When you look at data, what do you see? If you see lists of numbers that don't make any sense, you aren't seeing the real beauty of data. Data can be intimidating to you and to your insurance clients. Looking at it in a new way with data visualization can help you with your insurance marketing.
What is Data Visualization?
Peoples' brains are wired for pictures. If a picture can summarize 1000 words, just think of how much data you could summarize in a single visual. Data visualization takes data and places it into graphic format. According to IBM, "2.5 million terabytes of data is generated in a day." Your business generates data. The insurance industry as a whole creates data. Without tools to help you and your clients understand this data, you will simply get overwhelmed. Creating visuals from that data can help you process it, make meaning from it, and share it with your clients.
How Can Data Visualization Help You Understand Your Clients?
Data visualization is useful for you and your clients. If you're working with data at your insurance agency, it can help you communicate with others at your agency so that you can make the right marketing decisions. Whether you need a graph for a presentation or you want to more fully understand the successes and failures of your past marketing choices, you can use infographics as a decision-making, documentation, and communication tool in your insurance office.
Current visualization tools on the market include:
- Plot.ly: perform analysis using JavaScript, Python, R, Matlab, Jupyter, or Excel, and turn it into a visual.
- Tableau: a free tool that features graphs, charts, and maps.
- Chartjs: develop simple, small charts for presentations.
- Visual.ly: goes beyond data crunching to generate gorgeous infographics suitable for your website
How Can Data Visualization Help Your Customers Understand Insurance?
In insurance marketing, you deal with complex issues that you need to communicate to your clients. Those clients don't have hours in a day to look at insurance data. They need to know why they need to purchase a specific insurance product. They want to know what insurance products meet their needs.
Data visualization can help you communicate this information to your clients. For example, if a client is considering a purchase of flood insurance, how does that person know whether the additional cost is worth it to protect their home or business? If you can provide or share data visualization that shows your clients how much flood damage has occurred in the USA in the last decades and how this has been changing, you could make a powerful case for flood insurance.
You can use infographics on a blog, on your website, or in paper-based marketing materials. Wherever you use it, data visualization is a simple way of making a powerful statement to your insurance clients.
Are you trying to improve your business processes and products? At the American Agents Alliance, we understand your business needs. We're focused on helping insurance agencies grow. As an independent insurance agency, you know how important it is to get new ideas to help you with your insurance marketing. Learn about current marketing trends at our annual insurance convention—the 2017 American Agents Alliance Convention & Expo.
