What’s Next for Medicare Advantage: Part II - Next Up: Time To Get Real

by Lindsay Resnick, March 2, 2022

The is Part II of What’s Next for Medicare Advantage, offering a few observations and insights from the 2021-22 Annual Enrollment Period. The previous post, Part I - Frontline: Lessons Learned is available here.

Whether called ‘keys to success’ or ‘make it or break it time’ the following five challenges and opportunities are real. To be competitive in tomorrow’s Medicare Advantage marketplace plans need strategies for each.

Catch First-timers

On average 10,000 Americans turn 65 every day – THIS is Medicare Advantage’s new customer growth opportunity. While AEP will continue to be an important customer acquisition time of the year, fighting over fewer and fewer AEP switchers becomes a long, tough game to win. Individuals turning 65 choosing a Medicare plan for the first time and late market entrants (generally between ages 66 and 70) coming off an employer plan are the future of MA. For consumers, making the wrong Medicare insurance choice when they first enroll can not only be costly, but may mean they can’t get the best plan for them later. Plans with commercial Group and Individual business units have the extra advantage of capturing this ‘same brand’ existing customer cohort with an internal cross- over or cross-selling transition approach moving existing members to their Medicare products. Overall, the industry isn’t doing well here: only one-third of Medicare enrollees went to a plan with same group or individual carrier.

Grab consumers at their first Medicare enrollment decision, serve them well and plans can enjoy strong annual retention and profitable MA ROI. This is a year-round, always-on effort with significant LifeTime Value.

Leverage Retirement

The emotional charge around ‘retirement’ can be a persuasive response driver, supported by this eye-opening stat: A retired 65-year-old couple will need $300,000 for medical expenses…in addition to their Medicare coverage. Eighty percent of Americans age 65+ have a chronic condition and 68% have two or more. The link between retirement’s financial and healthcare concerns is extremely strong. In fact, one of the biggest post- retirement surprises cited by seniors is financial load of their Medicare coverage… I thought I planned for everything! Leveraging retirement planning into Medicare decision lead generation can be an effective direct response QOPC hook (Qualify, Offer, Product, Call-to-action). For example, ‘Take the Mystery Out of Retirement Planning‘ or ‘Financial Health in Retirement Depends on Your Medicare Choices‘ make compelling offers. Healthcare, long-term care and unexpected medical costs tops the list of retirement planning financial concerns...with both pre-retirees and retirees. It’s right up there with credit card debt, mortgage payments, savings, and Social Security.

Take the opportunity to speak with prospects at their “full” Social Security retirement: from 1943- 1954 it’s age 66, those between 1956-1959 its 66.4, and after 1960 full retirement age is 67.

Remove Friction

Again? Yes again…it’s time to deliver on high- performance customer experience/CX. Superior customer service goes a long, long way toward not only a top-level Star Rating, but it’s an essential part of customer retention and loyalty. Simply put: make sure the AEP switchers aren’t yours! Why pay the high price of acquiring new members just to see them walk out the back door? Investments in fixing and removing ‘points of friction’ throughout your MA plan, particularly inside your customer service organization, translate into improved profitability. And today, the bar is high. Even ‘satisfied’ customers walk out the door; ‘satisfactory’ performance is no longer enough to retain members---excellent, superior, first class and ‘the best’ need to be the plan’s goal. Once a plan has a ‘retention problem’ retroactively trying to keep members from leaving isn’t the answer. Rather, proactively delivering meaningful value and experiences that make members want to stay in the first place is a winning CX strategy.

CX represents an MA plan’s brand, it’s a marketable attribute that gets attention, and with recent adjustments to the new Star Rating guidance, having happy customers goes a long way.

Cultivate Partners

All the big retailers are in the Medicare game, either directly underwriting MA plans, selling plans through in-house agencies, or engaging MA customers through a branded primary care clinic or low-cost, convenience driven pharmacy service. During AEP these partnerships meant stores with high traffic area pop-up MA sales kiosks with agents and/or lead cards, co- branded Website tools and advertising, and pharmacist or clinic staff with “Ask Me About Medicare” buttons. For MA plans, it’s an if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em moment to explore similar collaborative partnerships or joint ventures with national, regional, or local retailers. Collaboration is also being leveraged with providers. Either hospital systems or primary care physician networks sponsoring or affiliating with MA plans. Outside the strategic alignment that comes with this payer/provider relationship (aka Payvider), provider brand equity and trust can be a significant lead generation asset. Partnerships bring scale, which translates into financial and operating efficiencies, expanded market reach, and a better ability to address consumer demands for convenience, continuity, and consistency.

Teamwork makes the dreamwork. MA partnerships can yield big rewards: open new markets, extend product or service offering reach, and for consumers, better managed and more affordable health care.

Final Takeaway: Gut Check

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), a panel that makes recommendations to Congress on Medicare policy, expects beneficiaries in Parts A and B enrolled in MA plans to stretch past 50% in 2023.

Staying competitive in an increasingly benefit- rich, fast-paced growth market challenges even the best in the business. As Medicare Advantage plans strategize around their 2022 market moves, meaningful brand and product differentiation matter more than ever. On the marketing and sales frontlines, deploying the full power of distinction quickly separates winners from losers…those plans headed toward growth and profitability rather than a slow decline into obsolescence.

There’s no better time than the start of a new year to do a MA marketing ‘gut check’, an assessment to validate MA marketing assumptions, resource adequacy and comparative industry best-practice “gap analysis” to identify important areas of improvement. Here’s a 10-point checklist to guide your assessment:

The Big Picture: Healthcare 2022 - Trends, Predictions Challenges & Opportunities

by Lindsay Resnick, January 20, 2022 

Health brands are jumping on the transformation bandwagon. We need to change. We need to modernize. The health sector needs to reimagine itself. And needs to do it around the customer.

This collection of curated factoids can help health brands not only contend with market realities, but anticipate change. Think of it as context for the futurity of today’s decisions. An opportunity to step back to assess ‘big picture’ healthcare trends to inform core enterprise planning from vision to strategy to in-market tactics.

 

The first six factoids are provided below. To download the full set of 24 factoids from Wunderman Thompson Health, go here: https://www.wundermanthompson.com/expertise/health

 

 

2014 TOP 10 Watchlist

By Lindsay Resnick, January 21, 2014

Here's what's on this year’s radar screen for leading healthcare companies.

