A Medicare Advantage study by J.D. Power found that 85% of Medicare Advantage Plans do not deliver on all communication performance indicators. The study found that this weakness causes low engagement with members which then leads to a higher likelihood that they will switch plans.
They also found that increased communication that helps members understand out-of-pocket costs, provides healthcare education, and reminds them of preventive services leads to a 21% increase in overall member satisfaction.
You’ve been communicating with your members…but how well is your message getting through?
Let local discounts carry your message further.
Your current communication pieces may be sending the proper message, but how much is it holding members’ attention? Giving them best-in-class offers geotargeted to their addresses grabs their attention…and holds it. Providing offers that are familiar in a campaign designed to motivate members toward some action can act as a powerful spark to ignite that action and adds stickiness to your communication message because they hold on to it.
You can talk about the benefits of exercise, but an offer for a local Zumba class or gym membership might be something that gives someone the extra nudge they need. And that can give you an important advantage in driving home your message—and getting you results.
Entertainment® Rewards & Incentives can provide you with that edge your message needs to get it noticed and reinforced. Email inboxes are full. People’s lives are chaotic—especially these days—but you can use offers to create a message that briefly takes them away from the tedious structure of everyday life. It could take them to a local restaurant for dinner on a patio, or to the zoo or a museum. You can transport them with your message—and discounts that support that message.
How well do you know your customers or members?
You want your communications to convey a level of caring. You want members to know that they are more than just a name and a number to your company. But if you have tens or even hundreds of thousands of people to communicate with, this becomes difficult. And costly.
Our one-to-one newsletter is a printed product that enables marketers to speak to members on a more personal level and show them that they care. We have produced dozens of these direct mail pieces for health plans, and here is why:
Studies show that personalizing your message using one-to-one marketing strategies can help you increase open rates, motivate responses, and encourage desired behaviors. According to Salesforce, 84% of consumers say being treated like a person, not a number, is very important to winning and keeping their business.
Maybe you are trying to motivate members to make an appointment for a cholesterol check. Or maybe you’d like to influence medication adherence. Or perhaps you’d like to remind people to make an appointment for a yearly health exam. Your notes and reminders are much more likely to be noticed and read when valuable recognized discounts are attached.
A little bit of data can go a long way in creating a lasting impression
You don’t have to have much data to create a truly personalized experience with your communications. Entertainment can do a lot with just names and addresses. For our one-to-one newsletter self-mailers, we use a proprietary system to match member names and addresses with our neighborhood offers based on criteria you select.
We’ve all experienced the impact of personalized marketing. Companies like Amazon and Netflix are using member data in new and amazing ways that influence sales and behavior. Entertainment can do something similar with offers to create a personalized experience with your communications—and we don’t need columns of personal data.
We can set parameters around the types of offers you want your members to receive. If you’re trying to promote healthy diet, for instance, we can filter our sub-categories and take fast food and barbeque places out of the equation. Or we can select categories that promote physical activity so you can give members offers for things like dance classes or golf. Or if you wanted to use your communications to recognize the importance of time with family and friends, you can provide offers for things like attractions and restaurants.
When members open the newsletter and see your message, along with offers for places that they recognize from their neighborhood, it cultivates loyalty for your brand, and it gets your message read.
A campaign built around offers in their neighborhood will:
- Surprise and delight. They will open your piece and see logos from merchants they are familiar with—and a great discount.
- Keep your brand top of mind. Give members something with your message that they will want to hold onto. The offers mean that your message gets noticed and sticks around as a lasting reminder.
- Promote actions and behaviors you’re seeking to influence. Plant a seed about healthy behaviors with your words and then drive action with discounts that work hand-in-hand with your message.
- Impact health—and star rating measurements! Reward members with something that has a positive impact on their well-being—and helps with your goals and objectives.
- Give members a way to have fun AND save money. Most people are tightening belts and watching budgets right now but give them a way to treat themselves and their families. This is a great way to let members know you understand their circumstances.
- Speak to them on a more personal level and let them know you care. Local offers enable your message to go beyond just having tests done or reminding them to make appointments or get flu shots. You are enabling them to share moments with loved ones. This gives you a way to deliver a more personal message that is infinitely more potent.
Don’t underestimate the power of discounts in a pandemic.
Giving members a way to help them spend money in their communities can be an inspiring message. In our current environment, everyone is trying to do more to support small businesses in their community. Local offers are a reward that can operate on multiple levels in your messaging. Help them to save money while they contribute to their local economy.
Anecdotal Facebook polls show that most people have been getting take-out or delivery from restaurants about once or twice a week. Sometimes a discount might make the difference between ordering from a restaurant and eating at home. Whether people are ordering in or stepping tentatively into newly reopened, socially distanced businesses, discounts you offer your members can provide help to families that need the change of pace, but might not always be able to afford ordering in. And the extra traffic driven to merchants will be valued and appreciated.
We know discounts. And we know healthcare.
Entertainment® Rewards & Incentives is the leader in discounts with our vast reach of over 500,000 offers throughout North America. We’ve been cultivating relationships with local merchants for 60 years to build an offer database that is unmatched. We use that database to help our partners enhance their communications with programs that work.
Our healthcare programs have helped our partners to increase member engagement and Star Ratings for nearly 15 years. You can check out the Healthcare page on our Rewards & Incentives site to see some compelling examples of how we’ve helped other plans.
Now more than ever…discounts are appreciated
With the Covid-19 pandemic changing the world in new ways every day, the already-complex job of communicating with members becomes further complicated. In the healthcare industry especially, your messages need attention now more than ever. Marketers need to get more creative, but effective options that don’t blow your budget can be hard to come by.
Entertainment can provide customized solutions that enhance healthcare communications at every level of caution in the pandemic, whether the stage is staying home, low or no contact or when things go back to some new form of normal:
- When staying at home, your members can enjoy discounts from the comfort of their own homes with our “We Care-Stay Safe” offers, which includes content from contactless food delivery, online shopping discounts and even free learning and online virtual reality experiences.
- When in a low or no-contact stage, Entertainment can provide discounts for dining offering take-out and curbside pick-up, low-risk experiences like golfing, and services where social distance can be maintained—like oil changes.
- When things are safer, you can provide discounts on things like travel and attractions nationwide.
You are already creating communications to engage your members. Find out how discounts can elevate your campaigns to the next level. Contact us today to learn how we can help.
