How Amber Wuollet Repositioned an Insurance Product and Hit Sales Goals 2x Faster

Amber [0:00:00]: How much do we need to sell of this policy for it to be a success so that you are setting yourself up to know how it's going so you can iterate as needed.

Amber [0:00:09]: So we aligned on a goal and implemented new messaging, new positioning, and of course, new assets and we blew our goal out of the water.

Amber [0:00:18]: We had, like a twelve month goal and we hit that in, like, six months.

Callan [0:00:23]: Welcome to The Insurance Growth Lab.

Callan [0:00:25]: Where we go deep on the growth campaigns and strategies driving real results in the insurance industry.

Callan [0:00:31]: I'm Callan Harrington founder of Flashgrowth and in each episode, I sit down with marketing and growth leaders from carriers and shirt tech and top brokers to break down one specific initiative.

Callan [0:00:43]: Whether it's how they mark it a product, scale a channel or solve a specific growth challenge.

Callan [0:00:48]: It's no fluff, just tactical insights that you can apply in your own company.

Callan [0:00:53]: Welcome back to another episode of the insurance growth lab.

Callan [0:01:01]: This week's guest is Amber Wuollet.

Callan [0:01:04]: Amber is the director of product and life cycle marketing at Cowbell.

Callan [0:01:08]: She's one of the best voices within the insurance industry, and I was fortunate enough to work together with Amber at Bold Penguin.

Callan [0:01:14]: And she shares to kick off the episode, one of my favorite stories from our dime together, and I promise you it's not gonna be one that you're gonna want them miss.

Callan [0:01:24]: Now when we really dove into the weeds, we hit on one of my favorite subjects, and that's positioning.

Callan [0:01:32]: I know a lot of you here positioning and it feels like you can't tie a hard ROI to it.

Callan [0:01:38]: But the reality is what it's done right it is incredibly powerful.

Callan [0:01:43]: And Amber gave a perfect example of how to do it.

Callan [0:01:48]: Walked through the entire process got into weeds.

Callan [0:01:51]: How do you set it up?

Callan [0:01:52]: How do you execute on it, And in this example, with they reposition an insurance product without changing the product and sales went through the roof afterwards.

Callan [0:02:03]: I think it is a masterclass class in the importance of positioning, but also not just the importance how you actually execute on that.

Callan [0:02:12]: So with that, let's get to the show.

Callan [0:02:14]: Amber, welcome to the show for those that don't know you in the industry, which I don't think that there's a lot of people.

Callan [0:02:26]: Amber is the director of product and life cycle marketing at Cal, and I've had a good fortune work directly with Amber in the past.

Callan [0:02:35]: Amber, thanks for coming on today.

Amber [0:02:37]: Yeah.

Amber [0:02:37]: Thanks for having me on.

Amber [0:02:38]: I'm excited to chat.

Amber [0:02:39]: It's been a while.

Callan [0:02:41]: Okay.

Callan [0:02:41]: Here's where I wanna start.

Callan [0:02:42]: This is gonna be an abrasive first question.

Callan [0:02:45]: Tell me about the biggest fail of your career.

Amber [0:02:51]: For small, I love the transparency in just just diving right in.

Amber [0:02:54]: I'm really excited to relive my trauma with your audience.

Amber [0:02:57]: But...

Callan [0:02:59]: Yeah.

Callan [0:02:59]: Exactly.

Callan [0:02:59]: That's exactly.

Callan [0:03:00]: That's what we do here.

Callan [0:03:00]: That's what we do on the show.

Amber [0:03:02]: I have a feel so epic it still haunt my nightmares.

Amber [0:03:05]: So let's dive into it.

Amber [0:03:08]: So I'll set the scene late stage start up, looking for that big, go big or go home moment.

Amber [0:03:15]: So we decided to go as big as one can possibly go and do an airport installation so large that you could practically see it from space.

Amber [0:03:27]: So we're taken over this hallway And this also is in a prime spot where some really high target clients routinely fly in and out of.

Amber [0:03:38]: So we're taken over, not just this huge tall, but spots throughout the airport.

Amber [0:03:43]: And when I mean hallway, it's not like a little hallway.

Amber [0:03:46]: It's, like, fifteen feet wide, like, twenty feet tall.

Amber [0:03:49]: Like, sixty feet long.

Amber [0:03:51]: You have to go through it to get to all the main gates.

Amber [0:03:54]: So we build this entire campaign this entire new brand image around this.

Amber [0:04:01]: So we create this universe that everyone has to walk through.

Amber [0:04:04]: We've got installation at the beginning of the tunnel at the end of the tunnels sprinkled, complimentary messaging throughout the entire airport We are so excited.

Amber [0:04:14]: We had never gone this big before.

Amber [0:04:16]: This was our moment.

Amber [0:04:17]: We had local press excited.

Amber [0:04:18]: We had industry publications excited.

Amber [0:04:21]: I had set up with a few local news stations to do, like, a press conference live.

Amber [0:04:25]: And the timing it was perfect because it was right before the big conference season.

Amber [0:04:31]: So like we're gonna launch this.

Amber [0:04:32]: We've been teasing this out, and then we're gonna have this big news launch, and then everyone's going to be able to experience this live conference season rolls out.

Amber [0:04:43]: And we found the perfect date to launch it, which was March eleventh twenty twenty.

Amber [0:04:47]: In k, the day that Covid shut down the whole world, essentially.

Amber [0:04:53]: And it's just one of those things the day started out so normal.

Amber [0:04:59]: You know, like, we had heard about this coronavirus thing.

Amber [0:05:01]: I was it was like, on our radar, but we had no idea.

Amber [0:05:04]: No idea.

Amber [0:05:05]: What was about to happen.

Amber [0:05:07]: It was a big crew of us that, like, all flew out to the airport, and we were filming, and I was waiting for the news caster, the news station that I was supposed to interview with had been high.

Amber [0:05:19]: We've been, you know, texting throughout the day to figure out the time.

Amber [0:05:22]: And we wrapped all of this stuff that we needed to shoot there, and I'll never forget.

Amber [0:05:26]: I was sitting there, like, waiting for the confirmation of when I'm gonna go on the news.

Amber [0:05:31]: By the way, I'm watching some of the news, getting a little concerned.

Amber [0:05:34]: Well, I'm so focused on this huge.

Amber [0:05:37]: He moved very big, very expensive initiative that I'm in the middle of.

Amber [0:05:42]: And I'll never forget the new station calls me and tells me...

Amber [0:05:45]: Yeah.

Amber [0:05:46]: We will not be covering your airport installation.

Amber [0:05:50]: The only thing we will be talking about today is the coronavirus.

Amber [0:05:54]: And also, by the way, if I were you, I would get home, go back to wherever you came from as soon as possible like, like, hop on the next flight.

Amber [0:06:04]: And they're, like, you don't understand what's about to go down.

Amber [0:06:08]: You need to get home.

Amber [0:06:08]: So at that point, it really sunk in that, like, six to nine months of planning is really kind of circling the drain here.

Amber [0:06:18]: And then also the future of, like, event marketing and the shutdown.

Amber [0:06:22]: So I did take third advice, I got on the next plain home and just kind of tried to figure out what was next.