1. Obamacare 2.0 Robust post-enrollment learning agenda to understand which customers came into the market, who stayed out, how they shopped, what’s their mix of risk, and new competitors to look out for.
2. Risk Management Millions of underserved, high-risk health care consumers with unmanaged illness entering the insurance and medical delivery systems shiny new health insurance ID cards and pent-up demand for care.
3. Quality Outcomes Providers of healthcare putting skin in the game with pay-for-performance risk sharing schemes moving healthcare toward outcomes-based financing system based on quality and clinical results.
4. Chronic Care Next generation care management to deal with chronic medical conditions accounting for $3 out of every $4 of the country’s $2.8 trillion health care bill and 17 million boomers turning 65 over next 5-years.
5. Personal Wellness  Consumers changing health attitudes and behavior to improve quality of life and find ways to reduce personal health expenditures as they are forced to take more individual healthcare responsibility.
6. Connected Data Gathering, analyzing and interpreting consumer data to understand variations among market segments to develop a complete snapshot or “360° view” of customers to achieve true member engagement.
7. Retail Healthcare Benefit standardization, regulatory constraints and price transparency commoditizing markets and neutralizing brands means new approaches to awareness, acquisition, activation, retention and loyalty.
8. Mobile Health Always-on consumers expect any desired information or service is available on any device at a person’s moment of need; a mobile lifestyle now defines a customer’s way of connecting and interacting.
9. Socialnomics Social media driven consumer communities for collaboration and communication that cut across every market segment and every aspect of the customer relationship, from sales to product to service.
10. Customer Centricity It’s the new selling: engaging health insurance consumers with a superior, loyalty-based user experience; it’s guided by customer insights, cross-functional metrics, and championed by the C-Suite.

Keep a close watch on these impact trends to proactively managing change and stay ahead of your competitors.

Get Ready…ACA Superbowl

By Lindsay Resnick, January 23, 2013

Bring your A-game to both sides of the ball, it’s time to play game winning offense and defense. As ACA’s October 2013 open enrollment gets closer, winning health plans are focused on honing their direct-to-consumer marketing skills around retaining and acquiring membership.  It means getting into the Affordable Care Act game by protecting your base with tough defense, and preparing to put points on the board (aka new members) with aggressive offense.

DEFENSE: Retain the members you already have. Prioritize those that are the most valuable and create customized engagement strategies to keep them. Take a data-driven approach to understanding your most vulnerable “at risk” population within your Individual and Small Group businesses that can soon make individual choices.

Core objectives for health plan retention:

1. Maximize retention of existing membership in both on and off Exchange products by minimizing the potential to lose Individual and Small Group customers to competitors.
2. Leverage membership data and third-party intelligence to improve understanding of current Individual and Small Group customers.
3. Communicate a timely and relevant message to existing membership, employers, and distributors to support retention by improving member engagement and building brand loyalty.
4. Emerge as a trusted source for information regarding what health care reform is and what is means to those most impacted…Who’s eligible for what? What’s in it for ME?

OFFENSE: Get your share of the open enrollment “land grab”. Understand needs and attributes of various segments of new market entrants to optimize acquisition campaigns. Create on/off Exchange strategies to generate new leads and sales from individuals most likely to enter the market as a result of ACA’s disruptive events. Switching will be at an all-time high... make sure they switch to you!

Core objectives health plan acquisition:

1. Increase sales opportunities to enroll a larger percentage of the individuals across all segments likely to purchase through public/private Exchanges and, small businesses SHOP Exchanges (e.g., uninsured, disenfranchised small group employees, subsidy eligibles, new Individual shoppers).
2. Optimize and increase the use of database management and segmentation tools to improve targeting capabilities and gain a better understanding of the marketplace than your competitors.
3. Work in tandem with your product development team to identify various product acquisition paths, mapping current portfolio to a post reform products. These product acquisition paths will be the basis for determining messaging and sales strategies.
4. Deploy a new business direct response marketing tactics that blends push-based education with pull-based entry into your selling cycle. 

The future of health insurance belongs to the prepared.To achieve and sustain profitable growth, marketing strategies need to look very different going forward. They need to move from product-centric…see who buys it; to consumer-centric…understand how they engage.

Tomorrow’s health insurance consumer needs to be at the center of everything marketers do throughout the customer lifecycle.  An engaged consumer means connecting early and often, nurturing them into the sales cycle, keeping them involved through purchase, and delivering a superior customer experience. A balanced approach to customer retention and acquisition, supported by data-based intelligence and strong consumer engagement, will determine ACA winners.

Post-Election Health Reform: The Future Is Now

By Lindsay Resnick, November 7, 2012

A year from now you may wish you had started today.

The major hurdles to healthcare reform’s Affordable Care Act – June’s Supreme Court decision and re-election of Barack Obama – are now history. Obamacare is here to stay. While obstacles and legislative fixes lie ahead (regulatory definitions, implementation timelines, funding appropriations), advancing a strategy of “repeal & replace” is now off the table. Expect political wrangling to shift focus to more pressing issues facing the country such as sequestration, budget reconciliation, tax cuts, and 2014 mid-term elections.

For health plans the next 14-months will be an intense period of preparation, planning and positioning. Today’s health insurance marketplace: 154 million employer-based, 14 million individually purchased, 47 million Medicaid, 49 million Medicare, and 49 million uninsured – will see profound change. New operating rules—State/Federal Exchanges, premium subsidies, elimination of pre-existing condition restrictions, rating limitations, Medicaid expansion, tax assessments—demand new thinking!

Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation.

A winning health reform strategy starts by knowing your customers (and potential customers) better than your competitors. It means a data-driven direct-to-consumer approach to maximize reform’s opportunities and buffer risks…whether playing defense to protect your membership base, or setting-up a marketplace offensive to claim your fair share of new customers with a short-term land grab under current rules, and then starting 2014 in a position of strength.

Why? With product standardization, regulatory constraints and price transparency leveling the playing field and neutralizing brands, health insurers need to refresh their approach to customer acquisition and retention. The center of power is rapidly shifting into the hands of the customer. Millions of consumers will be shopping for coverage and migrating between market segments. They’ll be talking about you, price checking you, and recommending you…or not. Tomorrow’s customers will have a wide-ranging choice, and they will determine your value. Forward thinking marketers are making sure existing and prospective customers are engaged in their health care decision-making as they seek support from branded, personalized resources delivered by trusted local partners. 

First movers may sometimes fail, but last movers don't survive.

Based on a health plan’s core customer segments, product portfolio range, and distribution channel mix every Plan needs to design a customized, strategically sound approach to survive, and thrive as Obamacare advances through its implementation phases (see attached). The clock is ticking.

To compete in the new customer-centric healthcare retail game, success will come from taking a 360° view of your customer, differentiating your brand position, moving from a B2B to direct-to-consumer marketing orientation, distribution outlet “retailization”, and most importantly, developing an actionable framework to serve as the roadmap for your health reform enterprise plan.

Health Reform’s New Customer Journey

By Lindsay Resnick, October 9, 2012

Health reform makes 2014 an important milestone for every health plan: market leaders protecting their turf and opportunists setting up for a land grab. At the same time, a value-based consumer experience has never been more important as the center of power shifts into the hands of the health insurance customer. The retailization of healthcare means consumers are in control and taking a new healthcare journey: budgeting for their health benefits, navigating care delivery, and recommending preferred health plans.

