Promoting Surety Bonding in 2019: the Roadmap Ahead

The NASBP public relations campaign effort, “Be Guaranteed to Succeed,” continues in high gear in 2019, with plans for a greater push on social media and through digital advertising. 2018 was a year in which NASBP laid the foundation for this effort: analyzing market research, launching a campaign website (https://www.nasbp.org/guaranteed/home), creating the first round of marketing assets, identifying initial advertising placements in print and electronic media, producing a series of contractor testimonial videos on the advantages of surety relationships, speaking to the broader surety community and to stakeholders, and many other actions. Some of those actions are portrayed graphically in the 2018 NASBP Highlights: The Year in Review publication that you should have received if you are a key contact and that is available from the NASBP website at https://www.nasbp.org/informed/highlights.

We are learning a great deal as we move forward with this initiative and look forward to applying the lessons learned to the strategies employed this year. We intend to expand our target audiences to include not just public and private owners and contractors but also lenders and design professionals as well. We will continue to work with our outside consultants to update our Producer Communications Toolkit (login required) and to create enticing graphics and animations to wrap our messages about the advantages of surety bonding. We will be producing a second series of testimonial videos engaging owners, lenders, and others, which will be pushed out in social media channels and available from the campaign website.

Already this year, NASBP has secured digital advertising in the International Risk Management Institute Construction Risk Manager e-newsletter, placed banner ads on the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) website, conducted a scaled LinkedIn advertising campaign, and run a NewsUSA syndicated article, “Surety Bonds: What They Are and Why They Matter,” in 2100+ media channels throughout the country, including the web properties of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Providence Journal-Bulletin, Columbus Dispatch, Minneapolis StarTribune, and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, among many other city and municipal news venues. These are just the campaign actions in the first 60 days of the New Year, with much more to come.

Key to the effectiveness of this campaign is the adoption of the messaging by the surety community. NASBP committees, such as the Industry Relations Committee, are making support of this initiative a priority and are looking at how best to encourage local surety organization involvement and to garner increased activity by NASBP member agencies and affiliates. A message to be emphasized is that all can use existing campaign assets for their own social media outreach. The Annual Meeting Program Planning Committee has incorporated information on and a presentation about the campaign in the Annual Meeting program in Austin, Texas, including how to leverage use of existing assets and messaging. On Monday, April 15, during the opening General Session, Will Taliaferro, a principal with the heralded political and advertising firm of +gmmb, headquartered in Washington, DC, with offices in Seattle and in San Francisco, will speak on the genesis of the public relations campaign, explain how to leverage the promotional assets developed, and relate the importance of a sustained campaign to move the advantages of surety bonding to a more prominent place in the minds of stakeholders and decision-makers.

NASBP continues to work hard to promote and to prosper the surety industry. The end game of the campaign is to attract and to direct those wishing to learn more about surety, no matter who they are, to the single most important asset of and best ambassador for the industry—YOU, the dedicated surety bond professional.

​