Amber [0:06:30]: And then, like everyone else in March twenty twenty.

Amber [0:06:32]: You know, we kinda would survival mode.

Amber [0:06:34]: What do we do now?

Amber [0:06:35]: What does our event strategy look like now?

Amber [0:06:38]: Where's our content strategy look like now.

Amber [0:06:40]: So, of course, we pivoted as much as we could?

Amber [0:06:43]: We, you know, we used the content that we had filmed on sight.

Amber [0:06:46]: We shared that.

Amber [0:06:48]: We kept going with our campaign, but we made, like, a multi touch kinda direct mail focus, and we pivoted to virtual events, we created a, interview series, via a video.

Amber [0:06:59]: So we did the best we could with it and interestingly enough, I read a seth Golden blog yesterday that really hit home sort of the moral of a story.

Amber [0:07:10]: And the the message on seth blog was.

Amber [0:07:12]: Don't judge your decisions always by the outcome because sometimes Good decisions had bad outcomes.

Amber [0:07:20]: A bad decision is a decision that is made without the correct context in mind.

Amber [0:07:27]: And in q two, q three twenty nineteen, we make decisions based on the information available at the time?

Amber [0:07:36]: So I've always struggled with it's, like, what what's the main takeaway?

Amber [0:07:39]: Like, how do I never do this again?

Amber [0:07:41]: But the reality is that you can't always control the entire environment.

Amber [0:07:47]: Fact, that's almost always the case and there's gonna be variables outside of your control.

Amber [0:07:51]: So I do stand by the creative direction.

Amber [0:07:54]: I stand by the work that the teams did, And, yeah, It really sucks.

Amber [0:07:58]: About it did not pan out.

Amber [0:08:00]: We renegotiate the contracts and we made what we could of it, but sometimes good decisions lead to bad outcomes.

Callan [0:08:07]: And I and, of course, we had worked together for that.

Callan [0:08:10]: So I remember all of this you know, it wasn't like we just said, hey, we've never done any kind of airport marketing at all.

Callan [0:08:18]: Like, we had tested this.

Callan [0:08:19]: That was a...

Callan [0:08:20]: I don't wanna use the word, but that was a bold move in its own.

Callan [0:08:23]: Right?

Callan [0:08:24]: When we first started doing that, and there was highly strategic, like you said in that a lot of our strategy hinged on getting some of these carriers that were in that area, and I don't wanna say a lot our strategy.

Callan [0:08:37]: We were fine if we didn't get them, but if we got them, it was going to be a huge catalyst and nobody was thinking outside the box like that.

Callan [0:08:45]: And, of course, Like, half the company was, like, okay.

Callan [0:08:48]: This is this is a pretty out there move, but I was like, man, that's really interesting.

Callan [0:08:53]: Nobody doing that.

Callan [0:08:54]: It's gonna get attention.

Amber [0:08:55]: I mean

Callan [0:08:55]: it was like, a

Amber [0:08:56]: account based marketing on steroids.

Amber [0:08:57]: Right?

Amber [0:08:57]: Like, unlike, anything I've ever seen.

Callan [0:09:01]: That I used that story all the time, and then, of course, it's got the best punchline ever

Amber [0:09:06]: Man.

Amber [0:09:06]: Just brutal.

Amber [0:09:07]: But, yeah, I mean, it...

Amber [0:09:08]: The strategy was solid.

Amber [0:09:10]: The creative was amazing, the team.

Amber [0:09:13]: I mean, everything was amazing, except the date that it launched.

Amber [0:09:19]: So...

Callan [0:09:21]: Which...

Callan [0:09:21]: Yeah.

Callan [0:09:21]: Like you said, there's no world where you can time that.

Callan [0:09:24]: Impossible.

Callan [0:09:25]: Yeah.

Callan [0:09:25]: Absolutely one hundred percent impossible to time.

Callan [0:09:28]: So I am so happy you shared that story.

Callan [0:09:31]: Because it's one of my favorites.

Callan [0:09:32]: So I wanna talk about a a little bit in into your career before we dive into the details of a campaign.

Callan [0:09:38]: And where I'd love to start is one of the ones which I...

Callan [0:09:42]: As I understand, it was probably one of the most pivotal places at the beginning of of your career.

Callan [0:09:47]: Talking about a company, it's got thousands of employees.

Callan [0:09:50]: How did you get the job at AmericInn.

Callan [0:09:54]: And just for those who that are not in the Midwest, this is AmericInn, and it's a hotel chain in the Midwest owned by W.

Amber [0:10:02]: I don't think I have ever told this story on a podcast before.

Amber [0:10:05]: We are really going into the vault for this one.

Amber [0:10:08]: I love it.

Callan [0:10:09]: I am so excited to hear this.

Amber [0:10:10]: But also very pre internet.

Amber [0:10:14]: In that, literally, I was that person who was counting the days until I could turn fourteen because I wanted to work.

Amber [0:10:21]: I wanted a job.

Amber [0:10:23]: I wanted to be a business woman or whatever Could look like at age fourteen.

Amber [0:10:28]: And I grew up in, like, a touristy town, so got a lot of hotels they, like at gonna amusement them park, and some of them would hire at fourteen.

Amber [0:10:35]: So I'm like, you know what?

Amber [0:10:36]: The week before I turn fourteen, I'm going to go down the list and just start calling places and see who will talk to me before.

Amber [0:10:44]: So that way, the day I turned fourteen, I could start a job.

Amber [0:10:47]: And literally, the first hotel in the yellow pages was American.

Amber [0:10:53]: So I called them and said, I am only looking for job really hardworking.

Amber [0:10:58]: I'm a good student.

Amber [0:10:59]: I've got extra extracurricular.

Amber [0:11:00]: So I've got references.

Amber [0:11:02]: What do you need?

Amber [0:11:03]: Can I come down and get an application, and they were a little take it aback?

Amber [0:11:07]: Like, excuse me, kid.

Callan [0:11:08]: Alright, how old are you?

Amber [0:11:09]: Like, I'm thirteen.

Amber [0:11:10]: But I mean fourteen and six days.

Amber [0:11:13]: But, yeah, I went down and picked up an application and set up an interview for like, my fourteenth birthday and got the job and, yeah.

Amber [0:11:20]: The rest is history.

Callan [0:11:24]: So I did some digging to find that one, and I was most blown away with, and this kind of just gets to it.

Callan [0:11:28]: I could see as being kind of a theme of your career as a whole.

Callan [0:11:30]: You had a heck of a lot of ambition to do that at fourteen, which is crazy.

Callan [0:11:35]: One, I didn't even didn't know that you could do that at fourteen.

Callan [0:11:38]: My first job was fifteen at Mcdonald's, and I could tell you.

Callan [0:11:41]: I did not have that type of ambition.

Callan [0:11:43]: And think it's the only job I got fired from So...

Callan [0:11:47]: Okay.

Callan [0:11:47]: Now let's jump to American family Insurance.

Callan [0:11:49]: So you spent ten ten years as what, I'll call real insurance.

Callan [0:11:54]: Right?

Callan [0:11:54]: Which is to me is, like, claims side underwriting side.

Callan [0:11:57]: You were in the the underwriting department.