It’s time to anticipate and prepare for this new journey by putting a plan together built around a series of sequenced, deliberate action steps:

• Know existing and prospective customers better than any of your competitors.
• Build an actionable roadmap to secure a differentiated, believable market position.
• Establish an arsenal of B2C marketing tools to reach, motivate and bond with consumers.
• Integrate & optimize sales outlets (broker, worksite, telesales, online, mobile, retail).
• Design a high engagement customer experience to drive retention and loyalty

A health plan’s ability to anticipate market shifts and prepare for strategic and tactical execution has reached a new level of urgency. Informed decision-making will separate winners from losers as companies manage through uncertainty. It calls for laser focus on two strategic imperatives:

1. Protect and retain existing customers. With public and private health benefit exchanges now in hyper-speed development as a new distribution channel, plans need to deepen relationships with existing customers across product-lines, market segments and distribution channels. This means identifying and profiling a Plan’s most valuable and most vulnerable customers.
2. Leverage “big data” to target growth opportunities. Across the country, the Affordable Care Act is expected to bring access to 30 million new customers; 24 million entering a new customer journey (aka Exchange), and possibly 16 million new Medicaid enrollees. Having a deep understanding of these prospective customers through demographic, attitudinal and behavioral data-driven segmentation is the only way to build an actionable, first-to-market sales and marketing plan.

In a retail healthcare marketplace it’s the consumer’s responsibility to deal with intimidating, complex benefit and health care decisions. Whether driven by reform or natural marketplace competitive pressures, if the cry for “personal responsibility” means asking consumers to step-up and take control of their healthcare destiny, they need to be educated in order to make smart, individualized choices. The burden falls on health plans to guide customers with a roadmap of relevant decision support.

To read more about preparing for health reform get KBM Group: Health Services’ newest Solutions Brief - Healthcare 2014: Leverage Opportunity Buffer Risk - Click Here

Fail to Prepare, Prepare to Fail

By Lindsay Resnick, March 27, 2012

For health plans looking at the period leading up to the Affordable Care Act’s 2014 big launch, it’s a critical time. We’re about to see the most jarring market reforms ever. Even with the uncertainty of the Supreme Court decision and 2012 election, can Plan’s really afford to sit on the sidelines and watch valuable time tick away? The retailization of healthcare is coming, and preparation is key.

Which of reform’s changes are going to stick…which will fade away? How will existing competitors react…which new ones will appear in your markets? Can you move from a B2B to B2C marketing culture?

Tough questions need to be asked (and answered) about legacy core competencies in tomorrow’s reformed marketplace. In other words, sustainability of your health plan’s value chain—the series of individual activities within your enterprise that when linked together, combine to add comparative value to a final products or services.

It’s time for a serious look at four critical areas of focus.  Here are some questions to spark internal debate and begin an ACA transformation assessment:

1. Brand Position What’s your unique selling proposition in a reformed marketplace likely to see increased competition and disintermediation the individual and small group markets by Exchanges?
2. Customer Segmentation Are you quantifying and profiling new customer segments that you’ll be serving in 2014: previously uninsured, pre-ex time-bombs, newly subsidized, abandon employees, Medicare boomers, etc. to be sure you have the right product mix?
3. Customer Acquisition Are marketing’s multi-channel lead generation tactics (e.g., traditional direct response, digital, social media, mobile) being optimized across all distribution outlets (e.g., field agents, telesales, online, mobile, retail)?
4. User Experience Is your health plan delivering a personalized customer experience driven by retention metrics and built around superior member engagement using a managed touchpoint discipline?

Retail healthcare, product standardization and price transparency levels the playing field. Health plans need to refresh their toolkit of customer acquisition and retention tactics. It means protecting and expanding relationships with their existing customer base across product-lines and market segments. And, to grow market share it means strengthening direct-to-consumer marketing tactics and bolstering sales distribution to facilitate (and influence) customer choice.

For a free copy of the Solutions Brief, "Healthcare Reform Readiness: A Transformation Toolkit", click here:  http://bit.ly/z3VLkE

Medicare Marketing’s Top Ten

By Lindsay Resnick, September 26, 2011

With compliance scrutiny at an all-time high, a selling-season that has been dramatically shortened, and bonus payments and year-round marketing directly tied to the CMS Star Rating system—managing Medicare Advantage aren’t getting any easier. Add to the mix a surge of baby boomers entering the Medicare marketplace at a rate of almost 10,000 every day and one thing is for sure…you better have your Medicare marketing house in order.

Below are our Medicare Marketing’s Top Ten success factors to help sharpen your approach and meet or exceed stakeholder expectations. 

1. Understand the impact of CMS COMPLIANCE – Today’s Medicare marketers must understand and respect the important role CMS compliance plays in the member acquisition process. This means making sure the link between marketing, sales and compliance is as strong as possible, always supporting the spirit of CMS consumer protections.
2. Be DATA DRIVEN to ensure a strong foundation – Always start with data. It needs to be sorted, cleaned, refined, and turned into actionable marketing intelligence. From building predictive models for most likely responders to variable direct response call-outs to optimize media buys, the goal is to bring a grow while continually lowering your cost per lead and cost per sale. 
3. Modernize your AGE-IN process – With thousands aging into Medicare every day, new approaches are needed to attract today’s boomer-seniors. “It’s not your Daddy’s Medicare.” It takes a combination of meaningful education, sequenced messaging, and innovative approaches to outreach to connect with newly eligible beneficiaries. 
4. RETAIN MEMBERS to increase ROI  – In a fiercely competitive Medicare market, aggressive “switcher” campaigns have become routine. The cost of acquiring a new member is 5X the cost of retaining an existing one. Loyalty-based member engagement plays a big role in a health plan’s long-term profitability under the label of member LifeTime Value. 
5. STAR RATINGS impact the bottom line – As CMS deploys its 5-Star Rating across Medicare plans, marketing’s role is critical to ensure member communications reinforce customer satisfaction. Engagement marketing goes a long way in a plan’s ability to achieve the highest possible Star Rating and the bonus payments that go with it.
6. CUSTOMER INTERACTION makes a key difference – Give beneficiaries a reason to engage and connect with a Medicare plan they trust. It’s all about them. It takes tested, personalized direct response marketing that create opportunities for one-on-one interaction to communicate value and answer a Medicare beneficiary’s most important question, “What’s in it for me?” 
7. Don’t ignore DIGITAL MEDICARE – As more and more Medicare shoppers use the Web as their primary research tool, it’s essential to have a Medicare online experience that’s user tested, compelling, and built for seniors. From ease-of-navigation to the images and words on your website, it needs to be tailored to your Medicare audience.
8. Consider MULTI-CHANNEL SALES that match customer preferences – Different Medicare customers require different doors of entry….some will call on the phone; others come in through a website; some prefer to respond via mail;  many like a discussion across their kitchen table; and, others may even desire a retail experience. A multi-channel sales distribution strategy is critical to success. 
9. Understand your DIFFERENTIATED VALUE – Being the health plan of choice for Medicare beneficiaries is achieved by building trust, credibility and relevancy around your value proposition. This means understanding drivers that motivate prospects to select your plan, and an ability to get the most differentiated and preferred product offerings in front of them. 
10. Measure MARKETING ROI to determine actual results – You can’t manage what you can’t measure! Combining sophisticated upfront data analytics, direct response discipline and flawless campaign execution can significantly lower member acquisition costs and increase retention. Tracking, analyzing and measuring results throughout the marketing cycle is a Medicare marketing must. 

