are driving a relevant message that speaks to their needs.
Below are some of the link ads that were flighted for the campaign:
The Zimnat campaign is performing exceptionally well in its two weeks from launch with a unique reach of 302K people with that target audience being served with the campaign at an average
frequency of 5.11 times (more stats are shown in the table below).
The targeting for this campaign includes contextually relevant sites with themes of general insurance and life assurance, micro insurance. What has been amazing has been the engagement rate which is quite high at 3.63% for a brand! According to Michael Leander an award-winning Marketing speaker and trainer, an engagement rate “above 1% engagement rate is good,0,5%- 0,99% is average and below 0,5% engagement likely means that you need to realign your messages to that of your audience’s expectations – and in the process attract more compelling and engaging contributions from your community members”.
Within the two weeks we managed to grow the page with 4,767 new likes! We got a lot of comments and enquiries about our products. On an average day we were getting over
100 enquiries. We had to put in place system internally to deal with these enquiries. It has been exhilarating and rewarding work. These stats are quite impressive against a backdrop of low trust in insurance products in Zimbabwe due to fluctuations in value experienced during the hyper inflationary period. Some of the comments are shown below:
The vision is to redefine the way insurance is seen by the ordinary consumer, demystify it and get them excited about insurance. The next steps are to go beyond just communicating but rather allowing clients to start and finish these conversations online. This will be done through redefining distribution and increasing the platforms where clients can get quotes online as well as complete a transaction through to payment.
We are also excited about bots that offer consumers service. Particularly in a country where half the internet usage is on social media. We are actively looking at a Facebook and WhatsApp bot. We will also continue to look at new ways to simplify insurance to consumers and truly make their lives better!
By Angela E Mpala (Zimnat Group Marketing Executive)
Personality Of The Quarter - Paula Thaka
In this section, we bring you up close and personal with some of the Zimnat staff, so you get to know the person behind the face you see everyday in the office. In this edition, we profile Paula Thaka, from the Audit department in the Zimnat Life Assurance.
Q: How long have you worked for the company?
A: 20months (1year 8months)
Q: Before working here, what other places have you worked?
A: Lupane State University, Bulawayo City Council
Q: Are you more of a hunter or a gatherer?
A: Gatherer
Q: You're a new addition to the crayon box. What color would you be and why?
A: Gold(my favorite color) because it's associated with royalty plus i have never really seen a gold crayon, it's usually all sorts of yellow but never gold.
Q: Suppose you found a lottery ticket that ends up winning $10 million. What would you do?
A: A greater part of it will be invested in property. I am into commercial livestock farming so i would invest in that as well. And obviously i would use the change for shopping hahaha.
Q: What do you think about when you're alone in your car/room?
A: My future mostly. I wonder what it has in stock for me.
Q: What's your favorite 90s jam?
A: Anything by Celine Dion and Westlife
Q: What's your current favorite track?
A: Eish i do not have one particular track but i love Zulu love songs.
Q: What was the last gift you gave someone?
A: A set of towels.
Q: What were you like in high school?
A: Noisy in class hahahaha, very sporty. I was basically an all-rounder and very bossy.
Q: What was the last thing you watched on TV and why did you choose to watch it?
A: America's Next Top Model because it's entertaining plus it has lots of fashion going on hahahahaha.
Q: Tell me something about your job other than money that inspires you to keep working there.
A: Besides the love and passion i have always had for Internal Auditing, i developed love and passion for Zimnat through my experience here. I'm driven by the desire to make the company better, especially with regards to making all our business processes not only efficient but effective as well - meaning reducing costs and timely service delivery to our clients.
This is not an overnight type of task, but a continuous improvement and the desire to see that continuous improvement keeps me going.
Zimnat makes life better for others. Rarely do we mention making life better for Zimnat and that's what my job is. Making life better for Zimnat hahaha.
Q: What is the funniest thing that has happened to you recently?
A: Ah i can't remember.
Q: Pretend you're the CEO. What 3 concerns about the company's future keep you up at night?
A: Being able to operate as a going concern and further growing the company. Adapting to the fast changing technological environment. Ways of motivating and retaining the company's human resources in the future, we wouldn't want to lose our skilled staff to competition.
Q: What do you work toward in your free time?
A: I study a lot.
Q: Describe the color yellow to someone who is blind.
A: Hahaha that is hard but i would probably say it's a very soft color like the warmth of the sun.
Q: How would you convince someone to do something they didn't want to do?
A: Assist them to show them it is doable.