Tara oversees Social Content at Guardian Life Insurance, a Fortune 300 company founded in 1860 and one of the largest mutual life insurance companies in the United States.

In our interview Tara shares insights on B2B content marketing, sales enablement, social selling, social selling training and makes predictions on how content marketing will evolve in 2015.

Press play below and start listening to Tara share her unique insights on this week’s B2B marketing podcast.

The show sheet for today’s podcast is available at: http://www.triblio.com/blog/guardian-life-insurance

Tara Meehan

Beginning of Transcript

Tara Meehan: As it happens a lot especially in social media content strategy, I actually started as a copywriter, worked really alongside you. I remember you worked at MediaWhiz. I was there for several years. I was their copywriter there working on a lot of cross-channel campaigns, which is a really good intro into being able to craft certain brand messaging for different audiences. I really love that. I really got a kick out of doing that.

Really my role into social, my intro into social on the business side really started there. I kind of morphed a little bit from copywriting into the social initiatives, mainly on the community management side. So I was working on their Facebook presence, their LinkedIn, their Twitter presence. It was really neat for me to see correlation between how writing a brand message as a copywriter can really translate into content on the social side. So when that ended – unfortunately when that ended, it actually opened up a new opportunity for me and that got me into contact with folks over at Guardian which is where I’ve been now for the past three years.

In terms of the Guardian story, we’ve been around for about 154 years. So I think we’ve been around a pretty good amount of time. Our mutual fund company specializing the focus on life insurance, disability insurance and retirement planning and we – in terms of the content strategy which I know we will talk about a littler later on, it kind of morphs into what Guardian is about. We don’t really focus on this traditional need-based planning that a lot of life companies really focus on. We’re more about planning for the unexpected and that could be the not-so-great unexpected and it could be the really good unexpected. So it has been fun for me to go from a direct marketing and performance marketing space to what is really a traditional company that’s really exploring some really cool things in a digital world.

Jeff Zelaya: Going into that role, it’s great for the company because they’re going to benefit from your insight, your marketing knowledge and that wisdom that you’ve gained firsthand working in the industry. So I think they have definitely a great person to help them evolve because every company needs to evolve and expand especially when it comes to the marketing, the way that they do marketing.

I know that has been one of the things that you’re leading there and you’re helping them with. I see more importance being given to content. Across other insurance companies in – across a country, is that something that’s happening at Guardian Life? Are you now placing more emphasis on content? Is it something that’s important to the organization?

Tara Meehan: Oh, yeah. No, it’s hugely important and we’re coming from a place at least in my role where we’re focused on helping our financial representatives, our FRs. So if I use FRs interchangeably, that’s what I’m talking about.

Helping our financial representatives really be able to tell their brand story, their entrepreneurial story as well as the Guardian story to their prospects and their future clients. We really focus on two ways in doing that from a content perspective. One, it’s – I’m going to use the term traditional even though this is not exactly a traditional space, digital marketing, but the traditional way of going about it which would be sharing content on LinkedIn or Facebook.

We do that two ways. Right now mainly through third party initiatives but we’re excited about our plans in 2015 to have more of our story, our own story come across. So we’re working on that, which I’m excited about. But another way we really focus in on content is from really a prospecting side. People don’t necessarily think of content as a LinkedIn profile. But for us, that’s a very important part of things. When you think about what happens when you share a piece of content on LinkedIn, right? You share something and you’re putting your face out there. So it’s very important for our FRs to understand that when they share something, ultimately one of the main goals that we want our content to do is not just get a conversion, not just get a click. But a click back to their profile.

So we don’t want a profile that is just basically John Doe financial representative blank. We want our FRs to be able to tell a story with their profile, why they love what they do, why they got into what they do, how they can bring value to their clients. So it’s a content play as is – many people think of it in terms of sharing. But it’s also a content play with regards to profile optimization. Those two things are hugely important.