Successful Medicare marketing hinges on educating seniors, defining value and creating motivated buyers. It takes learning as much as you can about your target market so you understand what’s important to them, what concerns them, and what they want from their Medicare plan. It will go a long way toward answering Medicare beneficiaries’ number one question—what’s in it for me?

Strategic Opportunity Index…On The Rise

By Lindsay Resnick, April 18, 2011

“Strategic planning is worthless, unless there is first a strategic vision.” (J. Naisbitt)

In healthcare and insurance, like many other industries navigating today’s economic and political woes, the future belongs to those best able to manage in markets characterized by intense competitive rivalry, continuous regulatory disruption, and information empowered consumers.

Developing a well-honed strategic vision works to anticipate change, focus on competitive threats, and assess long-term business implications. To be effective, it’s essential that your vision draws on sophisticated customer insight. The goal is to take an organization where it needs to be by creating a roadmap on how to get there.

At its core, a sustainable strategic vision is built around an effort that allows management to look deep within the organization, ask & answer tough questions, and make informed decisions about strategic options. The following questions provide a strategy “stress test” to help refine your planning process starting at the intersection of three key business drivers: competitors, customers and company.

1. How are you different from competitors…comparative market advantages/disadvantages?
2. Are you leveraging a sustainable Dominant Selling Idea that delivers customer value?
3. How are you selecting new markets, products and services?
4. Who are your top five competitors and why do you beat them…why do you lose?
5. Have you developed proprietary insights and translated them into actionable strategy?
6. Are you ahead of competitive trends and industry best practices?
7. Where’s the customer in the marketing mix…product, price, promotion, and place?
8. Have you identified and/or neutralized uncertainty in the decision process?
9. Is there cross-management buy-in and commitment to addressing the future?
10. Are you managing institutional bias to facilitate diversification and innovation?
11. Is there a willingness to invest in execution…talent, capital, operations and distribution?
12. Is strategy translated into an action plan…scenario planning, timing and accountability?

Smart companies are raising their “opportunity index” by thinking about their business in ways that look very different from today’s enterprise. They are embracing a strategic planning process that openly challenges leadership across the organization in order to pinpoint future direction—make data-driven decisions, embrace customer centric thinking, adjust business assumptions, and act with deliberate speed. After all, strategic vision represents the futurity of today’s decisions.

Entrepreneurship Trumps Bureaucracy

by Lindsay Resnick, February 4, 2011

Health care reform has thrust many industry stakeholders into survival mode. With the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) in place as an enabling foundation, “new rules” are set to be written. And it will be a harsh set of rules indeed – minimum loss ratios, elimination of risk selection tools, benefit plan grandfathering, strict rate management, government run benefit exchanges, and for Medicare plans, reduced payments. And add to the mix a cadillac plan tax, insurance company assessments, and yes, even a tanning tax.

Predictions are running rampant about mass product-line exits, reduced competition due to consolidation, and distribution channel collapse.  Will these new regulations be the demise of health insurance industry and its stakeholders or, will change create opportunity?

Or put another way….can entrepreneurial spirit triumph over bureaucracy?

No one has a crystal ball but history shows us that success in transformative, threatened markets requires an ability to think and plan strategically: anticipate and absorb change, generate disruptive ideas, and act with deliberate, sequenced speed. It’s the way entrepreneurs manage through obstacles and capture opportunity.

From mega health insurance companies to small brokerage agencies, the process begins when leaders seek answers to tough questions. It means lasering-in on an organization's "reason for being" and then expanding outward to scrutinize core competencies, identify comparative market advantages, dissect customer perceptions, and determine strategic sustainability. Use this three-step approach:

BASELINE – Readiness gauge of where you stand today and what’s needs to be retooled in order to deal with shifting markets and exploit new opportunities.

TOMORROW – Scenarios and options for extending your company’s “reason for being” in a reformed market landscape. This is the “vision thing” that serves as the lifeblood of every entrepreneur.

ROADMAP – Select and prioritize specific, tangible opportunities; design a structured approach to optimize results, and; formulate an actionable, measurable business plan.

This introspective approach will undoubtedly call into question your most basic operating assumptions. It will challenge institutional bias and force debate around longstanding approaches to your markets. That’s OK. It will also yield a renewed focus on where your company needs to be in the future and lay the groundwork for navigating how to get there.

The objective is to put in motion a Health Care Reform change management process that fosters informed judgments. It will assist you to see the futurity of today’s decisions. The result will prove that entrepreneurship trumps bureaucracy.

Membercentricity Defines Medicare Member Retention

By Lindsay Resnick, February 8, 2010

Member-centric Medicare Advantage plans have loyal, trusting customers. It’s not easy to steal a loyal member. More importantly, loyalty equals customer LifeTime Value which translates into stable membership and sustained profitability. In the Medicare market, competitive rivalry is at an all-time high, with well-orchestrated “switcher” campaigns targeting YOUR members. And, at a time when beneficiaries are seeing big changes in benefits and rates, plans seeing even the slightest uptick in voluntary disenrollment are also feeling the threat to long-term profitability.

Retaining members by creating loyal, satisfied customers has never been more important; particularly when acquiring new members is as much as 5-times the cost of keeping existing ones. Successful member retention takes proactive, personal customer service built on an attitude of MEMBERCENTRICITY. Improving customer loyalty is one of the least expensive, most impactful ways to protect membership and improve margins. Successful retention programs are based on three core principles:

• Data Driven The more you know about your customers, who’s at risk and what’s important to them, the more members you will retain. Understanding your customer demographic and psychographic indicators helps build loyalty.

• Continuous Interaction Frequent, personalized member outreach has huge payoff by reinforcing plan value and reaffirming a consumer’s purchase— from welcome calls to an array of “after-sale sale” communications.

• Meaningful Messaging Create a dialogue with customers…not a monologue. Seniors are looking for guidance and interaction that’s meaningful to their situation throughout their membership lifecycle—part customer service, part sales, and part senior advocacy.

Across America, consumers have become much less forgiving of bad service. In a heartbeat, they will just take their wallet and loyalty somewhere else. A member-centric Medicare Advantage experience involves every interaction with a plan’s members?every telephone call, every email exchange, and every written communication. Make sure your plan embraces a high-touch, high-results philosophy. Retention is the ultimate measure of success in Medicare Advantage.

Medicare Advantage Survival Guide: Value Chain Analysis

By Lindsay R. Resnick, November 13, 2009

Many moons ago (1985 to be exact) Michael Porter’s bestselling book, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, introduced the concept of value chain analysis - the chain of activities within an organization that each adds value to the final product or service. Companies were taking an introspective look at their strategic vision and tactical approach to their value chain components and markets they serve.

