LOMA 291 Module 3 Exam Questions and Answers
Marketing - Answer -Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
Marketing plan - Answer -A written document that states the marketing goals for a product or product line, and describes the strategies and the implementation and control
efforts the company intends to use to achieve those goals.
Marketing plans contain:
- An executive summary, or a brief highlight of the purpose, recommendations, costs, and intended results
- A situation analysis, or an explanation of the environmental factors affecting marketing
operations
- Marketing objectives
- Marketing strategies
- Tactical/action programs, or a description of the activities to be carried out
- Budgets
- The evaluation methodology, or the controls the company will use to analyze progress toward goals
The Marketing Mix - Answer -To market effectively, marketing departments need to understand the details of
Product
Price
Promotion
Distribution
These four variables work together to attract customers, trigger buying, and help companies meet business goals.
Product - Answer -The goods, services, or ideas that a seller offers to customers to satisfy a need. Some specialization possibilities for insurance - Answer -Under life Insurance are term life, whole life, group life, universal life, variable universal life, indexed universal life, and
final expense insurance. Under medical are group major medical, individual major medical, and supplemental medical. Under disability are short-term disability, long-term disability, and long-term care.
or Under annuities are qualified annuities, nonqualified annuities, fixed annuities, variable annuities, indexed annuities, immediate annuities, and longevity insurance. Under retirement are 401(k), 401(b), and pension plans. Under voluntary benefits are dental insurance, vision insurance, and critical illness insurance.
Product Mix - Answer -The assortment of products a company offers.
Financial design - Answer -The combination of all the financial features of a product.
Which of these do you think are potential features of insurance product financial design? Choose all that apply.
Required premium payments
Mortality charges
Charges for features, benefits, guarantees, etc.
Fees for services, transactions, etc.
Charges (if any) for early surrender or withdrawal
How fast the cash value accumulates
Investment or interest rate minimum guarantees
Guaranteed income, accumulation, or withdrawal benefits - Answer -All of them
distribution - Answer -The collection of activities and resources involved in making products available for customers to buy.
Face to face meeting methods - Answer -Career agents
PPGAs
Independent agents
Broker/dealers
Registered investment advisors (RIAs)
Banks and other depository institutions
Other insurance companies
Employee benefits brokers
direct to consumer methods - Answer -Email
Company website
Phone
Mail Promotion - Answer -The collection of activities that companies use to make customers aware of their offerings and to influence customers to purchase, and distributors to sell, a product.
3 types of promotion:
- personal selling
- advertising - publicity
personal selling - Answer -conversation between a sales agent and one or more prospective customers, either face to face or over the phone. Insurers use personal selling extensively, because it is an effective way to convey information about a complex product.
he customer can ask questions to clarify information
The financial professional can customize the message to fit the situation
Advertising - Answer -Any paid form of nonpersonal communication or promotion about a company or its products or services that an identified sponsor generates and transmits through any type of media
Institutional advertising - Answer -Advertising that seeks to promote a general image of the company rather than to explain a specific product. Also known as image advertising.
product advertising - Answer -Any advertising used to promote a specific product or service.
publicity - Answer -Any form of nonpaid communication about a person, place, thing, or cause.
Another marketing mix model: The four C's - Answer -Customer: The insurer analyzes who its customers are, what their needs are, and what products it can provide to meet those needs.
Cost: The insurer examines the value of its product for customers and the appropriate price to ask, given the alternative products available from competitors.
Convenience: The insurer ensures that customers can learn about and purchase its products in the ways that best meet their needs and preferences.
Communication: The insurer communicates with its customers over multiple channels to
create an ongoing relationship that will promote customer loyalty.
Marketing Mix Objectives - Answer -- Fit together so that each one supports the others: The type of product a company offers determines the type of distribution methods the insurer uses. The type of distribution an insurer chooses for a product, in turn, helps determine the product's price.
- Align with the company's overall strategic goals: If a company's strategic goal is to be an industry leader in sales of term life insurance, the marketing mix should include specific strategies for customer, cost, convenience, and communication that will allow the company to sell term life insurance policies to customers more successfully than its competitors can.
- support the company's positioning strategy: Through positioning, an insurer attempts to distinguish itself from other insurers in the marketplace by building a company image or product image that contrasts with the images competitors offer. An insurer may position itself on the basis of company or product attributes, types of products offered, price and quality of products, markets serviced, or distribution characteristics.
- Support the company's branding strategy: Companies develop branding strategies to distinguish themselves among competitors. A company's brand—such as its name, slogan, and visual elements like a logo or color scheme—can draw customers to that company. To develop brand loyalty among customers, insurers need to create positive reactions to the brand by delivering positive customer experiences.
positioning - Answer -The process by which a company establishes and maintains in customers' minds a distinct place, or position, for itself and its products.
branding - Answer -A company's efforts to create public recognition and positive reactions toward its brand.
brand - Answer -A collection of elements that the company uses to identify itself, a product line, or a product and to differentiate it from other companies or products.
Insurers often substitute the term "financial design" for the marketing mix variable commonly known as
A. Product
B. Price
C. Place
D. Promotion - Answer -Because insurance and annuity products have a number of financial features rather than a single, identifiable price, insurers typically use the term "financial design" rather than "price."
"Distribution" is a term commonly used in insurance for the marketing mix variable known as
A. Product
B. Price
C. Place
D. Promotion - Answer -C. - "Distribution " is used for "place" to describe all of the activities involved in making products available for customers to buy.
A form of nonpaid communication about a person, place, thing, or cause.
A. Advertising