Broker marketing leaders need to rethink digital, content, and experience before margin and retention start to slip.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sam is a strategic digital advisor and co-founder and CEO of 7DOTS, a digital innovation agency working with global firms and ambitious growth brands. With over 20 years’ experience across business strategy, digital experience and organisational capability, he helps leadership teams turn digital complexity into commercial growth. Sam specialises in designing clear, trust-building digital journeys that improve acquisition, retention and long-term value, particularly in complex markets such as insurance and financial services.
A Soft Market Squeeze and a Buyer That’s Already Moved On
If you’re leading marketing at a broker right now, you’re probably feeling the squeeze. Premiums are softening, capacity is back, and clients have more choice than ever. Unfortunately, this means less loyalty. At the same time, you’re being asked to protect margin and prove ROI, probably without more budget. This, combined with required growth, make for potentially tough times.
The old playbook isn’t working like it used to, with more campaigns and traffic making less impact than expected. This is happening alongside a massive shift in buyer behaviour.
Clients and prospects are already using AI. They can ask better questions and receive faster answers, forming opinions before they even ever speak to a broker. AI tools aren’t quite replacing Search just yet, but they shape intent and shortlist providers, therefore influencing who feels credible from the get-go.
If your digital experience, including content and data, are still built for the world of Google searches and PDF downloads, you’re already behind.
Where Brokers Are Losing Ground Without Realising
Most brokers focus on price and placement in a soft market, but the real ground is lost in how buyers experience you.
Outdated journeys add a hidden cost
Your staff aren’t problem solvers, they’re there to advise. Slow or unclear journeys that require manual input creates a friction that hits all leads and renewals.
Marketing spend works against itself
If your website and propositions don’t clearly answer the buyer’s questions about risk, then conversion drops and CPA slowly climbs.
Content that AI (and therefore buyers) ignore
Plain language that clearly explains risks, sectors, and value is what surfaces in both Search and AI-driven discovery. If you’re content doesn’t do this, it won’t see the light of day.
Inconsistent touchpoints destroying trust
Consistency is key across the board. If your story changes from AI answers, to Search, to Email, then confidence drops. In a soft market, this can be deadly.
Good data, poorly used
If you’ve got the data, you should be using it to its full potential. Renewal, behaviour, and product data should trigger smarter retention and cross-selling, and if it doesn’t then growth stalls.
These are the most prominent areas where margin leaks, and it will continue to do so unless you make changes.
The Commercial Impact
For prospects:
- Lower visibility at the top of the funnel
- Fewer high-quality leads
- Drop-off caused by unclear or outdated experiences
- One-size-fits-all messaging in a world that expects relevance and personalisation
For existing clients:
- Weaker engagement between renewals
- Higher cost-to-serve due to poor self-service
- Retention that feels less certain each year
When ARPC flattens or renewals start slipping, it’s often not your proposition that’s the problem, it’s the experience around it.
How to Grow in a Soft Market
Aligning digital marketing, experience, content, and data is the key to growing in a soft market. When all these elements work together seamlessly, you’ll get found more easily. This means your journeys build confidence, not friction, and clients will stay longer and buy more. Acquisition also becomes more efficient, and retention becomes a compounding advantage. This is how brokers can grow despite soft-market pressure.
Why Digital Strategy is Now Non-Negotiable
AI didn’t start this shift, but it did accelerate it. In today’s world:
- Buyers judge you long before they speak to you
- Disconnected marketing and digital journeys undermine growth
- Unified data underpins profitable retention
- AI only works when the journey is designed well
- Digital experience is now the key differentiator in a soft market.
Digital is no longer just a channel, it’s the system that underpins acquisition, conversion, retention, and experience. Brokers who act now will feel the difference first, so it’s time to push towards new ways of working.
How Brokers Regain Control
A Three-Part Digital Growth Framework
At 7DOTS, we use a three-pillar model supported by our Waymaking process: Define, Deliver, Drive.
Pillar 1: Digital Marketing for Awareness & High-Intent Lead Generation
- Multi-channel acquisition across search, social, paid media and partnerships
- SEO strengthened with AI-aware structures and question-based content
- High-intent content that maps to commercial moments
- Predictive, data-driven targeting to reduce wasted spend
- AI-enabled automation for efficiency, without losing human judgment
Outcome: More of the right people discovering you, at lower cost, with higher intent.
Pillar 2: Digital Experience to Engage & Convert Prospects
- Websites built around user questions, not internal structures
- Personalised journeys tailored to sector, size and need
- Clear, plain-English explanations of risk and cover
- AI-powered tools (often RAG-based) to answer complex queries fast
- Frictionless pathways from first click to bound policy
Outcome: Higher conversion from visit → enquiry → quote → bound cover.
Pillar 3: Digital Experience to Retain, Upsell & Cross-Sell Existing Clients
- Client portals and self-serve functionality that reduce friction
- Renewal journeys that build value, not just reminders
- Intelligent cross-sell triggered by real behaviour and lifecycle data
- AI-assisted knowledge tools to help clients get answers instantly
- Experience-led retention strategies grounded in proactive communication
Outcome: Higher retention, deeper client value, more predictable growth.
The 7DOTS Advantage: Proof in Action
Global Insurance Broker – 130+ markets and an estimated $6.96B in premium revenue
Driving a +61% increase in organic traffic and +25% growth in total sessions, we helped a global insurance broker embed SEO, analytics governance, and digital compliance at scale.
Miller Insurance – Repositioning a global insurance specialist for confident growth
+40.9% increase in organic sessions and a +12.9% uplift in engagement rate, alongside a step-change in site performance, the new digital platform strengthened discoverability, credibility, and conversion.
A soft market is a stress test. It exposes where journeys are clunky and inefficiencies hide. AI-driven buyer behaviour doesn’t create those cracks but it does widen them.
However, this is where the opportunities lie. Brokers who bring digital marketing and experience together with AI and data across the whole client lifecycle will find their book growing, rather than just defending it. They’ll be easier to do business with than competitors who are lacking and still relying on old habits.
If retaining more of your book and increasing client value matters to you, this is the moment to move, before the soft market makes the decision for you.
→ Start with clarity. Let’s map your digital and marketing confidence gap – and identify where AI and better experiences can unlock value fastest.
