60% of respondents do not have a will
83.3% men were prompted to take out a will after seeing an advert, compared to 16.7% of women
Less than 1% were influenced by national initiatives like Will Aid Month
Hyper-localised campaigns for this subject can increase engagement
Leading digital marketing agency, AccuraCast, has unveiled results of a survey of 1000 respondents about wills. The agency commissioned the survey after noticing that online searches for wills has peaked in December for the past five years.
The research showed that almost two thirds of respondents (59.8%) did not have a will. In addition, only 2% were prompted by adverts, meaning there is a big opportunity for advertisers to reach more consumers. Even less (0.4%) decided to write their will after seeing a national campaign such as Will Aid Month. The biggest factor for writing a will was having children (12.1%).
The survey from AccuraCast also found that men were more likely than women (83.3% to 16.7% respectively) to be prompted to write a will after seeing an advert. The demographic of 45 – 64 years were most receptive to national initiatives such as Will Aid Month with 77.8% (of the 0.4%) being influenced by this.
AccuraCast has run hyper-localised campaigns encouraging consumers to think about wills, running side by side adverts, with the consumer’s town name, versus without the town name. The test showed that having a customised advert resulted in a 23% drop in the cost per lead, along with a 35% increase in the click through rate, which are encouraging results in such a challenging market.
Jamie Mirchandani, managing director of One Life, a professional will writing business, said: “Wills should form an essential part of financial life planning – it is the only way people can ensure their wishes are carried out after they die. Without a will, people can’t just assume everything will pass on to their next of kin – the laws of intestacy can often be murky waters.”
Farhad Divecha, managing director and founder, AccuraCast, said: “With so few people still not having a will, we need to look at new ways we can reach consumers on this important topic.
“As the financial services sector is one of the areas we specialise in, we decided to run a trial to see the impact of using hyper-localisation on a campaign promoting wills. The results show that the cost per lead decreases substantially and the click through rate increases. It is well-known that personalisation is expected in marketing campaigns, over half of consumers think it should be standard and it would appear it is no different in this area.”