Callan [0:11:58]: So a couple of questions on that.

Callan [0:12:00]: How much did that impact you down the road as you got onto the marketing side being rooted in that underwriting side?

Callan [0:12:08]: And then how much was that just spending that time at a big carrier, American family insurance.

Callan [0:12:13]: Had an impact on your career as a whole.

Amber [0:12:15]: Oh, so much.

Amber [0:12:16]: I am so incredibly grateful that I landed where I landed for my first insurance role because it was somewhat by accident my sister who's now in legal had had an internship an American family.

Amber [0:12:29]: So after college, I spent a few years kind of just just traveling working abroad, came back, wanted a real job and my sisters suggested American family.

Amber [0:12:38]: I saw there was an opening in the newspaper and star tribune june, local Twin cities newspaper, and, yeah, went for it, and I was really able to get in at the point where you see everything.

Amber [0:12:50]: And I think that's the cool thing about underwriting is You work with the entire ecosystem.

Amber [0:12:57]: You know, I was talking to agents.

Amber [0:12:59]: Talking to insurers and claims, and then I was able to work on a lot of, like, product and marketing focused projects like launching new discounts, launching new rating structures.

Amber [0:13:09]: I helped launch our high value underwriting and our wildfire underwriting program.

Amber [0:13:14]: So I got to work and see so much of the insurance value system which completely shaped my view on marketing and shapes how I talk about insurance now in marketing and in product marketing and how I look at launches and positioning and messaging.

Amber [0:13:31]: And I think that is something that adds so much more fun to it because I get so excited about, like, new policies new rating programs.

Amber [0:13:40]: I'm genuinely so passionate about it.

Amber [0:13:43]: It's not like insurances, like, a a stop over for me.

Amber [0:13:46]: I've been here for what almost twenty years now.

Amber [0:13:49]: So It really has influenced and I was so fortunate to have amazing mentors.

Amber [0:13:53]: So that we're really explaining, like, what this coverage means.

Amber [0:13:56]: And what happens if we do this, and at that point, it was like, the old school green screen, like, the mainframe frames.

Amber [0:14:02]: So I was, like, looking at application information, looking at This was home auto, umbrella that kind of thing.

Amber [0:14:10]: So just really learning end to end and seeing so much of insurance and just a really deep dive into coverage claims, new business reporting the data analytics part.

Amber [0:14:25]: So just so grateful for that element that has continued to influence me so strongly everywhere of?

Callan [0:14:32]: Do you find did you find that it gave you a bigger, like, a better empathy for the customer when you joined the...

Callan [0:14:39]: I wanna say the other side.

Callan [0:14:41]: But when you joined when you got to the insured tech base.

Callan [0:14:44]: For me, I started out as an agent.

Callan [0:14:46]: So when I joined the insured tech side, and we started selling to agencies, and people like, well, why don't they do this It's like, well, that's not...

Callan [0:14:54]: One, It's not even on their mind.

Callan [0:14:55]: I don't care about what we're talking about whatsoever.

Callan [0:14:57]: Unless it moves the needle in x y z area.

Callan [0:15:01]: Did you find that to be similar that that helped you a ton as you were building campaigns and things like that.

Amber [0:15:07]: Absolutely.

Amber [0:15:07]: And especially having been on the side that's working frequently and communicating frequently with brokers because I worked with agents all day long every day for ten years.

Amber [0:15:20]: And I was really close with them, like, I genuinely miss several of them I'm like, I'm connected on social media with many of them because they were, you know, my direct colleagues for so long, and I was in the trenches with them.

Amber [0:15:33]: For so long that I feel like, of course, every line is different in every agency every broker is different, but there's commonalities of challenges that we all face.

Amber [0:15:43]: And having had that exposure to their world has been really, really helpful.

Amber [0:15:47]: And also to the insurance because, like, I was one who was, you know, we had to rotate in and out of the the phone unit?

Amber [0:15:52]: As we called it at the time?

Amber [0:15:54]: So, literally, I was talking to angry shirts too of, like, why did my policy change and trying to explain what that we were using credit now and rating, and this what happens when you file a claim.

Amber [0:16:03]: And so I was really directly communicating with both insurers and brokers on a regular basis.

Amber [0:16:11]: So that just helps me so much when I'm crafting positioning crafting messaging that I can get more easily into their mind.

Amber [0:16:19]: But I never take for granted that I know what they're thinking because it's one thing to have an educated assumption, and then there's, like, part two of, like, validating it.

Callan [0:16:28]: Oh, a hundred percent...

Callan [0:16:29]: Yeah.

Callan [0:16:29]: It's more...

Callan [0:16:30]: In it changes, changed so much from what I was an agent to what the challenge, especially in this market that they're dealing with now a hundred percent.

Callan [0:16:37]: So when you made the transition from large company to earlier say even at E isn't a huge company.

Callan [0:16:44]: It's not...

Callan [0:16:44]: I wouldn't call it a a small company by any means, but what was that change to E to bold penguin.

Callan [0:16:49]: How was that transition for you?

Amber [0:16:52]: It was very strange, and I knew it would be because at any large carrier.

Amber [0:16:57]: I mean, you know, top one hundred carrier, you've got so many layers, and you have so much process, and you have so much, like, robust project management, and it's a slower pace because of some of those things.

Amber [0:17:11]: Intentionally so, and then it was very strange to, you know, be working directly with the Ceo directly with the Cmo or, you know, the product leader and being able to pivot so quickly.

Amber [0:17:25]: Which was very uncomfortable at the beginning.

Amber [0:17:28]: I guess it's like, wait.

Amber [0:17:29]: Shouldn't seven other people review this before it goes out, don't we need to have seventeen people in legal compliance.

Amber [0:17:36]: Take a look at this?

Amber [0:17:37]: So getting used to that and being in getting comfortable enough to have that confidence to move quickly.

Amber [0:17:44]: And I was so fortunate to work on their leadership that really empowered me and guided me through that.

Amber [0:17:48]: When I think it's something that I also really value of having had both sides, both because I was able to bring some of that process and structure to some of the less structured

Callan [0:18:01]: organizations

Amber [0:18:01]: that I worked with and try to help build that but also walking that line.

Amber [0:18:05]: You don't wanna build in too much process where it's not needed and slow yourself down.

Amber [0:18:08]: So finding that balance has been I'm moving target throughout my career, but I believe value having had both of those experiences both large, small and medium.

Callan [0:18:19]: Yeah.

Callan [0:18:19]: What keeps you in that startup world now?

Callan [0:18:22]: I mean, obviously, interesting job interesting company things like that, but looking at a little bit more broad.

Callan [0:18:27]: What was it about that that you really love?

Amber [0:18:29]: And I'm a glut for punishment.

Amber [0:18:31]: I love a stress and the chaos of start of life, And I know my sister who's in government.

Amber [0:18:39]: She asked me the other day She's, like, why do you make your life so hard?

Amber [0:18:42]: I like, why are you?

Amber [0:18:44]: Why do you work at startups and do content and this and that.

Amber [0:18:48]: And I'm like, it's fun.

Amber [0:18:50]: I love it.

Amber [0:18:52]: I mean, there is something to be said for, like, the steady day and day out the but nine to five bank hours of, like, a larger organization, You know, having a very niche down role, and I value that too.

