Resnick Unplugged

GUT CHECK: Medicare Marketing

Medicare AEP for 2018 isn’t as far off as you may think and it’s not too soon to step back and take a hard look at your marketing strategy and tactics: lead generation, channel mix, multi-cultural, sales integration, and compliance coordination. What’s been working…what hasn’t? Have customer needs shifted? Have you maintained competitive differentiation?

A disciplined approach to assessing your Medicare marketing can focus on two critical objectives: 1) validate operating assumptions and tactical effectiveness; and 2) through “gap analysis” identify important areas of enhancement. The goal: assure your Medicare business is realizing a measurable return on its marketing dollars to achieve growth objectives and improve profitability.

Assess marketing and sales plans

• Review and assess marketing plan

Examine prospect data and direct response lists

• Evaluate upfront/backend data (purchased or rented) and reporting

Assess messaging: content relevance and value

• Review overall content/messaging, creative and brand integration

Evaluate media channel mix, grassroots and digital

• Review Web content, lead gen, SEO, SEM, online senior social

Assess adequacy of member retention and outreach

• Review retention communication plan, budget and core messaging

Review marketing and sales program integration

• Review KPIs, program metrics and functional integration

As competitors realign, selling season shortens, and customer demographics change, effective member acquisition and customer retention are built on a platform of higher close ratios, lower cost of sales and customer engagement. For marketing leadership to make informed decisions regarding resource allocation and in-market tactics, stepping back to evaluate where you stand today and what needs to change to be successful tomorrow is critical to the next successful AEP.

 

Healthcare's Strategis Interruptus

Across healthcare sectors we’re seeing strategis interruptus…rethinking and delaying implementation of core business strategies based on a series of unpredictable or disorienting actions affecting target markets.

Starting with a 2016 election result that took everyone by surprise, then seeing two blocked health insurance mega-mergers, and then welcoming new leadership at HHS and CMS. Finally, a Presidential declaration that “Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated!”

The subsequent ups and downs of Trumpcare’s attempt at ACA repeal and replace (or repair or rename) with AHCA possibly resulting in 24 million Americans reentering the ranks of the uninsured, has reverberated across the healthcare ecosystem. Hospitals are worried about an uptick in uncompensated care and bad debt, payers are worried about risk management and product-line pricing, healthtech companies are worried about demand cycles and the future of venture funding. And consumers are worried and confused about all of it.

The confluence of unknowns and erratic regulatory overtures has thrust many healthcare stakeholders into “wait & see” mode. Predictions are running rampant about sustainability of consumer insurance markets, product-line exits, the future of Medicaid, and reduced marketplace competition. Will the politicization of healthcare slow down or halt progress the industry has made in value based payment, activating and engaging consumers, and game-changing medical technology advances?

Success in transformative, threatened markets requires an ability to continually reassess and rethink strategic direction: anticipate and absorb change, generate situational-driven strategic insights, and act with deliberate, sequenced speed. It means stepping back, asking tough questions, and managing through a new set of obstacles to capture opportunity. A strategis interruptus reassessment should include 3 steps:

1. GUT CHECK – Establish a readiness gauge of where you stand today and identify what needs to be retooled to deal with shifting markets and new or reversed rules.
2. FUTURE THINK – Create scenarios and options for addressing core business objectives (e.g., growth, profitability, product and services) in a reformed or re-regulated landscape.
3. ACTION PLAN – Select and prioritize specific, tangible opportunities; design a structured approach to achieve results; and, formulate an actionable, measurable business plan.

Enterprise-wide this means calling into question assumptions made before the rules changed. Challenge institutional bias, breakdown silos, and force debate around longstanding approaches to current markets (or opportunity analyses on new markets that just became more attractive). Create a renewed focus on where your company needs to be headed and lay the groundwork for navigating how to get there.

Be agile. Be actionable.