Master health insurance marketing

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Marketing in the Age of
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Health Insurance Marketing Update: Q4 2014
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2 Mastering Health Insurance Marketing in the Age of Health Care Reform
CONTENTS.
01
Beginning the Journey:
Campaign Startup Challenges
02
Implementing 4 Key Strategies to
Reach Acquisition Goals
• Sizing and Segmenting the New Market
• Understanding What Makes New Prospects Tick
• Auditing the Competitive Landscape
• Forecasting Leads and Implementing Analytics
03
Gearing up for 2015: TPG’s Essential
Marketing Checklist
04
Resources

01

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an
optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
One year after struggling to start up marketing campaigns
in the age of healthcare reform, the words of Winston
Churchill couldn’t ring more true. Yes, everything is
changing, and that creates difficulties. But, on the plus
side, never before has the American health insurance
market had the opportunity to engage 48,611,600
prospective new members. It’s no surprise then that the
competition is fiercer than ever before.
With the health insurance exchanges now open, your
big spend flowing into media channels, and not a lot of
information yet on what’s happening and why, it’s a good
time to review the situation. Where did you start? What
strategies did you put in place? And what do you need to
monitor in the crucial months ahead?
No two businesses are alike, but it’s fair to say most of the
nation’s health insurance companies shared many of the
same start-up challenges and assumptions. Here’s a quick
recap.

In the beginning (2010), we knew . . .
• 16.3% of Americans were uninsured
• 31% relied on the government for health insurance, up from
24.4% in 1999
• The percentage of individuals covered by employer-provided
healthcare had fallen to 55.3%, down from 64.1% in 2000
And we knew that by the time these uninsured entered the
health insurance market in 2013-2014, a huge knowledge gap
about insurance products, processes, prices, benefits, and
much more would have to be closed. The federal government
would do its part, but that wouldn’t be enough to ensure a new
customer would understand what your insurance firm had to
offer and why it was preferable to your competitors’ offerings.
From the marketing campaign planning perspective, it meant
that merely launching a brand awareness/lead generation
campaign wouldn’t cut it. We had to begin at the beginning—
with education—and rethink our marketing strategies,
consumers’ journeys, budget allocations, and channels.

The startup campaign model that emerged was a two-pronged
approach that put the focus on 1) education and awareness
and 2) acquisition.
Education
Generate creative content
across their journey
Awareness
Establish Health plan provider
as the trusted source of
protection and advice
Acquisition
Drive uninsured consumers
to Brand to learn about and
purchase our products
These assumptions also informed campaign planning:
• The uninsured customer’s lack of experience with health
insurance to confusion, worry, and uncertainty.
• A lower awareness of health insurance meant a lower
awareness of all insurance carriers and perceived parity in
products and service.
• The media couldn’t be counted on to provide a balanced
positioning of Affordable Care Act impacts.
• Consumers wanted to shop where they could compare plans
and prices.
• Competitors continued to invest large sums of marketing
dollars to establish their brands in the minds of consumers.

• Broad promotion of the federal exchange expected by the
federal government.
• Navigators and brokers played vital roles in guiding
customers to products and marketplaces.
• Establishing and re-establishing connections with customers
through communications helped keep brands top of mind.
• Retaining current membership were critical to success.
So we’re now in the fourth quarter of 2014: Are you positioned
for success? TPG’s Marketing Plan Milestones timeline below
maps a statewide insurance provider’s deployment dates for the
wide range of education and acquisition tools and activities—
benchmarks that serve firms of all sizes.

