NAILBA Perspectives - October 2016 - 14

T H E M O S T C R E AT I V E S A L E S A N D M A R K E T I N G T E C H N I Q U E S AIG PROVIDES AN ARRAY OF COMPREHENSIVE yet customizable online promotional and educational tools for its BGA partners and other financial professionals. AIG AIG's goal is to be in sync with its distribution partners and understand from their vantage points what they need for marketing success. "Our marketing team is organized in complete alignment with our distribution channels, which improves the way we work together as well as improving the creative marketing concepts we develop," said Michelle Miller, U.S. Life Head of Marketing for Life, Health and Disability. "This close collaboration positively impacts results for both marketing and sales." AIG provides an array of comprehensive yet customizable online promotional and educational tools for its BGA partners and other financial professionals. "For example, we've found that many financial professionals need simple ways to build a story," Miller pointed out. "AIG recognizes that different financial professionals prefer different types of training, so we don't provide just one or two options. We offer training in a variety of ways, from online and via webinar to our downloadable educational materials. Even if a BGA partner has only a few minutes to spend in-person with us, we have a quick, creative way to share, right there on the table, how to build a story that's designed to help meet needs. And that story can be carried just as easily from the distribution partner to the individual, family, or business client." Its most recent offering is "Campaign in a Box." This handy set of promotion, training, and client prospecting tools is designed to help AIG's distribution partners expand 14 perspectives OCTOBER 2016 their business. It discusses many of the issues surrounding retirement, including health problems, taxation, and having sufficient assets. These resources are ready made for these partners' convenience and can be customized for specific needs and audiences as desired. Early feedback from BGA and other distribution partners has been positive. To learn more about "Campaign in a Box," visit www.RetireStronger.com. "Life To The Max is an interactive, online sales tool we've recently launched to help financial professionals educate clients on some of the needs and challenges they may encounter on the road to funding their retirement," Miller said. "The educational tool helps enhance awareness of how indexed universal life products may serve as a solution to some of these retirement funding challenges." Clients can revisit Life To The Max on their own as a refresher any time after their financial professional walks them through its use. To view the Life To The Max interactive resource, go to www.aig.com/LifeToTheMax. "Creativity in sales and marketing in this industry centers on strategic thinking and true affinity for partners and clients," Miller stressed. "It's as simple as identifying and responding to needs in a way that's flexible and personalized-even with such a core support tool as training." Protective Life At Protective Life, "creativity comes from marketing products that are designed with customers' unique needs in mind," said Protective Life Vice President and National Sales Manager David A. Sheridan, CLU, ChFC. "Before we consider sales concepts or marketing techniques we consider how our products will perform over a customer's lifetime. Regardless of how we market-incentives, video, websites, email, or direct mail-our message is what makes us different. We provide products that do what we say they'll do with the flexibility to change as customer needs change. We deliver what's promised with no surprises along the way. It isn't a message based in price or assumption, but in value. We are focused on providing built-in assurance that clients will get the value they are expecting." Because policyholders' lives can change in unexpected ways with negative impacts on their financial situations, Protective Life stress tests their no-lapse products by assuming a customer will at some point over a few decades skip or forget a premium or otherwise not fund the policy as scheduled. By offering a no-lapse product, these customers are protected from losing their coverage at what is likely a vulnerable time in their lives. "When clients understand what could happen to their guarantees by missing a premium or changing their funding pattern, they often choose us over our competitors regardless of price," noted Sheridan. "Once the producer understands the value they can pass on to their clients, and the clients understand what they are receiving for their money, a price difference of a few dollars a year makes very little difference." BGAs can implement Protective Life's marketing approach by focusing on selling value. "Show producers there are significant differences that transcend price or long term assumptions that may never be achieved," Sheridan emphasized. "Show them how to present those http://www.RetireStronger.com http://www.aig.com/LifeToTheMax

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NAILBA Perspectives - October 2016