Fast-forward to 2009. Never has the value chain been more important to a Medicare plan than today. Regulatory pressure, competitive positioning, shifting consumer priorities, and sustainable profitable growth make a successful Medicare Advantage plan a dicey venture these days. As these plans plot a course for the future a “self assessment” may be appropriate.

Six areas of focus deserve attention —

1. Regulatory Compliance – Tracking, managing and reporting on the never-ending stream of CMS rules and regulations has never been easy for Medicare contractors. Costs associated with a Corrective Action Plan or marketing suspension are extensive in terms of financial penalties, brand deterioration, and staff distraction. Most recently, CMS has raised the bar with a set of reporting requirements for Parts C and D that incorporates hundreds of new, complex data points.

• Does your plan have a real-time mechanism able to provide managers a “dashboard” view of critical compliance reporting across key operations or, does your compliance officer have to go “hunting and gathering” each month like a blind squirrel hunting for nuts?
• Is your plan able to withstand the scrutiny of a CMS audit (or even a mock CMS audit) in areas such as routine documentation, policies & procedures, appeals & grievances, and fraud/waste/abuse?

2. Revenue Management – Medicare Advantage payment rates are dead center in the Obama administration’s target for cost reduction—within the next five years MA and FFS will be on a level playing field. With the pressure of shrinking payment rates survival depends on aggressive revenue management and flawless enrollment operations.

• Does your plan have expert tools in-place to make sure you’re maximizing reimbursement through Hierarchical Condition Category (HCC) and Part C/D reconciliations on a timely and up-to-date basis?
• What metrics are used to manage and measure your Plan’s enrollment operations to make them an integrated member management function (vs. fragmented collection of data entry staff)?

3. Medical Management – With 80% of seniors having at least one chronic health condition, the knock on Medicare Advantage has been an inability to demonstrate value of care management and improved beneficiary health outcomes. And now, with reduced reimbursement rates, there is renewed demand on plans to improve medical loss ratios to maintain profitability.

• Is your plan linking its complex and chronic care management efforts to its HCC management?
• Are care management tactics such as personal health assessments, medical home, and evidence-based practice guidelines part of your 2010 medical management plan?

 4. Customer Service – Competitive rivalry means your customers are another MA plan’s prospects. Customer retention now takes a mindset that combines proactive customer service with continuous “after-sale sale” tactics.

• Is there a formal member retention program to protect your customers from competitor “switcher” campaigns, build long-term, and track retention costs…as carefully as you track acquisition costs?
• Are operations and marketing working together to communicate with customers in a way that blends benefit education with ongoing selling of your plan’s value (i.e., an after-sale sale)?

5. Marketing Mix – Data, Data, Data…it’s at the core of every successful MA plan’s marketing mix. Customer and prospect data mining, modeling and profiling deliver tremendous competitive advantages to MA plans, from diversifying product portfolios to customer segmented messaging to new media strategies. 

• Does your plan have ready access to accurate intelligence on your competitors’ MA, MA-PD and PDP plans, including detailed plan-by-plan benefit and enrollment information in your service areas?
• Have you segmented your existing customers and prospects using demographic indicators combined with psychographic profiles such as lifestyle priorities, buying habits, and advertising preferences (including Internet usage)?

6. Distribution Capacity – Inappropriate marketing and sales practices are by far the biggest problem for MA plans. And, CMS is taking a hard-line approach – secret shoppers, onerous penalties for non-compliance, shutting down sales, and issuance of a glut of new rules. At the same time, organic membership growth gets tougher and tougher. The ability for a plan to deploy multiple distribution channels is separating winners from losers.

• Are your field sales agents (in-house and outside brokers) fully trained, credentialed, certified, and monitored to make absolutely certain you’re limiting exposure to CMS marketing and sales rule violations?
• Have you moved away from a single source distribution strategy to maximize a multi-outlet sales approach: complementary field agent channels, telesales and Web?

This self review is a quick start to figuring out if your plan is where it needs to be in today’s tumultuous Medicare marketplace. If answers are hard to come by or, if there’s little internal agreement, it’s an important sign—don’t wait. Your plan needs a deeper dive into those areas that are coming up short. Organize a dedicated effort to attack problem areas, utilize outside experts well-versed in the “ins & outs” of Medicare Advantage, and take corrective action. Most importantly, do it sooner rather than later.

Trendwatching: MarCom to MarSales

By Lindsay Resnick, July 20, 2009

Squeezed between an economy in disarray and the rapid rise of social media, let's face it, marketing has changed forever. Budgets have been slashed, customer priorities have shifted, and intense pressure on companies to grow organically is changing corporate cultures across the country.

MarCom has long been the abbreviation for "marketing communications"—interaction with customers and prospects through messaging and media to speak to the marketplace. Its tradition is in the printed word, usually categorized under advertising, public relations, branding or promotion. Of course recently, a surge of online activity has been added to the mix (if not taken over). MarCom's primary focus has always been around audience awareness. The conversation is usually a monologue.

That has changed. Now, we are seeing MarCom morph into MarSales—interaction with customers and prospects through messaging and media to sell the marketplace. MarSales takes a growth-oriented vantage point which is actively aligned with the sales process. And, it's all about quantifiable results.

This perspective elevates growth and profitability in the marketing hierarchy within the context of current business drivers: economic volatility, regulatory threats, competitive rivalry and customer dialogue. MarSales cuts across product-line and operational silos to reshape internal marketing-think and reengineer distribution channels. It improves marketing spend and, rallies your team around a mantra of "leverage value to turn growth into revenue."

Core principles of a MarSales strategy include:

• Refresh your brand position in light of any product or service changes, new consumer spending and buying habits, and competitor moves.
• Micro-segment your prospects for improved targeting and more efficient budget management.
• Redefine and shorten your sales cycle, from lead generation to retention.
• Synchronize your creative platform and media strategy with specific sales objectives.
• Deploy new outreach tactics moving from awareness-oriented marketing to an action-based sales relationship with your customers.
• Link marketing budgets and sales results to accurately measure return on investment and lifetime value of new customers.

MarCom has been built around the philosophy that good marketing grabs attention, creates awareness, and is driven by emotion. MarSales embraces these attributes, but recognizes that great marketing accomplishes all of this with one critical difference—great marketing sells.

The Challenge to Healthcare Marketing

By Lindsay Resnick. March 12, 2009

Political change, economic volatility and competitive rivalry will bring the
unexpected this year. Be prepared to aggressively track what's working (or
not) in terms of your business tactics and prepare to move quickly based on
emerging market indictors. Be agile.

Healthcare

It appears health reform is set to take off in 2009. The new administration
has made this their top domestic priority under a battle cry of "How can we
afford it.how can we afford not to" With America's aging demographic,
soaring unemployment, expanding uninsured population, and unprecedented
levels of uncompensated care, there's broad agreement on the need for major
health system overhaul. Of course, the devil's in the details.