Jeff Zelaya: It’s an interesting approach and I think the right one, sales enablement, making sure that all your sales reps are prepared and know how to promote and market themselves, because in – many insurance companies, they’re the ones on the front line and they’re their own brand. But they’re representing a bigger brand. So it’s the marriage of those two things.

I think your approach has been very effective. But another kind of issue that is in the sector of insurance that – it’s regulated just like any other financial company. There are things that you could do and you cannot do and other social media managers I spoke to, I know they’ve had their own challenges in creating the right campaign and executing on that campaign. Did you face any of those challenges? If you did, could you share tips with other people that are going to be in that same position, starting to bring new ideas to a traditional organization?

Tara Meehan: It’s a very highly regulated industry. Insurance is all about compliance and that does present its fair share of challenges. But I think that the real key for us – and I know the real key has been for me and the team that I’m on is really having an open and continuous dialog with compliance.

We’re very fortunate here that our compliance department is very understanding of what we’re trying to accomplish for our field force. They understand that in this day and age, it’s extremely important to be able to leverage social and leverage it effectively to tell those stories from a profile perspective, from a content and sharing perspective. So we’re always mindful of their need to have us dot the Is and cross the Ts and do everything from a compliance and legal perspective that’s expected and needed. But they also know that we do have to have content that is not a snore-fest. You don’t want to fall asleep reading stuff that we share, reading stuff that we create, whether it’s a visual or a video or an article. It needs to have some personality. There needs to be some reason for people to read or watch or view an info graphic. So they’re very understanding about that from an in-house compliance perspective.

Then we’re also – you have a very strong partnership with our compliance and relationship-building vendor. They’re – I mean in socialware and they’re very well-known in this space for helping financial reps be able to again tell their stories in a compliant manner. But also in a way that is going to help build relationships. So we’ve been very fortunate with our in-house compliance team and our partnership with our vendor in helping our force feel empowered and feel like they can do things on social without having the compliance police knocking on their door. We’ve been fortunate in that regard. I know that’s not always the case everywhere. But storytelling is really the key for us and we’ve been fortunate to be able to do that.

Jeff Zelaya: In general in the B2B space, what do you think are the benefits of using social media for content marketing and is it an important channel to leverage for you and for many others?

Tara Meehan: It’s very unique for us because we’re kind of like a hybrid. We do B to B and B to C. So from my role – I will break it down for you in terms of the B to B part. That would really be more of our internal client base and that would be our financial reps, our marketing directors, our recruiting directors, helping them understand the value of content in meeting their objectives of getting in front of more people, for soft recruiting on a Facebook business page, for building out company culture from a local marketing perspective on Facebook or LinkedIn.

Right now, we haven’t opened up Twitter yet. That is the plan for 2015. But again in the compliance-regulated world, baby steps, right? So we’ve really kind of focused on LinkedIn and Facebook exclusively from a social perspective. So that’s the B to B side. But the B to C side is again providing that content for our reps to be able to share their networks and then build those relationships with consumers whether it be in the legal market or the medical market or the real estate market. Each FR has their own targeted market for their own segment that they work with.

So B to B helping our internal folks with messaging, B to C being able to have content that resonates with the public in a way that is not so heavy-handed and definitely not product-driven. We don’t want high level terms that you would be scratching your head. We want to keep things as simple as humanly possible, so that people understand – not that – oh, go buy life insurance. But why – how can life insurance help you even pay for college or telling stories that resonate with the public in a simplified way.

Jeff Zelaya: One of the places I want to focus our conversation on is in the sales enablement because I think that’s something you’ve been doing really well and you’re leading that charge at Guardian Life. So how closely does marketing work with sales? What are some of the things besides helping them with LinkedIn profiles? Even the act of doing that, like can you walk us through your strategy and how you enable the salespeople with content, with the right advice so they could do a good job of marketing themselves and the company?