Amber [0:19:03]: But I I do find myself so energized by, like, the fast or paced.

Amber [0:19:08]: And the intensity of people...

Amber [0:19:09]: I love working with with founders.

Amber [0:19:11]: And I love working with energized colleagues.

Amber [0:19:14]: Like, I remember working on some of of our launches Call where of like, we'd be on a call.

Amber [0:19:20]: Like it was, like, me you and Mark like, you know, having our, like, nine thirty Am calls and just brainstorming and just so excited and that energy is hard to replicate in a larger organization.

Amber [0:19:32]: It's just a different vibe.

Amber [0:19:33]: So I really value that and just seeing the impact of your work so quickly.

Amber [0:19:38]: There's like that, like, a immediate gratification where it's, like, you pull up a lever and you see the result in, like, a week.

Amber [0:19:45]: You know what I mean?

Amber [0:19:46]: Oh, no.

Amber [0:19:47]: It's just so much fun.

Callan [0:19:49]: The feedback loop to see if something works is just almost instant.

Callan [0:19:53]: So that makes complete sense to me, and I hear you on the glut punishment because you have to be.

Callan [0:19:59]: You absolutely have to be.

Callan [0:20:01]: Okay.

Callan [0:20:01]: I wanna dive into your role today, but I'm gonna hold that for a minute for people that are new to this format from the old format that we did is one of the big things we wanna do is we wanna dive into an actual campaign.

Callan [0:20:12]: There's campaign, strategies, whatever that might be.

Callan [0:20:15]: In Amber, we talked about one that I'm really excited to dive into.

Callan [0:20:19]: And that in particular was relaunch a product, which is not a small task.

Callan [0:20:26]: Well what I'd love to start is what happened?

Callan [0:20:28]: What led up to this before you started doing the official re relaunch.

Callan [0:20:32]: Why was it necessary to go through this?

Amber [0:20:35]: Yeah.

Amber [0:20:35]: So to set the stage, I was leading product marketing, like, at a niche liability carrier join the organization and one of the first things that was flagged to me is, hey, we have this new policy that's about three years old.

Amber [0:20:46]: And it is not flying off the shelves to be very frank.

Amber [0:20:52]: So what I also really appreciate, was there's also an immediate appetite to really dig into it because I feel like, whenever you have a product, or a new program or new service.

Amber [0:21:03]: That's not going well.

Amber [0:21:05]: I feel like sometimes we can treat the symptoms of, like, okay.

Amber [0:21:09]: Well, lower the price and make a new cell sheet.

Amber [0:21:11]: And sometimes that's part of it.

Amber [0:21:13]: But I was really given the authority to dig into it.

Amber [0:21:19]: So looking at...

Amber [0:21:21]: Okay.

Amber [0:21:22]: We're three years in.

Amber [0:21:24]: It's not selling, You know, we're at a fraction of where we want to be.

Amber [0:21:28]: So let's dig into this.

Amber [0:21:30]: So and leading product marketing.

Amber [0:21:31]: I mean, this is, like, an ideal scenario of being able to do the end to end, go to market in a way that is fresh and exciting for an existing product.

Amber [0:21:42]: So we started off with I did internal voice of business research.

Amber [0:21:47]: Okay.

Amber [0:21:48]: Let's talk to the teams.

Amber [0:21:49]: What did they think?

Amber [0:21:50]: What are they hearing distribution, underwriting, how did they feel the original launch was?

Amber [0:21:54]: I wasn't there for the original launch.

Amber [0:21:56]: So let's hear about that.

Amber [0:21:58]: What happened?

Amber [0:21:58]: What work what didn't work?

Amber [0:21:59]: And then let's talk about our external stakeholders.

Amber [0:22:02]: So let's really dive into that.

Amber [0:22:05]: So we did one on one interviews with, like, fifteen brokers, fifteen clients, running this by them and really diving into, like, forty five minute recorded call.

Amber [0:22:14]: So this was no small feat as you can imagine this is like a no.

Amber [0:22:18]: The read a four month process just to do the interviews, and then analyze the interviews, And what we really tried to do there was make it qualitative and quantitative.

Amber [0:22:28]: So little N mps scores along the way so I could present and share specific metrics too along with the voice of customer voice of broker quotes.

Amber [0:22:38]: So someone that looked like, how likely are you to, quote this product in the next six months.

Amber [0:22:45]: How likely are you to quote the product in the next three months.

Amber [0:22:49]: What if this?

Amber [0:22:51]: And what we found was, of course, Price always comes up?

Amber [0:22:55]: I mean, you ask any broker or client about a product worth policy in this case, price certainly comes up, but other things came up.

Amber [0:23:03]: The way that we had positioned, the product was as new, advanced, tons of value listing out all the features and what we found was, we were trying to communicate the value, but we were communicating was complexity in the end.

Amber [0:23:21]: We made it up appear very complex, and the newness was not seen as a positive by quite a few state...

Amber [0:23:31]: External stakeholders on both sides.

Amber [0:23:33]: You know, I had a few clients were like, well, I don't wanna be your guinea pig for new policy.

Amber [0:23:39]: Like, you go test out on someone else and come back to me when it's ready.

Amber [0:23:42]: So we were also inadvertently communicating that it wasn't tested.

Amber [0:23:47]: When I absolutely was.

Amber [0:23:49]: It was approved.

Amber [0:23:50]: It was not so far off from other things that we had done.

Amber [0:23:53]: So With all of that feedback and the voice of business feedback, we completely reworked the positioning and the messaging.

Amber [0:24:01]: You know, we backed off of the newness.

Amber [0:24:04]: We backed off of the complexity we back off of the acronym we were using for it, and it's like, hey, this is protection for verdict.

Amber [0:24:12]: Let's call it for protection when we talk about it.

Amber [0:24:16]: Let's simplify it so that it's easier for brokers to sell.

Amber [0:24:20]: What's easier for policy holders to buy.

Amber [0:24:23]: And then we really, of course then invested in the messaging around that, and that messaging really varies depending on your audience.

Amber [0:24:31]: But for the broker set, it was a lot about making it easier to sell, making it easier to add into the conversation.

Amber [0:24:40]: And then for the policy holders of course, it's getting very clearly to the value that it drives and being very clear about that.

Amber [0:24:48]: And then adjusting pricing, adjusting processes and then setting goals, and I think that is one thing too that is really key on to align on is, what do you want to achieve and aligning on that.

Amber [0:25:01]: How much do we need to sell of this policy for it to be a success so that you are setting yourself up to know how going so you can iterate as needed.

Amber [0:25:12]: So we aligned on a goal and implemented new messaging, new positioning, and, of course, new assets You know, of course, you gotta get your new Powerpoint slides, new cell sheet, It made a teaser video, and we blew our goal out of the water.

Amber [0:25:27]: I we think we had, like, a twelve month goal, and we hit that in, like, six months.

Amber [0:25:31]: So it was just an an incredible success and one thing I think too is just incredibly collaborative.

Amber [0:25:37]: It can't be product marketing or just underwriting or just distribution, you know, coming at it.

Amber [0:25:42]: It's gotta be alignment on...

