S2E1: Denim is Reimagining Marketing and Distribution

Denim Rivet

Most listeners of the Denim Rivet podcast for the last year would not have known that a technology company called Denim was being built by show creator and host, Gregory Bailey. Now, after more than a year of building Denim in “stealth,” Bailey is back with season two of the podcast to make a very public announcement regarding his own insurtech startup.

Today, we are proud to announce the launch of Denim at the InsureTech Connect conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Denim is reimagining marketing and distribution in the insurance and financial services industry by launching its insurance-smart social media advertising platform today. Denim empowers corporate marketers to build, launch and manage social media advertising campaigns for ten agents or ten-thousand advisors, all in the span of two minutes. We are honored to announce today that the Multiple Line Division of American National Insurance Company has been successfully using the Denim platform and is experiencing positive and dramatic results. And on this first episode of season two of Denim Rivet, we interview the EVP and CMO of American National’s Multiple Line Division, Scott Campbell.

A Walk Down Memory Lane with Special Guest, Scott Campbell

I invited Scott to have dinner in San Francisco in the fall of last year. Scott was happy to meet. After discussing our vision for Denim, we both agreed to continue the conversation. We quickly learned that a scalable advertising solution for social media platforms would provide significant efficiencies and and deliver near immediate return on investment. Providing an intuitive and easy-to-use interface and campaign builder workflow were pillars of our discussion when it came to making Denim a platform that is as powerful as it is enjoyable to use. After an iterative process with back and forth discussions between our teams, we put Denim to the test – and the results have been astounding. I would like to say thank you to Scott and the team at American National – we would not have achieved the success we have so far without the support and trust of their team.

The Philosophy Behind Denim’s Creation with Special Guest, Terry Golesworthy

Scalability was the first major focus area we wanted to deliver by creating Denim. When an insurance or financial services firm has dozens, hundreds or thousands of their agents and advisors taking time out of their day to manage their social presence, it opens up the door to a host of issues. Denim was created so agents and financial advisors don’t have to be experts in social media ad campaigns. Instead, Denim empowers home office corporate marketing teams to easily scale their messages on-behalf-of all of their agents and advisors.

For many years, it has been thought that the level of complexity in a software platform directly equated to the value delivered. The truth is that this added complexity made software overly cumbersome to use and businesses were likely to only utilize a small percentage of the software’s functionality. Denim delivers an intuitive and easy-to-use software platform, but also delivers tremendous value for its users.

Social Media Platforms are Not Charities

Pay-to-Play vs. Organic Reach – social platforms are not charities. Paying for social media advertising has given firms of all sizes the opportunity to be the first to reach specific micro-targeted consumer audiences. When an advertisement to the right person, at the right time, with the right message, it’s no longer an advertisement, it’s simply information to the consumer. This allows for the consumer to easily share and pass along the information, which then blends organic reach with paid ad campaigns. The key is that it is time to initiate or time to deliver first on social media through paid media, paid advertising.

Coming Up

Thank you for helping us celebrate the launch of Denim and for joining us for Season 2 of Denim Rivet. We’re excited to have all-new guests and conversations on the show over these 16 episodes. We’ll be back with Season 2, Episode 2 of Denim Rivet on Wednesday, October 19, 2016.

Links:

• Scott Campbell on Season 1, Episode 30
• Denim
• American National Insurance Company
• InsureTech Connect Conference