Tara Meehan: Our sales force that we work with are all there for us. So we have – we’ve been fortunate enough to have a really great partnership with LinkedIn in introducing LinkedIn Sales Navigator to our field force which has been a game-changer for us. It has really made some really great results for us from a sales perspective and just from a growth perspective with regard to even recruiting as a way to bring up ours in because we have – we’re the only mutual fund company with Sales Navigator as an approved resource for prospecting. So what we do is understanding that financial reps may not be as savvy with certain things as we would hope them to be. Training is very, very important. So again, it’s the same. We have that open dialog with compliance. We have an open dialog, an open communication with our reps. So I give trainings every week. We have a little series that we have here called Tuesdays with Tara Meehan where I have trainings with the field, with four different areas for them to really focus in on.

One is profile optimization, why it’s important to have the profile that really tells a story, as we’ve discussed at length during this call here. Next WebEx would be on building your network, how to really have a solid network to really pull from, to be able to leverage those warm leads instead of cold calling which is just – we’re trying to get FRs away from as much as humanly possible. Next WebEx would be how to prospect on LinkedIn, how to use the search functionality, how to really leverage all the filters available in Sales Navigator, the importance of InMail.

Really go step by step and provide these trainings over and over again because the turnover rates and the introduction of new FRs, it’s always happening. People are always new, always coming in to Guardian. So we always want to have these trainings pretty much on autopilot for them to be able to access. Then the fourth WebEx would be all about the importance of sharing content and social listening and how listening to your network can really open up opportunities for you to use from a prospecting and social selling perspective. Then anyone who has a LinkedIn Sales Navigator account, they get their own selective trainings directly from LinkedIn. So we’re really, really happy with the progress that we’ve been making in terms of our strategy with social.

Jeff Zelaya: I mean you guys are well ahead of the curve. I’m using LinkedIn Sales Navigator now as well and I love it. It is very effective if you use it in the right way. I’m glad that you guys are just not providing a tool, but you’re providing all the elements of a great training program to make sure the tool is being used effectively.

Tara Meehan: Yeah. I mean you have to. If people don’t know how to use it, it’s kind of like going to the gym and thinking, “Oh, I have a gym membership, so I’m going to lose 20 pounds.†Well, if you don’t know how to use the bike, you don’t know how to use the treadmill, you’re not going to really lose the weight. So it’s really putting it into action and that’s what the training is about.

Jeff Zelaya: If it was that easy, I would be super skinny. But it’s not that easy. It requires some work, right? And speaking of losing pounds and getting fit and measuring – kind of being able to measure the success …

Tara Meehan: Oh, nice segue.

Jeff Zelaya: Yeah.

Tara Meehan: Very good.

Jeff Zelaya: How do you do that with your role and the content that you’re producing and how you’re helping the sales team out? What are the benchmarks that you’re trying to reach and the metrics that you’re focused on hitting?

Tara Meehan: OK. Well, I mean that’s always the open question, right? Metrics is always one of those things where you’re always testing the waters and see what really works. For us, profile views for LinkedIn are really important. We like to correlate sharing with an increasing profile view and we’ve seen that with social selling indexes that have gone up from one month to the next. Why is that? Well, one of the reasons is people are sharing more. People are sharing the right things. People are sharing things that really enhance their story and tell their story effectively.

When you do that, that leads back to profile views, so increases in views are one thing that we like to kind of look at. In terms of likes, it’s not something that we obsess about. I mean I know personally it’s always fun when you share something and you get likes. You kind of have that Sally Field moment like, “Oh, you like me,†right?

But there’s only so much that you can get from a like if it doesn’t convert into something. So likes are good, but we kind of use that as a measuring stick just to show that people are seeing your content. We like to rely on – we actually direct FRs to the “Who has viewed your update?†section of LinkedIn to kind of just see that they are being seen. That’s one thing that we like to show. Shares are important. Obviously they’re one of the more important metrics because it increases reach. So if you share something and then their network sees it, that’s opening up many, many more opportunities and many doors for FRs to follow up with potential prospects and clients. But the thing that I actually really like to see more than anything, and this might be my own personal opinion or comment.