Amber [0:25:44]: This is what we're doing differently.

Amber [0:25:46]: This is how we're gonna approach it.

Amber [0:25:47]: This how we're gonna measure it, and maybe product marketing is kind of organizing, but there's has to be acknowledgment that everyone is working together.

Amber [0:25:57]: So simplifying it, creating new assets, creating new messaging and making sure that's customer driven customer led.

Callan [0:26:06]: Okay.

Callan [0:26:06]: I've got some areas that I...

Callan [0:26:08]: I wanna zero in on here.

Callan [0:26:09]: I love it.

Callan [0:26:09]: What I'm hearing is this.

Callan [0:26:11]: You did the internal interviews, So interviewed the internal team did the external interviews and a good amount.

Callan [0:26:15]: I mean, what you just described was a good amount of forty five minutes to an hour long interviews and from there, rebuilt the brand positioning, rebuilt the key messages and made that for the age agents made that for partners made that for everything, and then did a full relaunch and then build all the assets.

Callan [0:26:32]: So far am my tracking?

Amber [0:26:33]: Exactly.

Amber [0:26:33]: Yep.

Callan [0:26:34]: Yep.

Callan [0:26:34]: So one of the things I often see is people were either do the internal inner inter interviews?

Callan [0:26:40]: Or they'll do the external interviews.

Callan [0:26:42]: But they don't necessarily do both?

Callan [0:26:44]: I'm curious how different did the question set look?

Callan [0:26:48]: Or was it a standard question set one?

Callan [0:26:50]: And if it was, how different did that look for the internal versus external interviews?

Amber [0:26:55]: Very different.

Amber [0:26:56]: And a lot of the previews and part of how we drafted the external questions that was based on what we heard internally.

Amber [0:27:06]: So it was, like, phase one phase two.

Amber [0:27:10]: And we also made sure that we talked to the small groups internally first and off the record, like, tell like it is, you know, hey, if marketing gave you what terrible cell sheet, and and this didn't work in that door, like, tell it like it is that be super transparent, circle trust here.

Amber [0:27:28]: And then with brokers, it was all about, okay, what didn't work for you when we launched it.

Amber [0:27:36]: What would incentivize you to sell it.

Amber [0:27:39]: What value do you see?

Amber [0:27:40]: And then with clients, it's all about assessing to, like, who is this for?

Amber [0:27:45]: Who would this appeal to?

Amber [0:27:47]: And that's a huge part of product positioning is figuring out who specifically?

Amber [0:27:50]: And, of course, You've got your ideal customer profile and others outside of your Ic can certainly purchase, but you've got focus in on that first too.

Amber [0:27:59]: So maybe this isn't a product for everyone.

Amber [0:28:01]: You mean we need to tailor it it a little bit more.

Amber [0:28:03]: You know, maybe only large health systems would value this, and then we need to adjust our creative and our messaging accordingly.

Amber [0:28:11]: So it's was kind of like a waterfall approach of using the internal feedback to craft external stakeholder feedback.

Callan [0:28:22]: You brought up at something interesting.

Callan [0:28:23]: Do you record the internal ones?

Callan [0:28:24]: Or do you purposely not record them so people will be a little bit more open on what they say.

Amber [0:28:28]: I really wanted to record them for my own thing.

Amber [0:28:31]: Am I hate what I'm trying to, like,

Callan [0:28:34]: Oh, a hundred percent, Especially in an interview on an interview tough.

Callan [0:28:37]: Yeah.

Callan [0:28:37]: For sure.

Amber [0:28:38]: But I also was really afraid that I was going to incentivize people to hold the party line or, like, not want to say negative things about the policy.

Amber [0:28:46]: So I intentionally made the group small and did not record for that reason to make sure that it was as transparent as possible.

Callan [0:28:54]: I love that.

Callan [0:28:55]: I think that's a small, but key thing.

Callan [0:28:58]: And I'll be curious to say how much is that...

Callan [0:29:01]: Everything's recorded right now.

Callan [0:29:02]: That's a good reason?

Callan [0:29:03]: It creates great data for Ai to be able to work off of.

Callan [0:29:06]: But for these things, especially in earlier stage company, but when I say early, like, let's just say less than fifty employees they'll probably still do it.

Callan [0:29:14]: But I don't care.

Callan [0:29:15]: But but once you start getting over a hundred, two hundred, and, of course, to bigger up you get, the less somebody wants anything.

Callan [0:29:21]: Anything either recorded on email, whatever that may be.

Callan [0:29:25]: So I I...

Callan [0:29:26]: That makes total sense to me.

Callan [0:29:27]: Okay.

Callan [0:29:28]: When you get into those external interviews?

Callan [0:29:30]: I know I'm spending a lot of time on this, but I'm personally, like, a huge believer and, like, just talk to your customers.

Callan [0:29:34]: So ninety nine percent of your problems are gonna be solved by just doing that.

Callan [0:29:37]: It's in a gross exaggeration, I'll probably for that, but I'm okay with it.

Callan [0:29:41]: And you mentioned how many interviews did you do total?

Amber [0:29:44]: I think it was total, probably thirty three to thirty five, including the voice of business ones?

Callan [0:29:49]: Which is a

Amber [0:29:50]: lot.

Amber [0:29:50]: It b2b

Callan [0:29:50]: to be.

Callan [0:29:50]: That's a that's a lot.

Callan [0:29:51]: Yes.

Callan [0:29:52]: Do you set out to say we're gonna do thirty of these?

Callan [0:29:55]: Or do you go by the method more of we'll do five?

Callan [0:29:58]: We'll do the first tran?

Callan [0:30:00]: If we don't see very many similarities or commonalities and what we're hearing, we'll do the next tran and then the next tran or something totally different than that.

Amber [0:30:07]: So in this case, I wanted to make sure I had all of the key segments represented.

Amber [0:30:12]: So I wanted at least two to three small, medium and large, at least two to three from all of our different geographies.

Amber [0:30:21]: I wanted folks that specialized in the specific liability insurance that we sold, I wanted folks that were generalist.

Amber [0:30:29]: And then on the client side as well.

Amber [0:30:31]: I wanted small, medium large.

Amber [0:30:32]: I wanted all geographies.

Amber [0:30:33]: Because I hypo that I would see significant differences and state by state based on legislation.

Amber [0:30:42]: There's going to be some states where this is a a a higher value than others.

Amber [0:30:46]: You've got states like Iowa who have set jury verdict limitations where you don't necessarily need a product like this as much.

Amber [0:30:53]: So that was where I landed at.

Amber [0:30:56]: Okay.

Amber [0:30:56]: So, like, bare minimum, like twelve to fifteen, just to cover the basis of all the voices that I feel like we need to have then we were incredibly fortunate to have an existing broker advisory Council and client advisory council to leverage for that, and then, you know, supplemental as needed.

Callan [0:31:12]: Yep.

Callan [0:31:12]: That makes sense.

Callan [0:31:13]: Am I wrong in...

Callan [0:31:15]: It seems like one of the big pieces was that One of the big insights was that for the segmentation that was really writing this policy, the messaging and positioning was off.

Callan [0:31:27]: Is that fair?

Amber [0:31:28]: Yeah.

