Overview

Smart Invest is an enhanced digital Robo-Advice investment platform created by Sanlam Investments, part of the largest insurance company in Africa, Sanlam.Smart Invest helps its users navigate the complex world of investments and equips them with tools and guidance to help reach their financial goals - whether it be saving for their kids’ education, retirement, a special event, a new house, or simply for the purpose of investing. The guidance Smart Invest provides is tailored to each user’s specific financial goals. There is also a comprehensive blog with educational articles to help investors learn more about money basics, along with various calculators to help them prepare and understand how to reach their financial goals.

Needs and goals

Sanlam Investments partnered with Grapevine to help launch its Smart Invest project and effectively utilise technology to create a seamless user experience for prospects to invest via the Smart Invest platform.The primary goal was to increase the number of monthly investments made through the Smart Invest platform by 100%, over the next year. This would also mean they had to increase engagement and get more prospects using the Sanlam Smart Invest platform.Secondly, they wanted to use the Smart Invest platform as an onboarding tool to get more first-time investors exposed to Sanlam products and range of capabilities.

Solution

Working with Sanlam Investments, Grapevine scoped the Sanlam Invest project to account for 102 different email permutations and worked to find the most effective marketing automation solution focussing on conversion optimisation. This included database architecture, query development, and dynamic rulesets.Sanlam Invest prospects are nurtured with bespoke digital communication on a variety of channels, including email, SMS, and social channels, depending on their drop-off point during their online journey and the specific goal they’ve selected to save towards.Grapevine’s digital marketing specialists teamed up with the Sanlam Digital Marketing team to map out and design specific customer journeys and translate these into automated and personalised communication for prospects and customers. Grapevine’s developers also worked with Sanlam’s development team to integrate internal CRMs and databases with the chosen marketing automation solution to ensure a seamless management of data between systems as well as minimal requirement for manual resource intervention. Grapevine also collaborated with King James Digital to ensure closed-loop reporting on the project.To underpin the entire system, Grapevine provided Sanlam Investments with access, training, and support for the chosen AI Marketing Automation technology, Acoustic (formerly IBM Watson Marketing). With the Sanlam Investments team fully onboarded and trained on the Acoustic Platform, they can automate omnichannel client experiences at scale, communicate to their customers seamlessly via their preferred channel (i.e. email, SMS, and mobile push), score leads based on their behaviour and send targeted messages based on their score, integrate with many platforms (incl. social sharing), and much more.“With the ever-changing digital landscape, it was important for a business as established as ours to ensure that we adapt accordingly. Through partnering with Grapevine, we were most excited to leverage the capability afforded by the Acoustic platform. The marketing automation functions are designed to ensure significantly improved conversion rates, as well as contribute to an improved overall client experience,” says Ya’eesh Cader, Head of Digital and e-Commerce at Sanlam Investments Group.