02
Implementing 4 Key Strategies
to Reach Acquisition Goals

Implementing 4 Key Strategies
to Reach Acquisition Goals
Like businesses, no two acquisition campaigns are exactly
alike, but it would be hard to argue with the notion that
health insurance carriers are looking for the same results:
more new members at the lowest possible cost.
From our perspective as insurance marketing strategists,
it’s clear some strategies and tactics are working better
than others. Below we share four strategies and how we
developed them for local, regional, and statewide carriers.
1. Sizing and Segmenting the New Market
In the past year we have seen a significant—and
increasingly sophisticated— shift in the way marketers and
health insurance firms are approaching segmentation of
their consumer market. Healthcare reform has contributed
to that trend as insurance providers find themselves
refocusing their attention from groups and employers to
individual consumers—from B2B to B2C.
With the Affordable Care Act, the old assumptions no
longer hold water. In rethinking segmentation from a
holistic perspective, the healthcare research team

of Brent Walker, Casey Albertson, and Rob Freeberg offered the
Consumer Diagnostic, an updated model sponsored by TPG.
It focuses on four key questions—Who, Why, What, and How—
that provide insights and guidance for effective Demographic
and Socioeconomic, Behavioral, Attitudinal, and Psychographic
segmentation.
For example:
Who: A large regional firm began its campaign development by
looking at the total number of uninsured in their market
and then determining the percentage that would—and
would not—be eligible for Medicaid or subsidized care.

They first determined the percentage of individuals in their
market between ages 24 and 54 as well as the percentage
in blue-collar jobs. They also figured prospects’ incomes
relative to the Federal Poverty Level (FPL - a measurement
that revealed more than a third were under), which became
a number that would be critical to their product offerings
and messaging.
Why: A statewide carrier seeking to identify its most promising
segments of opportunity and what motivates them to act
planned a segmentation approach that rolled out in four
steps. The plan called for them to:
1. Select key attitudinal variables relative to health
insurance and personal finances.
2. Develop a cluster analysis with a two-segment solution—
for uninsured IU65 and another for Medicare Eligible.
3. Profile each segment with demographics, behaviors, and
attitudes.
4. Analyze segmentation outputs against the TPG
Healthcare Core Needs Pillars.

What: To drill down into the drivers and motivations between
the uninsured and insured in their market, another
health insurance company conducted interviews with
500 individuals that were pre-screened based on
demographics, age, income, zip, uninsured, or insured.
Respondents were all from working households and
represented African American, Hispanic and White/
Caucasian ethnicities. The knowledge the carrier gained
from the interviews informed their understanding of the
new prospects’ wants, needs, and desires. The result: an
essential framework of the motivations and behaviors
of three key segments—the “Young Invincibles,” “Low-
Income Working Families,” and “Single Low Income”—
toward Health, Productivity, Balance, and Knowledge.
Insights from Simmons data to create these need pillars

Once segmented, the insurance firm was able to analyze target
customers’ needs according to the TPG Healthcare Core
Needs Pillars.
These core needs form the support structure for the segments’
campaign messaging and customer journeys.
• Simple, for example, points to plans that are easy to
understand, easy to purchase, oriented toward healthcare
reform, with one-stop shopping and easy to realize claims.
• Personal suggests plans with dedicated case managers,
illness and health management programs, preventive care, an
outstanding help center, and hyper-local service.
• Affordable means, “Price within my budget” and “good
value,” with a variety of plan and payment options.
• “Beyond Insurance” implies, “Recognize me as an individual,
offer me support and advocacy, and reward me for good
health choices.”

Taken together, the segmentation and analyses provide valuable
insights for:
• Sizing the market by opportunity.
• Targeting the appropriate customers to increase profitability.
• Increasing profitability by understanding the risk of each
segment.
• Better matching our customer preferences.
And the research guides us in addressing the last key question
of how to tailor communications to the ways in which customers
want to interact.
2. Understanding What Makes Your New Prospects Tick

A health insurance company that had made inroads into its
Hispanic market in years past recognized that with the barriers
of income significantly reduced by the Affordable Care Act, they
could finally put their muscle behind an all-out campaign.
The temptation, of course, was to take their tried-and-true route
to lead generation and conversion and simply scale it. Taking
that decision would have meant tweaking their general individual
and family health insurance messages and increasing their
spend in Hispanic media under the assumption that these new
prospects would take essentially the same consumer journey as
their existing members.
The company chose a different, more focused—and more
promising—route based on two fundamental understandings:
1. Hispanics are not one homogeneous group.
2. Hispanic marketing must now be viewed as a core business,
not a project.
They also delved into prospective Hispanic customers’
approaches to healthcare as they are shaped by a holistic view of
health, a bent for living in the present, and comfort with medical
pluralism, expertly navigating both the traditional and alternative
healthcare worlds.