Amber [0:31:28]: Absolutely.

Amber [0:31:28]: And I think understanding what's important to your audience and what they're looking for.

Amber [0:31:36]: And what they were looking for was not the new and latest thing.

Amber [0:31:39]: What they were looking for was the tried true and tested thing.

Amber [0:31:43]: That's easy to buy and easy to explain and feels familiar and trustworthy.

Callan [0:31:50]: Yep.

Callan [0:31:50]: That makes total sense.

Callan [0:31:51]: What did the actual launch look like?

Callan [0:31:53]: Did you do a full launch?

Callan [0:31:55]: Like, this would have been done three years ago to put this out to market or was it kind of a soft launch where you're going to everybody, like, your key partners and saying, hey.

Callan [0:32:05]: Here's the new product.

Callan [0:32:06]: Here's what's different on a one to one or one to one or one to many basis.

Callan [0:32:10]: What does that look like?

Callan [0:32:11]: Yeah.

Amber [0:32:12]: So how I like to look at launches and, like, four quadrant.

Amber [0:32:14]: Unlike, the bottom part, you've got, like, low hanging fruit.

Amber [0:32:19]: That's, like, maybe an inclusion in the newsletter.

Amber [0:32:21]: And then on the other end of the spectrum, you've got multi event strategy with digital ad space and out of home and strong P r, and then you've got lots in the middle there.

Amber [0:32:34]: And for this, and this is where I think the goals are so important.

Amber [0:32:38]: And for us, we set a sales goal.

Amber [0:32:41]: Okay.

Amber [0:32:42]: Well, what do we need What needs to be true for that sales goal to be attainable.

Amber [0:32:47]: Do we need to have a press release?

Amber [0:32:50]: Do we need to be in every reins insurance media outlet.

Amber [0:32:53]: And the answer for that In this case was no.

Amber [0:32:56]: This is actually super niche, and what we need is we need, like, at least twenty percent of our broker partners to be on board and excited about this product, and that's what we need.

Amber [0:33:07]: And that's a small ish number in a niche world.

Amber [0:33:11]: So while, the launch was very strategic and not light on their resources because there was a lot that went into that and building, we built an entirely new set of sales enable tools, including several videos with production partners, but it was very much right sized.

Amber [0:33:31]: Right sized for what we needed.

Amber [0:33:33]: And again, this is a hyper niche product.

Amber [0:33:36]: So I think that's also really important to align around that?

Amber [0:33:40]: Like, what does success look like?

Amber [0:33:41]: And then how do we get there?

Amber [0:33:42]: And the answer is not always big P multi touch campaign.

Amber [0:33:47]: So in this case, we were able to really focus in on the specific audiences that needed to hear it and get that message across with just new assets and using our existing channel, so we didn't we didn't buy any billboards.

Amber [0:34:04]: We didn't do a press release.

Amber [0:34:05]: We didn't try to get broad media attention.

Callan [0:34:09]: That's really interesting because, I mean, it's gonna jump the Roi up significantly on this.

Callan [0:34:15]: I think you mentioned the pricing changed a little bit.

Callan [0:34:18]: Did the product change very much.

Callan [0:34:20]: No.

Callan [0:34:21]: Interest.

Amber [0:34:22]: No changes to the product.

Amber [0:34:23]: It was just positioning and messaging.

Amber [0:34:26]: So we didn't have to ref file anything.

Amber [0:34:28]: We didn't have to redo any of, like, the actual policy documents or anything like that.

Callan [0:34:35]: Okay.

Callan [0:34:35]: Dumb question.

Callan [0:34:37]: How gratifying was that?

Amber [0:34:39]: Like, completely, to be able to see the result come through and be able to celebrate as a team, and this was something that was good for the insured, but also for us, also for underwriting, it was a way to shift limit structures not to go too up, but the deep defense, like, insurance nerd, but, like, this was a very positive shift for the industry also because it put the coverage where it needed to go.

Amber [0:35:05]: Like, you don't typically have, like, a settlement that needs twenty million dollar limit.

Amber [0:35:10]: That just doesn't really happen.

Amber [0:35:12]: You need that for jury verdict.

Amber [0:35:14]: So just makes sense and it's better for risk structure.

Amber [0:35:18]: It's better for the industry to have that set, so it was just a win on on so many levels that was really, really exciting.

Callan [0:35:27]: But, I mean, one of the things that just keeps firing in my mind is that oftentimes what happens on the marketing side is the marketing side is okay.

Callan [0:35:35]: How many leads you generating?

Callan [0:35:36]: Much new business or are we bringing in?

Callan [0:35:39]: And sometimes it's hard to, like, put a hard Roi on brand on positioning and things like that.

Callan [0:35:46]: And this to me is this is an example of, like, a perfect example.

Callan [0:35:50]: That's why I was curious like, if the product range dramatically, then it gives somebody else to say, like, well, yeah.

Callan [0:35:55]: We changed the product.

Callan [0:35:55]: But this was purely positioning and branding and messaging.

Callan [0:36:00]: So that's why to me.

Callan [0:36:02]: It's like, I mean, correct if I'm wrong with.

Callan [0:36:04]: That is the case.

Callan [0:36:04]: Correct.

Amber [0:36:05]: Yeah.

Amber [0:36:05]: And that's where the goals are so important too because When I tell you, like, a lot of our leadership team was more excited about the limits that we shifted over to the niche kind of policy.

Amber [0:36:16]: So instead of having, like, ten million in excess.

Amber [0:36:20]: Then you would have, take part of that and move it on to the specific verdict protection piece.

Amber [0:36:26]: They were more excited about that.

Amber [0:36:28]: So when we're excited about both.

Amber [0:36:30]: But, like, understanding what's important to your internal stakeholders as well So you're sharing that message as well because I think as marketers obviously, like, I'm excited about, like, also, someone like the open rates and and how people are responding to it, and our Mp score is going up, but also like, okay, well, what's important to our general counsel.

Amber [0:36:48]: What's important to our chief underwriting officer.

Amber [0:36:51]: So just thinking about through that lens so that everyone is is seeing the success that it was.

Callan [0:36:58]: When you had these conversations post.

Callan [0:36:59]: So once it was launched and you had this twenty percent, I'm assuming that twenty percent was responsible for probably eighty percent of the business, like those key brokers, and you started having these conversations, very, very similar product, but with just a new messaging, did they just get it right away?

Callan [0:37:15]: Did it just click for them when you went back and you had this conversation with them?

Amber [0:37:19]: Yeah.

Amber [0:37:19]: They were really excited about it.

Amber [0:37:21]: Even in the initial research interviews when I could see some of them who hadn't sell it before, and I loved that we had the relationship with them to have them be fully transparent.

Amber [0:37:31]: A couple brokers would be like, I'm gonna be straight with you.

Amber [0:37:34]: I have never sold this.

Amber [0:37:36]: And I don't really want to.

Amber [0:37:38]: This looks really complicated and, like, it would add another half an hour.

Amber [0:37:41]: On every new biz call that I would have.

Amber [0:37:43]: So I love that transparency.

Amber [0:37:46]: Thank you so much.

Amber [0:37:47]: That's what we need.

Amber [0:37:47]: But once I would explain it.