Recessionary conditions also mean that healthcare companies that are able to
demonstrate an ability to lower costs will continue to thrive. Leading this
watch-list are those promoting medical travel, chronic care management,
limited benefit individual medical plans, and retail medicine. Personal
healthcare budgeting is shifting along with the number and complexity of
delivery choices. There's a healthcare squeeze on consumers and it will only
get tighter.

Expect to see the Health 3.0 movement continue to advance through web-based
consumer connectivity, personalized health care delivered in clinically
relevant settings, and financing mechanisms structured around
consumer-centric business models. The new digital customer will be an
activated consumer with any time-any place-any device connectivity,
supported by "information everywhere" tools. They will have the confidence
and smarts to be empowered healthcare purchasers. Be proactive.


Marketing

Making sure your business can turn it up in a downturn relies on a marketing
strategy built on data, dialogue and differentiation.

Customer segmentation allows companies to know your most profitable
customers. It enables smart marketers to define what messages and vehicles
are most effective in reaching your best prospects. Understanding
demographic, lifestyle and value-based attributes provides an important
competitive edge.

Search engines are defining brands, changing sales processes and influencing
just about everything in our lives. Newspapers, magazines, and traditional
television audiences are shrinking. They're being replaced by social
networks, wikis, blogging and online video content. It's a media insurgency,
and consumers have grabbed an important new role. They are now broadcasting
opinions, turning fads into trends, and getting information from customized
information outlets where monologues are turned into dialogues. Tomorrow's
marketers will quickly figure out how their efforts fit into the new media
revolution.

Healthcare is a price-driven, fragmented marketplace where differentiation
is king. A sustainable growth strategy takes targeted outreach, value
positioning and tactical savvy. Figure out how to articulate your value
proposition in a way that separates your company from healthcare's "sea of
sameness." Then, select in-market tactics (direct response, new media
advertising, grassroots PR, etc.) that will be most effective for getting in
front of the right people at the right time. Start a relationship with your
prospects and build a customer base of brand loyalists. Be memorable.

Everyone agrees 2009 will be a tough year. Companies will be hard pressed to
balance budget pressures with customer acquisition and retention
expectations. Competitors will work hard to steal your customers. But, where
there are challenges there's opportunity. Keep a sharp eye on trends that
impact your business, and keep a closer eye on your customers. Keep products
and services relevant so they can withstand economic pressures. And, keep
your marketing data driven, differentiated and built around a relationship
with your customers. Of course, a little luck will go a long way! Be
innovative.

Medical Home: Consumerism Delivered

By Lindsay Resnick, January 5, 2009

Consumer Directed Healthcare can be defined as health benefit plans that put consumers and their providers at the center of health care decision-making, giving them greater discretion and power over benefit dollars and medical care choices. These plans often include increased cost-sharing wrapped around an HSA, decision support tools to evaluate choices, “health coaches” to encourage care management, and incentives to promote healthy lifestyles. Rather than shielding consumers, CDH plans engage them directly.

CDH is based on “patient centeredness” which, as defined by the Institute of Medicine, refers to health care that establishes a partnership among practitioners, patients and their families to ensure that decisions respect patients’ wants, needs and preferences; and ensure they have access to education and support to make decisions and participate in their own care.

Consumer Directed Healthcare and patient centeredness has given rise to the next “hot trend” in healthcare - the medical home. A medical home is not a house, clinic or hospital, but rather an approach to providing comprehensive primary care. A medical home is defined as primary care that is accessible, continuous, comprehensive, family-centric, compassionate, and culturally effective.

A “whole person” orientation to healthcare delivery is at the core of the medical home. A personal physician is responsible for providing all the patient’s healthcare needs. Care is coordinated across all components of the patient’s healthcare community - hospitals, specialty physicians, pharmacists, social services, home health, nursing homes, and ancillary providers. And, it includes a vision of care for all stages of life, acute and chronic, wellness and prevention, and end-of-life. The medical home was introduced in 1967 by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Most recently, several professional medical organizations joined the AAP to redefine the basic tenets of the Patient Centered Medical Home:

Personal Relationship: Each patient has an ongoing relationship with a personal physician trained to provide first contact, continuous and comprehensive care.

Team Approach: The personal physician leads a team of individuals at the practice level who collectively take responsibility for the ongoing patient care.

Comprehensive: The personal physician is responsible for providing for all the patient’s health care needs at all stages of life or taking responsibility for appropriately arranging care with other qualified professionals.

Coordination: Care is coordinated and integrated across all domains of the health care system, facilitated by registries, information technology, and health information exchange to assure that patients get the indicated care when and where they want it.

Quality and Safety: This includes using electronic medical records and technology to provide decision-support for evidence-based treatments.

Expanded Access: Enhanced access to care available through systems such as open scheduling, expanded hours and new options for communication between patients and physicians.

Added Value: Payment that appropriately recognizes the added value provided to patients who have a Patient-Centered Medical Home.

The medical home is the next step toward true healthcare consumerism. With 45% of the U. S. population having a chronic medical condition accounting for $3 out of every $4 spent on healthcare, coordinated care delivery supported by a team-oriented medical management plan-of-action is a direction worth pursuing.

Personal Health Records: The Hot Consumerism Tool

By Lindsay Resnick

Consumer Directed Healthcare (CDH) is past the tipping point. Employers, employees, payers and providers have embraced these free market style health benefit plans that put consumers in the center of deciding where, when, and from whom they receive care---the customer now has more skin in the game. CDH success means changing the way people think about and deal with their healthcare choices. It takes practical decision support tools, credible information and increased connectivity throughout the healthcare system. Now, the newest consumer trend is allowing individuals and families to maintain their own online health records.
Personal Health Records (PHRs) enable consumers to have easy access to their health history and clinical make-up in order to manage benefit and medical decisions. It gives consumers more knowledge and control over their health information. In essence, it creates a smarter, better informed healthcare customer. PHRs allow an individual to enter and record personal medical information such as medical history, prescriptions, examination results, office visit tracking and, lab and diagnostic test results. Based on PHR functionality, consumers can input or scan images, charts, graphs, and print reports.
The result is a PHR that provides an accurate, up-to-date summary of a person’s health status and medical history. The information is secured online and only accessible by the individual or, medical professionals with approved authorization, at the PHR owner’s discretion. In addition to a standalone, consumer-driven PHR, other models are emerging that take a more integrated approach allowing information to be input through other, secure sources such as physicians, pharmacists, home care and even linked-in claims data.
In a predominately paper-driven medical record world, online PHRs bring the portability and connectivity that make reliable information available, quickly. The result can be lifesaving in emergency situations, help avoid harmful medication interactions, reduce unnecessary tests and properly prepare consumers with the context to ask the “right” questions. Most importantly, PHRs give consumers the control they need to make informed, confident decisions.
Internet-based Personal Health Records are rapidly emerging. In a State of the Union address, the President called for every American to have one in ten years. This year, Microsoft launched HealthVault and, Google Health is testing its own PHR. It is estimated that there are more than 200 PHR products available in the market with a wide range of functionality, level of integration and “cool” features.
With consumers well on the way to being the centerpiece in the future of healthcare benefit and medical decision-making, PHRs will continue to grow in popularity and acceptance. A recent Markle Foundation survey shows that almost 80% of the public believes PHRs would provide significant benefits to individuals in managing their health, although many (57%) express concern over privacy and security of their information. PHRs are here to stay. They represent another step in healthcare’s technological movement built around content, community, commerce and connectivity.