They gained two more vital insights:
1. Having good health is connected to perceptions of
well-being, but, at the same time, being and staying healthy
is stressful due to cultural barriers that make it hard to be
proactive about health.
2. Health is about being well today, and well-being includes
being connected to family, spirituality, and community.
Because “familialismo” is a core Hispanic value, the family is
involved in all aspects of healthcare, from discussing treatment
options to patient care, information sharing, referrals, and
recommendations. At the helm is Mama. Long known as the
caretaker and nurturer in Latino families, she is emerging as a
more proactive healthcare gatekeeper, and is upgrading her
tool belt. She is relying more on the Internet. At the same time,
she appreciates and welcomes information from sources she
trusts to be reliable—family and friends, social and professional
networks, church, community leaders, associations and
organizations, and media.

Research also told us:
Hispanics are looking to insurance companies to help them with
rising costs, a conclusion supported by data on their needs,
attitudes, and shopping behavior.
Hispanics trust the insurance industry is treating them fairly.1
• 16% Hispanic vs. 7 % NH White
Hispanics feel they need to start searching for better
insurance rates.1
• 33% Hispanic vs. 23% NH White
More than half of Hispanics use online to search for insurance.1
• 59% Hispanic vs. 46% NH White
With this knowledge, the company was ready to examine
channels and plan messages for lead generation and nurturing.
Source: 1) Futures Multi-Cultural Marketing Study 2010 (Yankelovich) Trust based on top 3
box/Search for insurance by those who are not doing this but should start/ Internet access for
insurance based among those who go online and use the Internet. - Base: 16+

3. Auditing the Competitive Landscape
Who and how large are your competitors’ target markets?
How are they reaching them? Through which channels? With
what size budget and where is it allocated?
When a West Coast insurance company approached TPG
to audit their competitive landscape in order to answer
those questions, one of the first places we looked was a new
exchange. At the time, in March 2013, it was anticipated the
exchange would invest more than $40 million in education
and outreach, with two-thirds of the plan allocated to TV
and radio. Ethnic marketing, including PR, partnerships, and
events also were expected to receive a significant portion of
the spend.
In that environment, it would have been reasonable to assume
that competitors would launch equally aggressive education
and awareness efforts. However, our research into the national
and local competition’s online and offline presence revealed
that while two major national firms were pursuing that
strategy, others were not.

We found that the microsites and landing pages of the two major
national firms offered:
• Engaging and clear online presences and well-defined paths
to conversion
• Multiple interactive tools such as comparison, doctor’s finder,
cost estimator, and health evaluator
• Health and wellness education and plans information available
via video, podcasts, recipes, and downloadable PDFs
• Family-focused creative
Meanwhile, other large firms in the market offered only basic
information, and the microsites and landing pages of local/
aggregator competitors provided fundamental information and
a simple path to conversion but limited educational content on
plans, health, and wellness.
Research extended to competitors’ plans and budgets for radio,
DRTV, paid search, alternative media, and direct mail—useful
information for the development of budget assumptions for
creative, production, and media, including budget allocation per
channel. This research, along with projections for leads, cost per
lead, conversion rate, sales, and cost per sale, were incorporated
into a media pipeline model (below). The pipeline, supported
by the insurance firm’s thorough research of the competition,
contributed to the marketing team’s case for a significant
investment in the company’s campaign.

As Henry J. Kaiser once declared, “Taste the relish to be found
in competition—in having put forth the best within you.”
Media Pipeline Model - Building a Solid Investment Case
IFP Latino
4. Forecasting Leads and Implementing Analytics
An accurate forecast of volume and cost of leads and sales
across channels fosters financial accountability in lead
generation programs. Take the case of a health insurance carrier
whose goal for the 2013-2014 campaign is to gain 14,500 new
members by the end of 2014.

