With the various Open Enrollment Periods (OEP) for health insurance, your clients need to understand what’s at stake. These times allow clients to review existing health insurance plans or enroll in new or different policies that meet their needs. Sometimes, you need to create urgency around these time frames because a client’s needs can change, and it might require some guidance for policyholders to become aware of that fact.
Your marketing methods must be designed to draw clients’ attention and spur them to action if necessary. Here are some ideas for crafting a message and strengthening your customer relationships by emphasizing the significance of the OEP.
Marketing and Its Power
Your marketing plan should employ various mediums to achieve multiple objectives. You’ll want to foster customer loyalty while building your book of insurance business. Much of your success will revolve around the power of your message. What should you say? Who should you tell it to? And how should you deliver it?
In this instance, the message stresses the importance of the OEP and how this period could impact your client’s health, well-being, and budget. Regardless of the medium — email, social media, printed material, etc.— policyholders should be inspired to review their policies for annual changes and perhaps the need to switch carriers.
Your audience consists of existing clients with Medicare, Medicare Advantage, or Obamacare policies. Your clientele must understand that these contacts are not static and require an annual review to see how copays, deductibles, and networks may have been changed or updated.
You can try several marketing mediums and gauge which are the most effective in generating customer response. Just keep in mind that OEPs for Medicare Advantage plans prohibit you from marketing to prospects and customers.
Considering the demographic of your audience, a mix of email, social media content, and snail-mail prints may be good ways to reach individuals interested in purchasing insurance through the exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act, where non-solicitation rules do not apply during OEP.
Marketing Best Practices
- Avoid weekends when posting social media posts.
- Email language should be direct, valuable, and contain a call to action, which can boost conversion rates.
- Keep SMS messages concise and powerful. Don’t exceed more than 160 characters in your texts.
- Align printed material with your existing brand or the brand you’re looking to build.
Create Urgency in Your Marketing Efforts
The delivery method and the message itself must complement each other. Be sure to tailor your messaging to the marketing channel you’re using. The length and content of an SMS message will be more succinct and direct than an email, for instance.
Creating urgency in your OEP communications hinges on using the right words and sentiments to capture a policyholder’s attention. With Open Enrollment, there is a set time to make decisions. So, be sure to let clients know there is a deadline to make switches on benefits, plan design, and copays.
First impressions leave a lasting image, so choose your wording carefully. This is especially important in email subject lines, which clients will see first. Words like “important” or “urgent” inserted into subject lines will help your communications garner attention.
OEP options present critical choices for policyholders, but you don’t want to belabor the point. Long, drawn-out emails or a stack of printed materials might shift a client’s focus away from the matter at hand. Keep your messaging brief and readable in about one minute; overall, you’ll realize excellent response rates to your marketing pieces when messages let your audience know that you understand their situations.
Take Action
You can use a multifaceted approach in your marketing campaigns. You’ll want to ensure that you’re keeping the message timely, urgent, clear, and concise through each marketing channel. With innovations like our 2023 guide to Marketing Tools and Strategies, Claro provides a trove of marketing and other resources to help agents grow their businesses. Contact us today for more information.
