Old Mutual is one of South Africa’s largest and most established financial institutions, offering policies in long-term investment and life insurance. Riana Smit heads up Old Mutual Will’s growth strategy, focusing on customer acquisition and shaping the division’s digital penetration.
When you think of creating your will, the document detailing your final wishes for your loved ones and belongings, natural feelings of discomfort are sure to arise. But, what else comes to mind? Scenes of overwhelming legal jargon, tons of paperwork, and long conversations with an advisor (read “stranger”).
At Old Mutual, a South African insurance and financial provider, we saw this scenario as a barrier to the millions of South Africans who don’t have wills. Just a few years ago, only 15% of the country had a will upon death, while a 2024 Kantar report revealed that only 41% of middle and upper-income South Africans have one. Another barrier we noticed was that, in order to have a will with any one of South Africa’s financial institutions, you typically had to be an existing customer.
Our solution was to launch a free digital will service that was open to anyone — existing customer or not — which had the legitimacy of a will drafted through a traditional process. We also wanted to use the introduction of the digital will service to increase sales of other Old Mutual policies related to wills, such as Estate Assist, which covers the cost of tying up a loved one’s estate.
See what the right creative and messaging can do when you’re trying to get people to think about sensitive, emotional subjects.
An uphill battle: Marketing a new product in an old space
After building our digital will solution, we kicked off our marketing, focusing on conversions, which were will completions. We quickly saw that this wasn’t performing well because when you’re introducing a new product into a traditional space, it’s hard for consumers to break longstanding beliefs and purchasing behaviours.
Our potential audience was not one-size-fits-all either. People in one audience group did not have a will because they believed it was expensive and only meant for those with significant wealth. In another group, people were interested in creating a will but still preferred the traditional route.
We also noticed that, along the journey to complete a will, people were dropping off at highly emotional stages in the online journey. For example, the section that covers the appointment of a guardian for minor children or when they had to record their wishes for their living will and burial preferences.
These pain points led to two lightbulb moments. One, our marketing had to begin with building awareness and trust. And, two, the common drop-off point gave us insight into how to steer our messaging.
Before and after: How we switched up our creatives and messaging for greater ROI
Our campaign’s first set of creatives focused on conversions with generic messaging pushing people to make a will their priority. There was little sensitivity around why people would delay creating a will. In other words, the heaviness of this process was not acknowledged:
We continued using a mix of images and videos through YouTube and Performance Max to implement a full-funnel strategy. Simultaneously, our audience targeting picked up on those who were already searching for a will solution online.
The difference came when, in the second iteration of our ads, we honed in on educating people about digital wills versus traditionally drafted ones. We also acknowledged the heaviness of the subject and tapped into the fundamental ‘why’ that motivates people to finally get it done:
Results: Listening to our audience increased sales and ROI
Digital will completions increased by 17% between the first and second iterations of our ad and the ease of the service also opened up these new customers to purchase Estate Assist, our range of estate protection products. This optional product purchase offered at the end of the online will service saw a 34% increase in sales.
Another improvement we saw after the ad change was a 40% increase in user registration for the digital will service. This allowed us to use this consented first-party data to retarget our audience, helping us to learn more about potential customers, and how we can curate our marketing further.
Key learnings:
- Given the right information in the right format, South Africans show their openness to switch from a traditional to a digital solution fairly easily.
- Listening to our customers was vital. The common drop-off mark in the will completion process meant our marketing was not speaking to the emotional heaviness of this process.
- Upper-funnel marketing is key in creating the demand to ultimately increase conversions. Without the right creative and messaging, trust could not have been established.
- Consented first-party data helped us convert customers who had initially dropped off and improved our knowledge of how long and complex the customer journey is for will drafting.