Based on its segmentation, audit of the competitions’ channel
usage, and available resources, they projected a total budget
of $2MM, with 16% allocated to Education & Awareness and
84% to Acquisition. Given their membership acquisition goal
and budget, what they wanted to know is their cost per lead to
generate the 14,500 new members. Knowing “a” and “b,” we
could solve for “c” as the dashboard here illustrates.
(numbers in dashboard do not reflect actual results)
Most important, they needed to know their allowable—up to
what could they spend and remain profitable.

A critical strategy, forecasting involves constantly measuring
channels’ activity, analyzing data, and monitoring budgets.
By setting parameters for maximum and minimum spends and
calculating variables—remember slide rules?—forecasting
makes it possible to determine what’s a sure bet and what’s
a risk not worth taking. With a 360-degree view of a firm’s
acquisition activity, marketers can project the optimal mix
and then apply analytics to continuously improve campaign
performance.
2013-2014 Forcasted Members by Projection Level
Analytics ensure that you are keeping your forecasted costs in
line—or, better, reducing them—while getting in front of the
right audiences through the best-performing channels. Whether
you are operating with a legacy system, custom Google
analytics tags and modifications, and/or an omnichannel
analytics platform that allows daily understanding of marketing
spend vs performance, data analysis and the insights gained
from it will guide critical decision making going forward.

03
Gearing Up for 2015:
TPG’s Essential
Marketing Checklist

Gearing Up for 2015:
TPG’s Essential Marketing Checklist
Marketing Checklist
If you’re good to go forward, great. To help you stay ahead
of the pack on acquisition and, at the same time, not lose
members, we’ve prepared the following checklist, which
we’ll update on our blog in the crucial weeks ahead.
Study recent historic data to predict your sweeter spots in
the immediate future.
Review your acquisition tools, activities, and channels:
Are they working together effectively to meet your
campaign milestones?
Assess your budget allocation and the performance of
your Education & Awareness campaign. Ask yourself:
1. Are prospects coming to you for information and
comparisons instead of going to the exchanges?
2. Have you succeeded in building awareness of your
brand and the distinctive benefits of your products and
services?
3. Are you ready to move the uninsured to action?

Use integrated analytics to access real-time activity
across multichannels.
Stay on top of user interaction with your website to
increase conversion and lower acquisition costs.
Watch for switching in the first quarter of 2015 when
individuals and families with private plans start
investigating their options.
Be ready to attract and capture switchers with
compelling offers.
Make sure your retention campaign is ready to kick into
high gear before your members start checking out new
insurance options.
Promote the benefits they have come to rely on—
members-only services, newsletters, email updates,
and concierge line.
Report, analyze, and improve . . . repeatedly.
If at any point you feel that your campaign would benefit from objective
review, recommendations, and/or hands-on help, TPG welcomes the
opportunity to talk with you. To learn how we can help you with web
traffic, forecasting, lead generation, and other key insurance marketing
services, visit us as tpgdirect.com/contact

04
Resources

About TPG
For more than 23 years, TPG has provided insurance
marketing solutions to America’s top providers in the auto,
life, and health verticals to help attract and retain profitable
policyholders. With strong talent and capabilities in digital,
direct, content marketing, and analytics, TPG understands
insurance marketing and advertising like few others.
How We Do It
We use lifetime value as a lens to focus on strategic
marketing opportunities. We generate a Predictor Score
and apply it to online and offline databases for modeling
purposes. We segment your most valuable prospects based
on needs, attitudes, and behaviors and map each segment’s
unique shopping pathway. We rank order customer
acquisition marketing opportunities across multiple channels
and recommend your most profitable strategy. We create
highly engaging, breakthrough multichannel campaigns that
leverage our proficient understanding of each channel and
your prospects.

What Makes Us Different
Our experience in regulated markets like insurance, financial
services, telecom, and healthcare allows us to understand
complex customer acquisition challenges that face marketers
in these industries and others. We create unique solutions
that optimize your marketing investment in response to your
prospects’ behavior. We help you leverage data so you can
rapidly and precisely recalibrate your marketing mix. We have
the “can do” attitude of a small agency, and the resources
and strength of Omnicom, the world’s most respected
Agency network.
Contact
Steve R. Longley, CEO
email: slongley@tpgphl.com
phone: 215-592-8381
website: tpgdirect.com

Master health insurance marketing

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