Research had shown Transamerica that the majority of their policyholders received no regular solicitation as the independent distribution force, quite rightly, concentrated on the minority of their clients who provided the majority of their income. Transamerica saw enormous potential in utilising direct sales and marketing to reach the “virtual orphans” in its client base. However, they also wanted to ensure that their distribution partners i.e. MGA’s, Advisors and National Accounts were provided some control over the direct campaigns and were communicated to effectively, whilst deploying direct marketing campaigns.

iPipeline provided a portal for all 17,402 advisors and 236 MGA’s affected by the campaign. This was seamlessly linked to Transamerica own Distributor Resource Centre (DRC) so no separate sign on was required. The portal provided advisors with:

• A full, media rich campaign briefing highlighting the benefits of the program
• The ability to opt out their client base from the program
• Customised reports to show recent purchase activity, in-box activity and how much commission had been earned, restricted to their customer base only
• A customer service system, allowing automated forwarding of leads and the escalation of actions on to the appropriate advisor’s inbox.

iPipeline was also the “control console” for the campaign, providing to Transamerica:

• Opt out reporting
• Up to date information so they could answer inquires as if they were a part of the associated advisor organization
• Tracking of campaign results against expectations

With the campaign complete, iPipeline delivered the analytic insight into ‘how the campaign went’. With a rich data warehouse established, Transamerica was able to analyze the response rates by customer demographic and current policy holdings. This gave Transamerica the opportunity to improve the next campaign. They were also able to cross tabulate those responses in relation to the National Accounts, MGA’s and advisors and so isolate the key predictors that drove the response.

Transamerica Life Canada (TLC) deployed iPipeline to manage its first large-scale direct campaign. The campaign was a great success:

TLC was able to reduce their commission levels down to 25% of first year revenue, increasing their gross margin by 500%. Their very first campaign yielded almost two million dollars of incremental revenue, or 25% of their revenue that year. It also increased the average number of products per customer by 10%. Independent advisors used iPipeline to see and maintain control over the marketing activity to their customers. Of the third of a million policyholders marketed to, advisors chose to opt out only 700 of their clients. Direct campaigns are now a regular feature of TLCs marketing activity, driving a significant percentage of their annual revenue.