While watching news anchors play with an endless array of interactive maps and fancy data boards during last night's election coverage, I noticed a few trends that will also impact — or are already impacting — the life industry. Here are three of my major takeaways:
1. Demographics matter.
After Obama was declared the winner and pundits started parsing the data, it became evident that his victory was based largely on his ability to attract large numbers of young, female and minority, especially Hispanic, voters. Indeed, that's key for any election — or sales —effort these days. The election made clear what most people already know simply by looking around their neighborhoods: the face of America is changing. What was once a country dominated by white males of European origin is morphing into a diverse society, where more women than men hold college degrees and minorities hold major sway, in both an economic and electoral sense.
Those demographic changes are important for the life industry and its agents to keep in mind. Life insurance sales thrived for decades when agents catered to the "man of the house" — before that term, and sales approach, became completely dated. Today, the lady of the house wears the pants and buys them, too. In 2008, wives out-earned husbands in 35 percent of households. If the trend continues at the same pace, higher-earner wives will become the norm by 2024.
The same goes for Hispanics. In May, a Nielsen report estimated that Hispanics represent $1 trillion-worth of buying power. Latino households earning more than $50,000 are expected to grow at a faster rate than the total number of households. And the trend likely won't slow down anytime soon; it's estimated that 60 percent of Hispanics are under the age of 35.
The financial services industry, including life companies and agents, has been slow to accept these changes, though. Research by the Boston Consulting Group has found it's the No. 1 area where women say their needs aren't being met. If the life industry has any hope for sustained profitability over the next few decades, that's going to need to change
2. Personal is paramount.
Call it the bespoke election. Campaigns this year were able to hone in on a small sliver of undecided voters, learn everything they could about each segment and then develop customized messaging to try to sway them one way or the other. If you wavered on your candidate choice at all this year, both campaigns could likely tell you the type of car you drive, the restaurants you like to frequent and whether you're a briefs or boxers man.
Thanks to the Internet, this is how marketing works now. If you search for macaroni and cheese recipes on Google, you're going to see ads for Kraft on every website you visit for the next two days. Your Facebook feed contains promos for products your friends have liked. And, when you've got a minute, Netflix has a few film recommendations you might want to check out. The amount of data on you is endless, and it's feeding a marketing pipeline that never stops tailoring itself to fit your current needs, wants and desires.
