The Shipyard Launches Smart Harbor, Providing Digital Tools and Strategic Services to Insurance Agencies

Independent Company to Lead Digital Transformation for Insurance Agents

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Apr 18, 2017, 07:43 ET

COLUMBUS, Ohio, April 18, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Shipyard, one of the nation's fastest growing independent marketing firm, today announces the launch of Smart Harbor, a new company dedicated to marketing transformation in the insurance industry.

"Smart Harbor is the leader in helping thousands of insurance agents thrive in the digital age," said Rick Milenthal, CEO of The Shipyard. "Our agent partners source billions of dollars in premiums reaching every North American market."

Left to Right: Rick Milenthal, CEO, The Shipyard; Ben Clarke, President, Smart Harbor; Jason Walker, Managing Partner of Smart Harbor

The company offers an integrated suite of localized website, customer relationship management (CRM) and web meeting technologies to insurance agents and carriers. The leadership team includes a diverse talent pool of former agents, carrier executives, strategic marketers, software developers and data scientists.

"As more and more insurance transactions are done without human involvement, we wanted to double down on the role of the trusted advisor – that agent who helps consumers navigate the complex insurance landscape – and find the best solutions," notes Ben Clarke, President of Smart Harbor. "We're able to give insurance agents a way to manage marketing, prospecting and retention initiatives through one consolidated dashboard that leads to predictable growth and improvements in retention."

In addition to its commitment to agents, Smart Harbor provides insurance carriers with the opportunity to utilize its suite of solutions.

"With a focus on ease of doing business for the distribution channel, insurance carriers are becoming active investors in the Insurtech space," explains Jason Walker, Managing Partner of Smart Harbor. "Carriers acknowledge the production and retention value of its most trusted agent partners and view Smart Harbor's solutions as the connective tissue that leads to deeper partnerships and greater insights into marketing expenses and agent performance."

In addition to its core offerings, Smart Harbor also provides customized social media, email marketing, paid media and demand generation services to round out its role as a full-service growth resource.

About Smart Harbor

Smart Harbor is the leader in melding the ultimate set of digital marketing, CRM and communication technologies with personal human counsel to help thousands of insurance agents grow and retain their niche lines of business. Smart Harbor was incubated inside The Shipyard, and has now grown to being established as its own brand.

About The Shipyard

The Shipyard is a leading, independent marketing consultancy and the world's first "marketing engineering" firm. It has experienced exponential growth since its inception in 2013 and is creating digital transformation for the world's most significant brands - where high velocity content creation meets big data, where competitive strategy meets creative and disruptive advertising.

The company was co-founded by industry veteran Rick Milenthal, who was CEO of the leading national digital agency, Engauge, now a part of Publicis Groupe; and marketing technology pioneer, Ben Clarke, who was CEO of People To My Site.

Lynne Collins
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SOURCE The Shipyard