2008: Actionable Transformation

By Lindsay Resnick

Three important themes are influencing health care marketing in 2008–customer narrowcasting, Big Truth messaging and new media. Addressing these challenges will form the framework for successful marketing efforts. I’m forecasting this not only as it relates to healthcare, but in the context of a consumer marketplace undergoing massive transformation in the way people are approached, courted and led into the sales cycle.

Customer Narrowcasting

Alternatively known as market segmentation or niche marketing, customer narrowcasting takes a business’ focus to highly-defined, targeted customer segments. Whether formulating an annual marketing plan, reengineering product messaging or planning a media buy you can't do it without knowing your customer.

Market leaders are embracing a customer-centric philosophy that puts products and services into distinct market segments, each with narrow customer definitions. In this setting, the customer is viewed as the central asset. Products and services are tailored to unique needs of each customer group, relying on a range of segmentation profiles including demographic, psychographic and lifestyle.

The key to the customer-driven “black box” is data. Gathering, analyzing and interpreting information that allows you to understand variations among customer segments and develop a snapshot of your most desirable targets. It’s the practice of dividing people into groups or cohorts that are similar in specific ways relevant to key marketing indicators—age, gender, income, interests, attitudes and spending habits. The more you know about prospects needs and preferences, the more you’ll turn them into customers ( and the more customers you’ll turn into your brand promoters ).

Big Truth Messaging

In a marketplace characterized by more choice than most people can handle, marketing communication is at crossroads. The challenge is to fight through the incredible amount of apathy already lingering in the air. So whatever you're selling, unearth a Big Truth about it. What is the "single most important thought" that you want to communicate?

Big Truth messaging should start a meaningful one-to-one conversation with your target audience; lead them in a value-based direction, and begin to close the sale with a distinct call-to-action. Finding the delicate balance between education and selling goes a long way to creating a positive buying environment. Take a seat where your customer sits and always be answering the question “ What’s in it for me ?”

The best messaging is grounded in customer profiling. This allows companies to connect with customers logically and emotionally by demonstrating you understand what’s important to them, what concerns them, and what they want from your products. Articulates the most powerful features of a product or service and then directly link these features to benefits for your audience.

New Media

Digital convergence is advancing at an aggressive pace and smart marketers need to adapt to a convenience-driven, instant gratification customer culture. Traditional media outlets are being overtaken because of their inability to dial down and focus on niche markets or micro-verticals. Marketing is moving beyond a discipline of advertising and communication to one that focuses on building a relationship with the digital consumer.

Web-savvy amateurs are leveraging the power of information, even subverting the power of the corporate brand. Enter the blogosphere, social networking, podcasts, and viral marketing. Suddenly every customer has a news reel and megaphone to speak to minority interests and ultra-segmented consumers. These approaches bring an ability to pinpoint any debate—political, product or service. Momentum is shifting from institutions to individuals.

The fact is people are simply doing different things in different places at different times. Over 120 million people are going online for health and medical information (averaging seven visits per month). They are getting ready for, or drilling down after MD visits and researching drug information. They’re checking prices and looking for indicators about quality of care and clinical outcomes.

Actionable Transformation

Marketing is changing quickly. On a daily basis it’s moving in many new directions. It’s critical to think about these transforming influencers in the context of your business, but more importantly, put in place actionable strategies so you don’t get caught short in what promises to be a competitive, fast-moving marketing transformation.

Lindsay Resnick

312.419.1973

www.finelight.com

Individual Medical: Opportunity Is Now

The individual health insurance market has reached a defining moment. Demographic, economic and workforce trends point to a tremendous market opportunity. These powerful dynamics are creating favorable conditions for individual medical insurance:

§ Shifting work-force (self-employment, early retirement, small business formation)

§ Movement toward Consumer Directed Healthcare, High Deductible Health Plans and Health Savings Accounts

§ Decreasing employer-based coverage options with increased employee cost sharing

§ Favorable Federal tax environment

§ Growing numbers of “non-poor” working uninsured.

An estimated seventeen million people under age-65 are covered by an Individual Medical (IM) insurance policy. Thousands of new eligible policyholders continually enter the market every day. Almost 16% of the U.S. population is has no health insurance. Of these 47 million individuals it is estimated that 20 million could afford an individual policy with tax, employment or other purchasing incentives.

It’s Not Group

Historically, lackluster products, legacy technology, high-cost business acquisition and poor pricing characterized the individual medical market. Few carriers had the resolve to embrace new ways of doing business and learn from past mistakes.

What does it take for success in the Individual Medical market – get in synch with both customer needs and profitable risk management. IM insurance is a blocking and tackling business requiring intense data analysis, administrative efficiency, sales acumen and proactive customer service.

However, the most important factor for health plans considering Individual Medical is recognizing that it’s not group insurance. Time and time again, carriers substitute “group” experience in formulating and executing IM business strategy. They do not fully appreciate the essential differences between the two product-lines.

For example, when pricing an IM product, medical loss experience patterns are vastly different. Underwriting with the “accept/reject” rules has significant consequences on the long-term effect of risk selection and needs to be built into baseline pricing assumptions and performance benchmarks.

Selling is another critical difference. Prospecting and selling IM is a one-to-one venture, impacting both the number of sales agents needed and how they are supported. And, complementing traditional field distribution with telesales can make a significant difference in production volume. On the customer front, servicing individuals without the intermediation of a group’s human resource department takes different front-end customer service training and skills. Individual Medical isn’t group insurance!

Controlled Growth

Competition in the IM marketplace is at an all-time high as health plans seek growth opportunities outside the saturated group market. These plans know that they need to offer a market-segmented product matrix that includes serving the needs of individuals.

The individual health market has attractive fundamentals. There are favorable operating cash flow characteristics and, given current opportunities for strategic outsourcing, fixed cost overhead can be contained while deploying state of the art technology and operating processes.

A successful foray into the IM market requires disciplined accountability. Several areas of focus can be identified:

1) Financial Control

AAAAAAA At the financial core are solid risk management tools and premium adequacy --- a focus on pricing, underwriting guidelines and claims practices. Risk controls are targeted to properly designed products and various customer and distribution segments.

2) Operational Efficiency Competitive advantage will come from innovations in information technology and bandwidth that renders traditional health insurance backrooms obsolete. Alignment with the “right” partners (without yielding accountability) can leverage an investment in intellectual property to contain expenses and broaden a company’s reach.