When I’m tracking metrics using the social platform that we have, if I see that content being commented on a lot and I will see that a financial rep isn’t responding to a comment, I will pick up the phone and I will say, “Hey, John Doe. I saw that piece of content you shared a couple of weeks ago was getting a lot of comments. But you really weren’t engaging in any conversations. That’s a perfect opportunity for you to get past the digital realm and nervousness of what I can and can’t do on social and really start a personal dialog, a personal conversation.â€

I give a financial representative a whole lot of credit. I could never sell anything. I couldn’t sell my way out of a paper bag. But what they’re able to do is really sell a product that has such an emotional tie to it and so if something is being commented on, it’s a perfect opportunity to go and pick up the phone or send an email or respond to a comment on LinkedIn or Facebook and say, “Hey, thanks so much for engaging in this. I would love to sit down with you and have a cup of coffee and talk about this further,†or whatever it is. The comments for me is such an important part of taking what can be a very – taking the digital and making it much more personal.

Jeff Zelaya: I love that because likes are important. They make us feel nice. Comments, getting comments on stuff is good. If you get it shared, it’s great. But the thing that really matters are the conversations.

Tara Meehan: Right.

Jeff Zelaya: Because that is going to turn into business. That’s going to turn into that deeper relationship and the reason why you want to be social on social media. So that’s great. These are amazing insights. And besides socialware and LinkedIn navigator, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, are there any other tools that you use that are part of your toolbox in carrying out your strategy?

Tara Meehan: Yeah. Well, in terms of benders for content, we have – we’re working on an agreement with a provider. I can’t really go into details on that and the regulation compliance, all that. Sometimes I feel like I’m working at the CIA. But I can tell you that we are very excited in the direction that our content strategy is going. We really are focused much more on content that is proprietary in nature, that tells our unique story as opposed to just kind of leveraging third party stuff, just to fill a quota of content. That has been fine. But for us, it’s a tricky thing because you can have an article from a third party vendor that hits 90 percent of what we’re trying to convey and then that little 10 percent can send the message in a completely different direction that has nothing to do with what we do.

So to be able to tell our own story to our own creation of content is something we’re very, very excited about and to incorporate this new vendor, but also in-house creatives who have also done a great job in helping us convey messaging internally. We’re really looking forward to where content is going for us in 2015.

Jeff Zelaya: And speaking of 2015, what are some of your predictions in general for content marketing? What do you think will happen in the upcoming year? Any new trends that you see on the horizon for content marketing?

Tara Meehan: Yeah. It’s funny. Every time I go on social or I go on Mashable or some like hub online, I’m seeing 2015 as the year of content marketing, which is cool. It’s great. I’m excited to be a part of. But sometimes I just think that the term marketing kind of gets lost in the mix. I think it’s maybe kind of a misnomer especially for the industry that I’m in. When it comes to marketing – and I’ve said this over and over again with regard to what we do at Guardian – it’s not about marketing because I think financial reps sometimes can lose sight of what marketing really is.

For us it’s about telling stories and making our brands make sense to a public that may not really know why financial services or insurance services are a good thing, why they matter, why they’re important in their everyday lives. So telling stories that can convey that message in a way that’s easy for them to understand and tells our unique story is just something that I think we will really, really focus on. I think it’s the direction that many companies are going to in an out of the financial services segment.

But really, I think that the big trend that’s going to happen in 2015. At least I hope this happens is really seeing the overlap between social selling and content relationship building as a way of marrying those two together to really get results. I really do think at least from our perspective when you’re sharing content, it has to lead back to something else. If you have a profile in LinkedIn, if you have a Facebook business page, if you have a Twitter, you need to be able to have your profile, your page convey exactly what you’re trying to convey when you share something. So to marry those two together I think is going to be a hugely important thing for 2015 and moving forward in the years to come.

End of Transcript

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