Mohit Goel is the Executive Vice President & Head – Marketing at ING Life Insurance. He has over 15 years of experience in Marketing, Customer Engagement and Sales spanning across Telecom and Financial Services. At ING Life Insurance, he is responsible for managing the Brand, Digital,Customer Engagement and Corporate Communications.

Prior to joining ING Life Insurance in 2011, Mohit was the Head of Marketing & Director at Tata AIG General Insurance where he was instrumental in establishing Tata AIG as a brand of significance in the general insurance category. In addition to Marketing, he was also responsible for setting up the e-Commerce business for Tata AIG. He has also worked with ICICI Prudential Asset Management, as Vice President& Head – Marketing. He began his career in 1998 with Hutch (now known as Vodafone),  and worked across various functions in Sales and Marketing and was responsible for setting up the Telemarketing – Direct Channel for the Company which was a first move by any telecom company. 

In an exclusive interaction with India Digital Review, Mohit talks about how ING Vysya is leveraging digital medium including new formats such as mobile and video content to reach out to their consumers. 

How does the digital medium figure in ING Vysya’s plans to reach out to consumers? 

The increasing adoption of the digital medium both by customers and sellers makes the medium very important for any financial services company. Specifically in case of Life Insurance, more and more customers are going online to research about products and services. This active research is leading to enquiries and conversions. We at ING Life Insurance have been participating in the digital boom using multiple platforms. We look at digital as a self-sustainable ecosystem for our critical stakeholders namely customers, advisors and employees. After gaining experience over past few years, we realized that having a robust digital destination like a well-equipped website will be a key to pursue our digital endeavors. So, we have invested in developing an intuitive, interactive and an intelligent website.  

Before I delve into the role the website will play, let me share the basic pillars on which our website strategy rests: 

Pillar 1 :  Help customers decide on the right insurance solution.
Pillar 2 :  Engage with existing customers through online self-service.
Pillar 3 :  Enable the sales force (including advisors) to sell better. 

We see that our new website inglife.co.in is set to become the center of all our initiatives using the digital medium. Keeping in view the customer’s needs we have made everything available that customer seeks. An appealing layout and easy to find information makes navigation look like child’s play. Couple this with some customer friendly features like an intelligent, well-structured product segment, robust knowledge center that talks all the things about insurance, simplified online claim filing and premium payment interface, comprehensive customer services, and planning tools that help you plan your financial futures well, the website has it all covered. The icing on the cake is it is extremely friendly and gets along well with all devices. Your smartphones, phablets, tablets, desktops and laptops.

Which according to you have been some of the most exciting online campaigns that the ING Vysya has initiated for its brand so far? 

I would like to talk about our campaign targeting Indians based in the UK. We actively pitched our retirement solution to Indians working in the UK offering them to transfer their UK pension funds to an Indian scheme and benefit from better returns. The digital medium played a vital role in terms of lead generation. We used a mix of Google Search and LinkedIn to generate these leads. We generated response from Indian based in UK as well as India. The follow-up conversations were driven using email and Skype. 

During the 6 month period of offer, the enquiries contributed handsomely to the overall business. We were really happy with the returns generated from the campaign.  In the BFSI sector, performance based digital advertising works best. With the advent of new forms of content such as video and apps, what are your plans around this? We truly believe in performance based digital advertising. We look at last mile conversions on every campaign that we execute. Like in case of many other companies, the digital medium provides us with the opportunity to sharp target the most relevant audience and drive maximum output. However, this does not mean that we only look at lead generation.

We have started using a mix of mobile and video content to test the opportunity that these new forms provide. As a brand we are looking at captivating, educating and creating loyalty with our digital marketing efforts. Our Mobile app for our customers and advisors is our first step in the mobile application space, while we see a larger potential in this space. We are looking at actively using videos to drive customer education by explaining complex insurance concepts in a simple engaging manner.  

What answers do you seek from your digital advertising agencies and digital media partners while promoting your brand on internet? 

We truly believe in performance based digital advertising. We look at last mile conversions on every campaign that we execute. We expect the agencies to take a similar approach.

What scope do you see in the social media space? Have you seen any transactions happening through social media or is it just an information dissemination platform? 

ING Life Insurance is active in social media using the following platforms:-          

LinkedIn in which is a community of people “already engaged” or “wanting to engage” with ING Life Insurance in some manner-          

You Tube which we use to promote our video content-          

Online Reputation Management where we actively listen to customer conversations.  

Do you also have a dedicated YouTube channel? What kind of content you share there? 

Yes, we have an active ING Life Insurance YouTube Channel. We use this as largely to promote our mainline advertising campaigns in the digital space.   

In the context of BFSI, both online and offline transactions take place. But there is a perception that people research and compare products online and buy them offline. What do you think of this perception? Is it likely to change anytime soon? 

ROBO, as the concept, is better known world over. This means life insurance buyers Research Online and Buy Offline. This is largely due to the nature of products where customers feel comfortable in dealing with someone face to face. This is also a reason why life insurance advisor continue to be the preferred channel for customers to buy insurance. However, the online medium is increasingly become important for insurance seekers because they get all information at the click of a button. This makes them feel well informed before they get into a face to face interaction. In addition to being a research based medium, the digital medium helps customers validate the propositions that are offered to them by various channels of sales.

Is there an online channel through which consumers can buy ING Vysya Insurance without physically going? 

No. We currently do not offer online insurance policy issuance. However we actively promote our online payment features amongst our customers so that they can pay their renewal premiums without physically visiting our collection centers. 

What are ING Vysya’s current digital spends? Will they move in terms of growth and focus this year?

We cannot share the exact numbers. However they form a significant portion of our overall marketing spend.  

How do you see your marketing objectives aligning with what the online medium offers two years down the line? 

Digital will continue to play an important role helping us meet our overall marketing objectives. In fact we see the role of digital becoming even more important. I would like to bring in the three pillars of our digital strategy which I spoke about earlier in this interaction. The pillars are perfectly aligned to our immediately and long term marketing objectives. 

Pillar 1: Help customers decide on the right insurance solution.
Pillar 2: Engage with existing customers through online self-service.
Pillar 3: Enable the sales force (including advisors) to sell better. 

We will see increased contribution and strengthening of each of these pillars through an increased participation through the digital medium.