3) Marketing Expertise Understanding your target customer, whether young invincibles, empty nesters or prime market self-employed, goes a long way to ensuring success. This means data-driven marketing and direct response skills able to deliver the most effective ways possible to connect with customers—capture attention and interest of target audience, answer the question “What’s in it for me?” and, a call-to-action that motivates prospects to start a relationship with your company.

4) Performance Benchmarks Business metrics need to be in place to measure performance across functions: underwriting and claim costs, staffing and productivity, sales production and risk management. These benchmarks need to be buttressed with a robust decision support capability to ensure mission critical information is available and actionable.

Profitable Diversification

If you’re already in the individual medical market, but not meeting expectations, the cost of delay far exceeds the cost of action. Given IM pricing and cost structure volatility, there is a very short timeframe for crucial decisions if growth and financial results are falling short. A “wait-and see” approach can mean trouble comes fast in the form of an “underwriting death spiral” where healthy lives go elsewhere and severe anti-selection causes unrecoverable losses. These companies must act quickly to implement corrective actions and improve performance.

For new market entrants, the advice is simple - - - do it right! Study and learn from others’ mistakes. Establish a business platform built on disciplined management. Recruit knowledgeable leadership and engage expert external resources – risk and care management, marketing and telesales. Bring a commitment to change the way the market thinks about the individual medical insurance in terms of premium adequacy, product design, customer segmentation and sales distribution. Demand profitable growth. And always remember, it’s not group insurance.

For questions and comments contact:

Lindsay R. Resnick
Chief Marketing Officer
Finelight
150 N Michigan Ave, Suite 2900
Chicago IL 60601
312.419.1973
BLOG: www.lindsayresnick.com

Brand Direct Marketing: Value Driven Action Lifts Topline

Brand Direct Marketing: Value Driven Action Lifts Topline

Branding and direct response have long been cornerstones of successful marketing campaigns.  On their own, each contributes an important piece of the marketing puzzle. Brand establishes position, generates awareness and builds preference for a company. Direct response is actionable. It gives people a reason to connect with your business and moves them into the sales cycle.

The wall between branding and direct response is coming down. It has to! The pace of marketplace change—technological advances, generational diversity and product commodization—demands an integrated, efficient approach that drives topline results. Effective marketing means opening up a dialogue with consumers and carefully tracking the conversation. Companies large and small are doing it and, they are seeing sales increase and their brand equity enhanced.

Brand direct is a way of combining the emotion evoked from brand advertising with the workhorse tools of direct response. A balanced approach means consistent communications that encourage interaction from prospects and promises a more meaningful customer experience. Here, direct response marketing tactics (data-driven segmentation and in-market learning supported by a strong call-to-action) take advantage of general advertising tactics. Using this model you get marketing for all media that is measurable and tied to specific sales goals—it’s where strategic thinking and persuasive creativity come together.

For brand direct marketing to achieve the best blend of branding and direct response, consider these three guiding principles:

All communications impact brand, so make sure your communications have brand impact. In other words, don’t think of brand or image campaigns as being separate and distinct from direct response. Awareness is only the first step. Every campaign should be designed to build your brand while eliciting a specific response from your target audience. The key is to educate prospective customers while pre-selling your product or service. Then, show them how to navigate the purchasing process to start a long-term relationship with your company.

Customers and prospects are always telling you something about themselves…listen. New tools and technologies are giving marketers access to an unprecedented amount of data about consumers. Turn this data into intelligence that helps you understand how and why your customers buy. Discover who are your biggest promoters…and most pesky detractors. Listening enables you to refine and replicate the purchasing process for prospective customers. By effectively profiling and segmenting your target audience you can deliver the right message at exactly the right time and in the right place.

Be ready for the next big opportunity. Today’s marketing environment is dynamic and fast-paced. It means your business is constantly evolving due to the constant flow of useful information—sales statistics, click streams, response analysis, competitive intelligence and more. You can use this knowledge to maximize your marketing performance, tweak messaging, adjust creative approaches and evaluate new media outlets. This allows for better opportunity analysis, plus newfound agility when it comes to:

•  Achieving product–price–promotion differentiation.
•  Addressing competitors head-on in sales situations.
•  Articulating customer preferences and perceptions.

Smart marketing can no longer depend on traditional silos. Brand direct marketing effectively leverages the value of your brand with proven direct response tactics. It enables a company to call for immediate action, initiate a customer relationship and then maintain an ongoing, one-on-one dialogue creating loyal followers. And, brand direct produces powerful, measurable results. 

Lindsay Resnick, Chief Marketing Officer, Finelight, lresnick@finelight.com

Health Insurance Top 10 Issues ‘07

Health Insurance Top 10 Issues ‘07

What’s going to drive change in 2007? How are health plans positioning for the future? Here’s a look at the trends shaping health insurance this coming year.

Technology From cybercondriacs to genomics, healthcare technology will be a huge force. With over 120 million people online searching for health information, the customer has embraced technology! For health plans, integrated benefit card technology promises a new era of administrative efficiency.

Differentiatio n Health insurance products have become indistinguishable. Going head-to-head with competitors means rising above this “sea of sameness”. Differentiation will come from unique brand positioning that connects with customers and has competitive muscle.

Boomers America’s 78 million baby boomers are expected to live longer than any generation this country has ever seen. They are educated, tech savvy and convenience driven. From empty nesters to Medicare, boomers are a growing opportunity for health insurers.

Consumerism “Proof-of-concept” will take center stage in 2007 as health plans justify Consumer Driven Healthcare investments. Employers are expecting premium savings and at the same time employees are suffering deductible shock and benefit intimidation.

Distribution Detailed customer profiles, psych-demographic data and predictive modeling are making multiple sales channels a competitive necessity. The result is improved product awareness and a one-on-one customer relationship that turns into sales growth.

Lifestyle Half of Americans now believe it is fair for people with unhealthy lifestyles to pay higher insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays. New and innovative lifestyle management programs are embracing wellness and prevention and rewarding members to get healthy.

Individuals As employer-based health insurance shrinks and the uninsured population grows, the individual health insurance market is booming. Products need to be tailored to unique purchaser needs, striking the right balance between benefits, affordability and insurability.

Convergence Health insurers own banks and banks have healthcare business units. Financial planners are integrating benefits into long-term asset protection, and health brokers are weighing tax implications of HSAs. Today’s healthcare consumers are tomorrow’s payers.

Communication Customers are demanding information in user-friendly, readily accessible formats. Communications need to reflect demographic segmentation. It will take a new mix of strategies to ensure that companies are reaching their target customer.

Healthcare Concierge medicine, hospitalists, intensivists, retail clinics and medical tourism are changing health care delivery. Spending on prescription drugs will surge and employers will continue to cut back on sponsoring health benefits.

This year promises to be challenging. Smart health plan executives will set themselves up to anticipate market change, refine strategic vision and capture new market opportunities.