Amber [0:37:49]: They would get excited about it.

Amber [0:37:51]: So it energized me of, like, they see the value.

Amber [0:37:54]: We just have to talk about it a little bit differently.

Amber [0:37:57]: And not only did we change the pricing, but we, like, reposition the pricing as, like, x percentage less than standard excess or whatever.

Amber [0:38:05]: You know what Mean?

Amber [0:38:05]: It was very clear what the value was.

Amber [0:38:07]: So that was really exciting to see too and to see them get it And then also, I think underwriting got really excited about it too, and we were talking about it.

Amber [0:38:18]: You know, we were talking about it in our all hands and meetings.

Amber [0:38:21]: Know, I'd hop on the underwriting call.

Amber [0:38:23]: I was sending out weekly updates of where we were at, which kept the momentum going.

Amber [0:38:28]: Like, you no, we're at stephanie percent of goal now.

Amber [0:38:31]: No.

Amber [0:38:31]: Now where it's seventy five.

Amber [0:38:32]: Both zones I'm just close x y as you can come out, like, keeping it fresh in top of mind.

Callan [0:38:38]: I cannot tell you how many times.

Callan [0:38:40]: I've gone through a customer interview process or prospects.

Callan [0:38:43]: Like, some people that they're not customers yet, but they fit what we believe to be the ideal customer profile.

Callan [0:38:47]: And this happens with startups a lot.

Callan [0:38:49]: And this...

Callan [0:38:49]: In, like, How many times do you just by asking those questions to them and start to talk a little bit about we're building that they've wrapped that up by saying, this is really interesting.

Callan [0:38:58]: I would love to, like, if you could build this?

Callan [0:39:00]: I'm super interested in this.

Callan [0:39:01]: I think that's such a great great point.

Callan [0:39:04]: So you're now at Cal, and we talked about director of product and cycle marketing.

Callan [0:39:09]: So I've got a couple questions for you on this.

Callan [0:39:12]: What is it about product marketing that you love so much.

Callan [0:39:16]: And could you...

Callan [0:39:17]: For those that don't know, can you and a lot of people have different definition.

Callan [0:39:20]: So curious your definition.

Callan [0:39:21]: What is your definition of product marketing?

Amber [0:39:23]: And that is one challenge of product marketing is that it varies tremendously from organization to organization.

Amber [0:39:31]: And I think I've heard it put as simplistic as as possible as, like, product builds the product, and then product marketing helps get it on the right shelf and get it off the shelf.

Amber [0:39:42]: So that's No, I've...

Amber [0:39:45]: And that is, you know, I was kind of very simplistic.

Amber [0:39:48]: But when I think a product marketing, it's sort of the business end of marketing.

Amber [0:39:53]: You know, it's the strategic end where...

Amber [0:39:57]: And the the line between product marketing and marketing, is so variable and fuzzy that it requires a lot of communication to gather, you know?

Amber [0:40:07]: Because if I think about, like, some examples from my own life, it's like, okay.

Amber [0:40:11]: I'm drafting the positioning, I'm drafting the messaging.

Amber [0:40:14]: Of course, checking with my with my sneeze, making sure I'm on track.

Amber [0:40:17]: And then sometimes, I'm also drafting.

Amber [0:40:20]: I'm taking a pass at the messaging what that looks like on a cell sheet.

Amber [0:40:24]: So maybe I'm partly drafting that.

Amber [0:40:27]: But then I'm...

Amber [0:40:29]: There's gotta be a hand off to both the copywriter, the designer, and then what does that look like?

Amber [0:40:35]: And then do I take the messaging, am I gonna write the email with the messaging or is there a content person that's gonna write the email with the messaging.

Amber [0:40:43]: So that's where I think whether you're on marketing or the product marketing side.

Amber [0:40:47]: If you've got product marketing in your organization, that that is such a critical point of communication that needs to occur on a regular basis?

Amber [0:40:54]: And if you don't have a product marketer, and you're probably doing the product marketing.

Amber [0:40:59]: So it's

Callan [0:41:01]: usually the first role.

Callan [0:41:01]: I mean, so much of, like, the first hire is doing, whether that's head a marketing or whatever that might be is product marketing for sure.

Amber [0:41:08]: Exactly.

Amber [0:41:08]: Yeah.

Amber [0:41:09]: And the market research the competitive intelligence, all of that feeds into it.

Amber [0:41:14]: And I think product marketing is a great slot in in any organization to if not own c lead, like client advisory, boards, things like that because that market research on that client awareness that market industry awareness is okay.

Amber [0:41:29]: But for me, you know, like I mentioned, I came up sort of on the business side of insurance.

Amber [0:41:33]: You know I spent a lot of time digging through data, helping agents and talking about profitability and profitable growth, and I really enjoy that side of it too, But I'm also a very creative person.

Amber [0:41:46]: I love writing.

Amber [0:41:47]: I love working with images, and I don't pretend to be a graphic designer, but I enjoy playing in that space and collaborating in that space so much.

Amber [0:41:55]: So I feel like in product marketing kinda get the best of both worlds in that case, You know, I'm still very, very active with the creative side of it, but I'm I'm also got a foot in the business as well.

Callan [0:42:07]: Do you think Ai is gonna greater?

Callan [0:42:09]: And I...

Callan [0:42:10]: I don't wanna make this Ai conversation per s.

Callan [0:42:12]: But from what you just said, do you think Ai is going to almost kinda super supercharged product marketers in a way because they actually can do some of the initial first drafts of the designs.

Amber [0:42:23]: Oh, it's incredibly helpful as a tool.

Amber [0:42:26]: And I think a guy will probably replace all human work at some point in the future, not in my time.

Amber [0:42:34]: I don't think.

Amber [0:42:34]: But it seems likely to have an impact across the board, but certainly, it's helpful because the research component used to take so much time.

Amber [0:42:43]: Now in this day, you also have to be extremely conscientious.

Amber [0:42:47]: I've had Ai hall several times and send me legit looking facts and sources that it just made up.

Amber [0:42:55]: So in some ways, it's more work.

Amber [0:42:57]: There was one project I was working on where I ended that was Googling, Going back to Googling because it kept giving me very legit looking sources.

Amber [0:43:04]: I'm like I'm spending more time validating these sources than I would if I could spend to Google.

Amber [0:43:08]: So, I mean, obviously, I continue to use it and leverage it daily.

Amber [0:43:12]: But always double checking it and I'm sure future iterations will continue to improve I would imagine.

Amber [0:43:18]: But absolutely because that research part, you can lose weeks slash months doing research and also comp piling stuff.

Amber [0:43:25]: I am thinking of specifically the hours and hours and hours, of footage I had of interviews.

Amber [0:43:33]: I did not have chat At the time.

Amber [0:43:36]: If I had, I could have just thrown that all in chat G and had it spit out some leading indicators, and I still love doing that for, like, I'm taking like, stream of consciousness note for example.

Amber [0:43:48]: Like, hey.

Amber [0:43:49]: Makes sense of this.

Amber [0:43:50]: So definitely expedite product marketing work and is an amazing tool.

Callan [0:43:56]: Oh, I've done exactly what you just said to the team.

