What a week! Our second fully virtual Hearsay Summit has wrapped, and I’ve never been more inspired by the work our customers continue to do. One of my favorite aspects of Summit is seeing these tremendous achievements recognized and honored through our Innovator Awards. This year, we received so many great submissions, all of which were award-worthy.
Read on for this year’s final award categories and winners:
Most Innovative Compliance Strategy, Aly Nakkache and Maureen O’Grady, Equitable
Very few firms within our space use Instagram, and even fewer leverage Instagram for recruitment. In its first six weeks, Equitable’s Instagram pilot saw an engagement rate of 11.2—more than 10 times the average—validating the potential of Instagram as a network.
Aly Nakkache and Maureen O’Grady are true trailblazers when it comes to using Instagram for recruitment, and we look forward to seeing what they’ll do next.
Movers and Shakers Award for Social – Cully Eisenbeis and the Edward Jones team
We debuted a new category this year called Movers and Shakers, and this award unquestionably belongs to Cully Eisenbeis and the Edward Jones team. Not only did they roll out Hearsay Social to 18,000 financial advisors in 5 months, they saw 65% adoption since launching.
Edward Jones moved full speed ahead to digitally enable their branch teams over the past year—working tirelessly on a massive pre-approved library of content while also enabling access to branch office administrators and delegates—and this focus has paid off.
With the tremendous support of its advisors, it’s no surprise that Edward Jones earned the number 20 spot on the 2021 Fortune 100 best companies to work for!
Movers and Shakers Award for Relate – Ashley Biagini, New York Life
Ashley Biagini led a massive initiative and rollout to bring compliant texting to New York Life’s agents and field managers. With over 1,000 users now on Hearsay Relate—and positive feedback across the board—this feat is due in no small part due to Ashley’s dedication to behavior change, effective training and communication, and continued support to each agent and field manager. We are thrilled to see the continued growth and success of this program.
Exceptional ROI for Sites, Thrivent Sites Team
Sites was Thrivent’s number one marketing lead source across all of their marketing last year. By optimizing their digital presence, Thrivent advisors saw a 60% increase in site traffic, and a 21% jump in Sites leads year-over-year during the pandemic. Of potential clients completing forms on the advisor’s site, more than 1 in 4 were converted into new clients.
To drive additional impact, Thrivent has also integrated Sites lead flow into Salesforce to improve follow-up, speed, and visibility through enhanced funnel analytics.
Exceptional ROI for Social, Hannah Bland, Aviva Investors
Throughout 2020, Hannah’s motivated and determined approach to Aviva Investors’ social selling program produced many impressive results, including a 110% increase in website traffic from the prior year. Also last year, Aviva Investors garnered 23,000 social engagements from 3,500 social publishes, 50% of which were original content.
By tracking ROI, Hannah was able to surface critical insights to leadership, which helped inform Aviva Investors’ broader content and marketing strategy throughout the year. And by attributing web traffic to individual salespeople, she fostered a friendly, competitive environment that drove increased engagement with Hearsay.
Most Influential Leaders in Transforming the Client Experience, Caitlin Flood and Miriam Wolf, J.P. Morgan Wealth Management
Our most influential leaders in transforming the client experience were two leaders from the same organization: Caitlin Flood and Miriam Wolf at J. P. Morgan Wealth Management.
Previously, Chase Wealth Management advisors weren’t allowed to use social media for business. Caitlin and Miriam built the business case, received buy-in from multiple internal governance councils and piloted social media as a channel for their advisors. In a year marked by a massive shift to a digital reality, they improved their advisors’ ability to communicate with clients and prospects, and build their businesses with digital tools when in-person interactions were not possible.
Miriam and Caitlin also set a goal to increase the overall number of advisors in the program, improve female advisor representation, enhance the variety and volume of posts, and increase engagement, attaining phenomenal success in transforming the client experience!
Thank you to everyone who nominated themselves or a fellow leader this year, and congratulations again to all of our award winners. We’re so impressed by all that they’ve accomplished this year and can’t wait to see what they’ll tackle in the year ahead!
