Navigating levels of customer understanding

Words: Chloe Whelan

When simplifying complex concepts, the most important step is to consider your audience’s level of understanding, insurance marketers advised at FP Live!.

“In insurance, we abstract things too often. There’s lots of product chat,” Ed Birth, head of brand marketing at Hiscox, told the audience at a panel on the topic.

“If you’re a customer or even a broker, it’s confusing and alienating. Generally, all your audience wants to understand is what a policy does, what they’re protected against, and when.”

Different audiences may have different levels of understanding, added Hannah Robinson, director of marketing at Kingsbridge Group.

“It’s super important to meet each different audience at its own level of understanding,” she said.

“Blanket communications will never work because you’ll either be insulting someone or completely befuddling them.”

David Cawdeary, director of marketing at Fortega Europe, emphasised the importance of communication between product, sales, and marketing teams – because even marketers may lack industry expertise.

“In some organisations, marketing isn’t close enough to the coalface. They lack subject matter expertise,” he said.

“We need to close the gap between marketing, sales and subject matter experts to get a truer level of understanding. Otherwise, marketing can’t be expected to break down concepts and make them relatable or understandable for an audience,” said Cawdeary.

While it was important to strip out insurance jargon, adding jargon from the industries that you’re targeting may demonstrate empathy for your customers’ circumstances, Birth said.

“There’s a good distinction between our jargon and their jargon,” he said.

“Absolutely we should be getting rid of insurance jargon and making those concepts as simple as possible. But if your audience is in construction, using a bit of construction jargon can show you understand your audience.

“It’s not a ban on jargon. It’s making our own message really simple.”