Mindfulness in Marketing: How Should Health Insurance Marketing Be Different?

Looking forward to kicking off a marketing campaign for a health insurance brand? Well, you might want to reconsider your strategy.

The Healthcare industry is such a gargantuan one that it becomes quite difficult as to where the focal point should be. If we ponder over the last few years, an inference can be made that every industry has recognized the thrust of digital marketing and big data in their respective fields of business due to immense advantages. And this is the primary reason that the Healthcare industry is continuously pursuing the next level of technological preferment. Being one of the fastest growing industries, the Healthcare industry contributes almost 10% of GDP of most of the developed countries. Moreover, the industry also plays a significant role in a country’s economy.

A recent study by Google illustrates that almost 84% of patients go for both online and offline sources for hospital research. But the fact of the matter is that the search engines have driven three times as many visitors to the hospital websites as compared to the non-search or the offline visitors. In addition to it, almost 44% of people book their appointments in the hospitals while searching online.

What do you think, “Is the Healthcare Industry the next to be disrupted by Digital Marketing?”

Digital Marketing elucidates an Omni-channel i.e. everyone and everywhere and it has transformed with technology. Digital Marketing is a form of multi-channel marketing which allows customers to smoothly enter and leave legions of channels. But if we brood about the Health Insurance Companies, then the perfect strategy would be personalization. Giving personalized experience to the customers through their applications like weather forecast, driving routes etc. would prove to be a top-notch strategy.

In today’s sunshine of 21^st century, on one hand where digital marketing has become a much-hyped thing, a lot of Insurers are broadly lagging in key digital marketing capabilities which could help in discovering a novice generation of customers.

So, all the Health Insurance Companies just have a sneak peek into the approach of digital marketing in the Health Insurance Industry.

Realize Opportunities and the Power of Optimism

The major driving force for the insurance sales is our quotidian lifestyle. People are getting married, pursuing new jobs, having babies and this is an eternal process. So, opportunities would always be there because the insurer’s activeness on a digital platform can fill the gap, thus driving more and more sales. The time demands the Insurance Companies to take a leap on the technology and build a multi-channel strategy.

Think of connecting your branding and marketing efforts with positive emotions like optimism and hope instead of features and USPs. See how beautifully Sonnet Insurance made use of optimism in this ad campaign.

Speechless?

Fabricate your database in accordance with current information demands

Right from the origin of the insurance companies, they have never bothered to assemble the emails of their customers and some companies still don’t bother to do that. The current scenario yearns for keeping a record of emails and attaching their email addresses to their customer lists. The biggest drawback with the insurance companies is their organized data by product, rather than by customer or the household. In order to enhance the functionality and marketing efforts of the insurance companies; all the information collected in insurance sales should be utilized in the product administration systems.

Empower your audience with knowledge that helps them in decision-making.

Every marketer by now knows the importance of content marketing and inbound marketing techniques. The overall discourse of new-age marketing is a shift from the age-old techniques of selling your product to aiming at spreading information. Information is at the core of Insurance marketing because there’s a lot for the audience to learn and thereby for the brands to teach.

Insurance companies should focus on value-adding content and not 'salesy' chunks of text talking about your products. For a page that talks about health insurance plans, don’t just list your plans, rather answer questions your audience might have. Take a look at the health insurance page [Ed: Watch out for delayed popups!] of Apollo Munich and take a cue. Answer questions like how to choose a policy, what are the various types of policies, how to read the fine print of the policy document and a lot more if you can. It won’t just serve the purpose of the users, but will also help you be in the good books of search engines.

Bring Analytics into play

One of the colossal things going smoothly with the trend is the big data. So, now the insurance companies need to organize their data and let the analytics to get going. Insurance companies possess a lot of data and through efficient analytics, they can have more relevant and targeted customers. Most insurance companies have been pretty reluctant in outsourcing their services and if they do so, then each mail can be converted into potential sales.

Think of converting your data into a survey study and presenting it your audience for insights. How about letting the world know of what percentage of people claim health insurance for cancer and what percentage claim it for airborne diseases? Such useful data will not just give your audience an insight into the larger perspective, but will also establish you as a thought leader.

Social Media Influence

Just a regular social media page where you publish your content in form of videos, social media posts, e-books, webinars, and others is not enough. Of course, that is important to help your target audience learn about the company’s healthcare products and services, but if your social media strategy is limited to that, you are seriously undermining the power of social media.

The biggest insurance mascots Allstate and Progressive have set the bars high for you to follow. The social profiles that go by the name of Mayhem and Flo respectively engage their audiences in a unique and interesting way that a regular company page couldn’t ever do (possibly). Bottom-line? Don’t be afraid of being a little weird and human-like! Leaving the veil of sophistication and stringent brand guidelines will only do you good in the world of marketing.

Out of the box Strategy for Mobile Users

The Health Insurance industry is such that they do not have a regular flow of customers. It is just that you need to make a flow, not just flow, but a streamlined flow. Coming up with mobile applications could probably help you in building up a brand equity, as customers would cling more towards using the mobile applications. Just like P&C, an insurance company introduced a game application FARMVILLE in order to elevate the brand promotion. And the rest is HISTORY!

Emotional Facet of Brand Endorsements

Though there are no bars on the insurance companies to use celebrity endorsements on the promotional front, still mixed opinions on the same make it a bit shaky to push products. Celebrity endorsements help in spreading the information to the entire population and focus should be kept on sensitizing the people about the importance of insuring their things and maintaining a financial stability. Such celebrity endorsements also help in building a brand value for the company. It is a fact that celebrity adds a sense of trust and an element of credibility which is utmost critical in the health insurance sector. The catch, however, is the choice of celebrity. Make sure the celebrity you choose is someone your audience relates to in terms of insurance and health.

Final Conjecture

Insurance marketing is evolving every day. There are leaders in the industries to look up to. These three insurance companies took content marketing by storm and there’s so much you can adopt from their success. Insurance marketing strategies, in particular, should encompass a combined solution for their web presence in order two serve:

1. Retention of the customers in such a competitive marketplace
2. Acquiring more and more customers who now have easy access to the internet in comparing the insurance offers.
3. The approach should be customer oriented and focus should be on inbound marketing tactics.

Thus, a good website with integrated social media and advertisement campaigns can really do the job of attaining not just her revenues but better brand positioning too.The quintessence lies in the communication and the capability of clinching the potential customer interest because it is the customer who anticipates for the most amazing experience ever.

You got more tips for insurance marketers? Let’s talk about them in the comments below.