Scout InsurTech Spotlight with Daniel Smith

Daniel Smith is Co-Founder and CMO of Market Retrievers, a full marketing team for your business without the costs of staffing and hassles of training. Daniel was interviewed by Andrew Daniels, Co-Founder at Scout InsurTech and Co-Founder and President at CrashBay.

Daniel, everyone wants to be a thought leader, but it takes time. What are the key steps to building real credibility?

“It starts with authenticity—and I don’t mean that as a buzzword. You need real interactions and real knowledge to share. One overlooked approach is engaging with others on platforms like LinkedIn. Don’t just create your own posts—comment and interact with people. Find conversations worth joining and provide value there. That interaction can build credibility more effectively than just pushing your own content. LinkedIn even prompts you to add insight to trending posts, and that’s a great way to build your base before expanding into your own content strategy.”

Many early-stage insurtech founders struggle with audience engagement. What are they missing?

“It's often the people aspect. Founders sometimes forget to highlight who’s behind the company—who’s building it, who’s advising them, who their early users or case studies are. Insurance is a relationship business, and that extends to social media. People want to trust and relate to who they’re buying from. Founder-led marketing works when people know your story: why you started the company, your background and what drives you. If you can tell that story in an authentic way, people will connect. Even if they’re not customers yet, they might follow along and engage later when the timing is right.”

How can insurance companies and insurtech founders shift their messaging to better connect with their audience?

“They need to understand who their audience is—really define their ideal customer profile (ICP). Are you targeting small family-owned agencies? Large brokers? Tailor your story to them. Instead of leading with features, lead with the problems your product solves. For example, instead of saying, ‘Our tool does X,’ you could say, ‘We know it’s hard to do Y—that’s why we built this.’ Focus on what matters to your audience, not just what your technology does. Get personal, get specific and connect those dots.”

Are there companies or individuals who have done this well? What strategies worked for them?

“A few come to mind. Brenden Corr, formerly of Loss Run Pro, now at Project 55, creates authentic LinkedIn content by reflecting on real industry conversations and personal anecdotes or concerns of professional life in insurance. It's not just marketing—it’s discussion-based and invites others in.

Meg McKeen does a fantastic job sharing the female perspective in the industry as well as her own journey. She brings in topics like being a “digital nomad”, navigating bias and balancing multiple personal and professional roles—then ties it back to her work. It resonates because it’s honest and relatable.

Curtis Goldsborough aka LO$$ Ratio uses humor and pop culture references to tie trending content back to insurance realities. It’s entertaining but insightful.

Carey Wallace at AgencyFocus shares real-world case studies and stories of how they've helped agencies with perpetuation, financial strategy and valuation. When people see that, they say, ‘That’s similar to our situation.’ It sparks meaningful engagement.

All of these examples have one thing in common: they’re true to their voice and style. They balance personal content with their business mission, which is key. If your team—especially business development—aligns around a shared content strategy, it becomes a lot more effective.”

What will marketing in the insurance space look like in five years? How is AI changing the approach to SEO?

“Marketing looks totally different today than it did five years ago, and the same will be true five years from now. Social media has been a huge driver of growth for us, even more than other content types. But, platforms shift—who knows if TikTok will be around in a year—so you have to stay flexible.

Video will still be big, but how we consume and create it will likely evolve. And yes, AI will play an even bigger role. That said, AI can’t do it all—it’s like having an intern. You still need to guide it, edit it and humanize it.

Search is changing too. Artificial Intelligence is curating search results and citing specific content. It’s more important than ever to create detailed, granular content that answers real questions. Google and others are pulling in AI-generated summaries, but they link back to original sources. You want to be that cited source.

In short, we’ll need more content—better targeted, more human and optimized for the way AI presents search results. Understanding how these algorithms work and how they pull in content will be critical moving forward.”

Scout InsurTech Thanks Its Presenting Partner

And Our Scout InsurTech Partners