After losing business due to technical issues and communications not going out as expected, Pattern was in need of a marketing automation solution that would get the job done. They chose Ortto, and since have seen open rates as high as 64.7% – three times higher than the industry average.

It takes physicians over a decade to get qualified in their field – that’s a big sacrifice and an even bigger investment. So, what happens if, after completing their training, a physician cannot work due to an injury or illness?

This was the question that sparked an idea between two friends, and in 2013 Pattern was born. Today, Pattern is an independent broker of true own-occupation disability insurance that specializes in educating doctors about protecting their income and their training investment.

In order to educate doctors about disability and life insurance and to assist them in finding the right-fit policy, Pattern needed to have a robust and streamlined sales process. However, they were experiencing some major difficulties that were inhibiting key processes and causing them to lose business as a consequence.

Making the switch from Marketing Cloud to Ortto

Pattern were using Marketing Cloud to power their marketing efforts, but for Mica Shtewi and Eric Bork, Tech Manager and Marketing Manager at Pattern, the need to find a smarter solution became very clear when the software they were using was creating problems both internally and externally.

“We were using Marketing Cloud but we lost some business last year due to technical issues and communications not going out as they should,” explains Shtewi. “And it was very taxing to use. We had three people from our office trying to figure it out at all times – and we’re a small company, so putting three people on one thing is a lot of work.”

Bork explains how even the simplest marketing tasks were challenging. “We wanted to be able to send emails reliably and with dynamic options, and have confidence that they were being delivered and tracked in useful ways,” says Bork. “Also important were the interactions we were having at each stage of the sales journey and automating those journeys. Marketing Cloud wasn’t able to cut it.” 

When researching other software, Pattern found that Ortto offered the sorts of capabilities Marketing Cloud didn’t, and could promise to address many of the challenges they were facing.

Integrating Ortto with Salesforce to win opportunities 

Pattern’s sales process revolves largely around their opportunities in Salesforce, so they wanted software that would allow them to use events in Salesforce to trigger communications at different stages of the sales cycle.

It was clear that when it came to achieving a robust Salesforce integration, Ortto was the best choice. Pattern were able to easily integrate their Salesforce data into Ortto and set up custom activities to trigger personalized communications with clients and leads.

“Our Journey communication is vital to our business, so being able to target things in our CRM in a smart way is huge," says Shtewi. “We are always trying to get clients to take the next action: ‘You’ve done a quote request, have you scheduled a time to meet? You’ve met with us, can you now make an application with us? You’ve made an application, can you sign that application? Then you’re in underwriting, can you sign that policy?’”

Ortto facilitated the desired Journey communications. “Nobody else out there has what Ortto has,” says Shtewi.

Tailoring email communications to nurture different audiences

Pattern’s email marketing strategy is built around the lifecycle of physician training and key academic dates. This way, they can deliver tailored messaging that nurtures prospective clients down the sales funnel.

Bork explains how Pattern uses these audiences: “We have an annual cycle that starts in September, where we get a new batch of doctors who are wrapping up their Residencies and Fellowships within the year, and we start a slow nurture journey that builds up as we approach the end of the academic year."

“We also have an audience of people connected to hospitals where doctors are completing their Residencies, such as program coordinators, and the messaging we send to them is a little different,” says Bork.

Automating nurture journeys for clients who have completed a quote request enables Pattern to send tailored messaging that educates doctors and hospital personnel about the importance of disability insurance. So, by the time the academic year closes, doctors are ready to pick up the phone and have a conversation with Pattern’s sales team about finding the right insurance policy for them.

Pattern also built a journey to recover leads who miss a scheduled meeting, using Salesforce data to create highly-specific entry and exit criteria. They target a specific type of opportunity, the number of meetings, and the funnel stage when the meeting was scheduled. This journey triggers one minute after the meeting is missed, and includes a total of 8 emails nudging the customer to reschedule.

Open rates are three times higher than the industry average

Shtewi and Bork are pleased with how intuitive Ortto is because it means they have been able to configure it in ways that suit their business’s needs. “When you’re moving into a world we’re moving into, you have so many data sources that you’re trying to bring together and various communications to get clients moving through the sales process,” says Shtewi. “We needed something flexible that works, and with Ortto we can target people the way we want to target them.”

And when tracking the results of Journeys in Ortto, Shtewi likes what she sees: “I have seen open rates and click rates that look great – our average open rate has been as high as 64.7%.”

Shtewi also notes the high-quality customer support Pattern has received since adopting Ortto. “We’ve felt really supported. Every time we have a question, it’s answered quickly, and we were helped until we felt confident with the platform,” explains Shtewi. “And even when we can’t do something, [Ortto] go and build it right away so that we can – and that’s huge!”