In our Anatomy of a Solution series, we take a look at some direct challenges and disruptive solutions that Amsive has driven for clients. This week, we set out to prove to a regional Medicare client why a one-size-fits-all approach simply won’t cut it.
The Basics
Medicare consumers are a loyal bunch. McKinsey research found that, in the last five years, 81 percent of 75-and-older Medicare consumers renewed their plans without taking steps to review and shop for new plans. Seventy-six percent of the 71-74-year-old demographic, and 70 percent of the 65-69-year-old demographic did the same.
It goes without saying that, for the industry, retention is relatively easy. New customer acquisition[amsive_tooltip term=”customer-acquisition”] on the other hand, is an incredibly difficult challenge to take on.
That’s just what Amsive was tasked to do for a regional Medicare client, based on the east coast, that had been critically underwhelmed by the one-size-fits-all modeling strategy put in place by a former agency that just didn’t deliver the results the client needed. It was a make-or-break moment for us to brainstorm and deploy a hyper-focused audience[amsive_tooltip term=”audience-strategy”] model, and test strategies to increase new member leads for the industry’s all-important annual enrollment period.
The Challenge
On the surface, that catch-all approach seems like the most obvious choice for providers. The numbers don’t lie — beneficiaries tend not to switch from unsuitable plans to ones that may better meet their needs simply out of loyalty and convenience.
Cost isn’t even a factor when determining whether to renew with an existing provider. The same McKinsey survey mentioned above found that only 14 percent of respondents noted they were in the lowest-cost plan, and half weren’t even sure how their premiums compared in terms of overall cost. So, shifting factors within a one-size-fits-all solution weren’t the right path.
For Amsive, the pandemic produced a particularly difficult double whammy of slowed marketing activities on one side, and forced even more risk-averse consumers to stick with what they had and to embrace the wait-and-see approach on the other. But we did have what didn’t work for the client in their former agency’s underperforming campaign.
Personalized messaging through an omni-channel strategy drove an effective campaign that bounced the client back from the brink.
The Solution
In a sense, Amsive’s differentiator was the foundational data and deep understanding of member bases and prospect market landscapes that drive our fundamental campaigns.
Given the challenges above, the plan of attack was to dig deep and cast a very niche net. A more focused model[amsive_tooltip term=”predictive-model”] test strategy attempted to deliver more effective, more personalized messaging that would garner more leads and boost plan enrollment that the client sorely lacked.
We took on this challenge by trying to understand and then define what we saw as the three key desired business outcomes for this model test strategy. They included:
- Lead rate
- Cost per lead
- Cost per acquisition
To drive value to these outcomes, we developed an audience strategy using member and proprietary data to create county-level prospect models, then dug deeper into targeted persona[amsive_tooltip term=”buyer-persona”] groupings that would allow for more poignant and relevant messaging.
The test campaign included both synchronized direct mail and integrated digital advertising to reach prospects in a synchronized, personalized sequence. The last step was to measure the results across the three key KPIs above.
Amsive’s differentiator was the foundational data and deep understanding of member bases and prospect market landscapes that drive our fundamental campaigns.
The Results
Amsive knows healthcare marketing, and the findings bore that out.
- A 427 percent increased lead rate
- A 56 percent reduction in cost-per-lead
- A 45 percent reduction in cost-per-acquisition
Personalized messaging through an omnichannel[amsive_tooltip term=”omnichannel”] strategy drove an effective campaign that bounced the client back from the brink and broke them free from a stagnant, one-size-fits -all approach. In short, it got the results they were after. It proved the growing impact that focused audience model test strategies can have when Medicare clients need to crack the lead generation[amsive_tooltip term=”lead-generation”] and retention equation.
