How to Jumpstart Your 2016 AEP Medicare Advantage Marketing
What does a local or regionally focused Medicare Advantage plan need to do to jump-start their 2016 AEP marketing? The answer is: “build your brand” in your service area. Brand takes precedence over quality when it comes to Medicare Advantage plan enrollment.
Brand and Market Share Go Hand-in-Hand
In 2014, six national brands or brand affiliates accounted for 72% of Medicare Advantage enrollment. Only one of the big six, Kaiser Permanente, has 5-star rated plans. Brand positioning still appears to trump quality ratings. National brands thrive even though they are more likely to have lower ratings than regional organizations.
According to a National Research Corporations study of healthcare provider brands:
- 77% of consumers would recommend their most familiar brand to friends and family
- 70% who consider that brand a local healthcare provider would do the same
The lesson here is that familiarity with a health provider brand has a significant impact on how consumers make healthcare decisions.
This is critical because most regional or local MA plans are offered by a provider organization, be it a hospital, health system or a large multispecialty physician group. in the eyes of consumers, the parent organization and the Medicare Advantage plan offerings are the same brand. That usually spells good news for highly visible provider brands.
MA plans with a strong local brand are able to compete with national brands in their service area. As they expand their service areas into other counties, consumer perceptions of their brand are diluted and it’s reflected in their market penetration numbers for those counties.
Craft a Branding Strategy
If you’re competing against the big brands for market share, then a well-crafted branding strategy will help you increase the likelihood that beneficiaries will choose your plan during AEP, IEP or SEP periods.
A branding strategy is more than brand awareness. It’s moving consumers to brand preference by building awareness, credibility and trust. If consumers are predisposed toward a healthcare brand, marketing appeals will be more effective at influencing decisions and achieving enrollment numbers. A positive predisposition for a brand is very important for high involvement products such as Medicare Advantage plans. The more positively predisposed, the more likely senior advertising campaigns will reach their goals.
Understand the Brand Perceptions of Your Targeted Audiences
Begin with learning your target market’s perception of your provider organization and MA plans. Use surveys to determine which brand attributes add value to your brand’s position among its target market. Where possible, try to segment responses by some level of commonality such as similar points of service, unit of service, demographics, etc.
Your Brand: Your goal is to find out where you are and where you want to be. Find out where you current “brand” stands in the minds of your targeted audiences. Learn what they value, desire and find compelling. The difference between the two is the “gap” you need to bridge, providing it’s doable and aligned with organization’s goals and values.
Competitors’ Brand: Use this opportunity to learn where you competitors stand as well. It’s relative. You want to improve your brand’s perception relative to competitors. Knowing how they perform and their brand’s position in the target market can help you with your branding strategy.
Get Buy-in from Executives, Providers and Employees
All are key stakeholders in managing your brand. Your brand strategy should address both your internal audience as well as the audiences you’ve targeted. Executives need to commit to the changes necessary to increase you brand’s standing. Providers and employees who interact with prospects, enrollees, patients, etc., i.e. front line people, must understand the strategy and be committed to it for it to be successful.
Use Two Approaches to Building Your Brand
Provider-sponsored MA plans have two opportunities to increase brand awareness and consumer preference for their Medicare Advantage plan offerings though PR and marketing. That assumes that any internal performance issues have been addressed that would negatively affect brand standing. If the product is bad, no amount of brand marketing is going to be successful.
- Use the Medicare Advantage Brand: There are a host of things that the MA plan can use to bring their brand to the consumer and enhance brand standing. The goal is to have a strong presence in the day-to-day lives of consumers in their service area. They include such things as:
- Strong community involvement in various causes and sponsorships of noteworthy events
- Providing or sponsoring educational events and health screenings.
- Strong online presence
- Touting the work of its employees and providers in impactful community issues and events.
- Etc.
Remember to not discuss MA plans as part of these activities. It’s only about the brand.
- Exploit the Provider Organization Sponsor Brand: Because the brand of the MA sponsoring provider organization is tied so closely to their MA plan offerings, building the brand of the sponsoring organization builds the brand perception of the MA offerings as well.
Unlike MA plans, the sponsoring provider organization is not bound by Medicare marketing guidelines. That means that these healthcare organizations have the full range of brand marketing arrows in their quiver. In addition to tactics listed for MA brands above, providers can also use well-placed advertising and other marketing campaigns to target potential MA enrollees with their brand messaging all year round.
Brand positioning using the two approaches outline above can positively influence Medicare beneficiaries’ decision process for provider-sponsored MA plans. If you don’t have a branding strategy, start today and get a jump-start on your 2016 AEP Medicare marketing.