Callan [0:43:59]: Taking all the transcripts from all of the customer interviews and you hit on a thing I think it's super important is, and this is where people can get caught up in insurance.

Callan [0:44:06]: Right?

Callan [0:44:07]: When you look at some of those sources outside of it that it's using.

Callan [0:44:10]: If you're been insurance for a long time, You can look at.

Callan [0:44:12]: Like, god, Isn't...

Callan [0:44:13]: I know this is not a good source for...

Callan [0:44:16]: Like, to be able to use for this, but you can see if it...

Callan [0:44:20]: I think what I found is it it helped validate things that I was already thinking.

Callan [0:44:24]: So when when I have it produced, you know, some of those initial, whether that's key messages, key insights, things like that.

Callan [0:44:31]: And then dive into some of those ones that were counter to what I was thinking and maybe it was right, but it gives you that opportunity to dive deeper.

Callan [0:44:38]: So...

Callan [0:44:39]: That makes a ton of sense.

Callan [0:44:40]: The other thing I wanna dive into a little bit is life cycle marketing.

Callan [0:44:43]: What is life cycle market?

Amber [0:44:45]: And one of the reasons I was so excited, but my current role is because life cycle was on there.

Amber [0:44:50]: Because that brought in the scope of what I'm working on.

Amber [0:44:55]: So it...

Amber [0:44:56]: My work doesn't stop once the product's launched, it goes all the way through the life cycle.

Amber [0:45:01]: So I'm also focused on retention and nurture as well, which is a lot of the fun work too and so critical because it's one thing to get a new client or a new partner.

Amber [0:45:12]: But you also need to retain them.

Amber [0:45:14]: You also need to know how it's going, and I'm very passionate about onboarding.

Amber [0:45:17]: We've all had negative onboarding experience are lack thereof.

Amber [0:45:21]: So things like that, I think are just so critical to product success.

Amber [0:45:25]: And can be overlooked, so it's or not connected or disconnected from other pieces.

Amber [0:45:30]: So I love that.

Amber [0:45:32]: That's officially included where I'm at now.

Callan [0:45:36]: Well, total, I think cycle marketing is huge.

Callan [0:45:37]: I, I would actually probably say a luxury.

Callan [0:45:39]: Right?

Callan [0:45:40]: Although it's becoming not so much a luxury at the earlier stages because people are gonna start to self sign up more?

Callan [0:45:46]: And that hasn't happened as much.

Callan [0:45:48]: Like, what does that exactly what you said, was is that onboarding experience look like how are we staying in touch?

Callan [0:45:53]: How we still continuing to build a relationship with our customers without having a person contact them once a quarter or whatever that might be?

Callan [0:46:02]: How do you think about that?

Callan [0:46:03]: How do you decide when to put how different touch points in, Then how do you decide what those look like?

Amber [0:46:11]: And this is where that cycle of voice of business and voice of customer research is so helpful.

Amber [0:46:18]: Because it also varies, and I think about insurance or financial services, and b to b, you don't always have that strong direct relationship with the person that's paying the bill.

Amber [0:46:32]: So it's nuanced.

Amber [0:46:34]: You can usually wear out your welcome.

Amber [0:46:36]: So how do you balance that acknowledging the competitions for their attention in their inbox and trying to build that loyalty to your specific brand and give them the information that they need to know.

Amber [0:46:50]: And what that has looked like for me in the past, for example, when I built out onboarding journeys is that that voice of business is asking, what questions are getting from clients.

Amber [0:47:01]: You know, when they're calling in the first ninety days?

Amber [0:47:03]: Like, what are they asking?

Amber [0:47:04]: And then what are they complaining about if they're complaining about something in the first ninety days.

Amber [0:47:08]: And then what do you wish they knew?

Amber [0:47:09]: Is their behavior that we want to incentivize, for example, early reporting is often one?

Amber [0:47:15]: Like, don't wait until you get a court summons to tell your insurance company that you might have a a liability in question.

Amber [0:47:21]: So those are things that I I think are really important for voice the business and then asking clients too.

Amber [0:47:26]: Like, what does that look like?

Amber [0:47:28]: What does that relationship with us with our brand look like?

Amber [0:47:32]: How did you feel this cadence was, what type of open rates too are you getting?

Amber [0:47:38]: Like, looking at the data side of it?

Amber [0:47:39]: Like, what are what are folks clicking on?

Amber [0:47:42]: When are they un unsubscribe?

Amber [0:47:43]: So really watching that in real time as well?

Callan [0:47:48]: Makes complete sense.

Callan [0:47:49]: Amber, last question I have for you is if you can have a conversation with your younger self age totally up to you, what would that conversation be?

Callan [0:47:58]: And what would you say to that?

Amber [0:48:00]: I think I would say keep going.

Amber [0:48:03]: It all pays off because I felt...

Amber [0:48:05]: I had a a quarter life crisis where I was in my, like, early twenties, feeling like I was behind that I didn't have the best degree.

Amber [0:48:16]: I I wasn't keeping up with huawei I envision life to be.

Amber [0:48:20]: But I kept plugging away, and I kept showing up, and I'm just so happy with where I landed.

Amber [0:48:27]: I feel like when you're starting out your career, sort of envision this like, linear straight lineup up, but that's not how it tends to go.

Amber [0:48:35]: You're gonna have...

Amber [0:48:36]: It's very wiggly.

Amber [0:48:36]: And if you're lucky it gradually trends up.

Amber [0:48:40]: But there's a lot of setbacks along the way, and, you know, comparison is the thief of all joy.

Amber [0:48:45]: Right?

Amber [0:48:45]: So I think just keep plugging away, Amber, and you are gonna be so happy where you land eventually, and you're gonna find the right fit.

Callan [0:48:55]: I love that.

Callan [0:48:56]: Comparison for me.

Callan [0:48:57]: It's been a constant struggle.

Callan [0:48:59]: I've gotten better with it, but it's so so high.

Amber [0:49:03]: It's always someone doing better.

Amber [0:49:04]: Always.

Amber [0:49:04]: A hundred percent.

Callan [0:49:06]: A hundred percent.

Callan [0:49:07]: And then the the in the thing I think I just...

Callan [0:49:09]: You know, you just realized you could, like, there's something else.

Callan [0:49:11]: If that's going that well, there's probably something I'm just not, but we never see it, so we don't ever care.

Callan [0:49:17]: So Amber, this was so much fun.

Callan [0:49:20]: Thank you for coming on today.

Amber [0:49:22]: Thanks for having me.

Callan [0:49:24]: Absolutely.

Callan [0:49:24]: I hope you enjoyed Amber nice conversation.

Callan [0:49:34]: I can talk about positioning and strategy all day.

Callan [0:49:38]: One of my favorite sub jack, and that was a perfect example of the impact good positioning can have.

Callan [0:49:45]: If wanna learn more about Amber, you can give her a follow on Linkedin.

Callan [0:49:49]: As I said in my intro, I highly recommend it.

Callan [0:49:51]: If you've got any feedback for me, you could find me on Linkedin in to let me know.

Callan [0:49:55]: And if you really wanna support the show, give us a follow on Youtube, give us a five star review on Apple podcast or Spotify, and we are excited to give you another great episode next week.