Having an online presence isn’t enough anymore - brokers need to have SEO and digital marketing strategies in place to ensure their customers are finding them, and not their competitors, online, an outsourcing expert says.
Christchurch-based outsourcing company Tandem said 75% of consumers don’t scroll past the first page of Google when researching companies online, so if your company doesn’t feature in the top organic search results, your customers simply won’t find you and you’ll miss out on valuable leads.
“Is it important? No, it’s now critical to have good SEO and digital marketing,” Tandem co-founder Chris Cameron said. “It’s more crucial these days than ever before to track who are your customers and where they are with your service. A dedicated CRM system provides you with up to date data on the state of your business and usually provides you with easy to use marketing tools to grow your business further.”
Cameron said one of the biggest issues he sees are businesses not running the numbers, which he added was generally down to a lack of time and skills.
“Having regular data analysis done can greatly enhance the understanding of what is actually happening in your business, and therefore what is the next thing you need to do,” he said. “Outsourcing data analysis just makes sense as it takes time to sort through data in meaningful ways, and when the cost savings are readily available why would you not outsource this and stay focused on your customers growing your business?”
The benefits of outsourcing include accessing in-demand skill sets, reducing labour costs by up to 70% and removing administration jobs so that brokers can focus on the tasks at hand and build their businesses.
“By outsourcing you can reduce your costs, increase your margins and get back more time to do what you do best, providing more service to your customers whether through using marketing automation or the personal touch or a blend of both,” he noted.
Tandem outsources to Bangalore (India), which has a roughly six-hour time difference to New Zealand. Cameron said this time difference worked in his customers’ favour because it extended the workday into the night.
“Technology can enable businesses to be more available to their customers than ever before even at 10pm,” he pointed out. “Outsourcing provides options for businesses to provide their customers with service outside normal hours with no loss in quality and communication levels.”
The attitude towards outsourcing skills and talent is changing in New Zealand too, he suggested.
“Kiwis like the idea of using the global talent pool but there is a lot of fear about how to do it and whether it would actually work for their business,” he explained. “Being able to access a local provider like any other supplier in New Zealand suddenly makes this a reality for many businesses.”
Cameron said the robo-advice exemption the Financial Markets Authority (
FMA) announced last month opened up massive opportunities for brokers to reach a wider audience, and by outsourcing software and IT capabilities, they could build cost-effective platforms to reach this new customer segment.
“Software development has long enjoyed the benefits of outsourcing,” he said. “Being able to provide digital advice means advisers can now build what they need cost effectively to innovate their business. Outsourcing can be as little as a third of the local software development cost. If they try to get it done locally the costs are simply too great. Outsourcing opens a world of possibilities.”
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