Importance of Personalizing Member Communications

Targeting and personalization in the multichannel approach

With one in five consumers feeling the need for a digital detox, the need for well-targeted and personalized content is greater than ever. Highly relevant content is sure to stand above the noise and break through the clutter, but it relies first on the targeting and segmentation of your members into small groups. Equally important is the flexibility of your marketing communication to leverage personalized outreach, whether it be email or direct mail based, in getting the right content in front of the right member at the right time.

Creative ideas for personalizing content

Content personalization is a hot topic for many marketers and product managers, though not everyone executes personalization effectively. For example, many communication campaigns start with a dynamic insertion of the recipient's name, allowing the campaign manager to check off a box and consider personalization complete. However, effective personalization requires more attention than just addressing a member by their first name.

With today’s technology and need to engage members and improve outcomes it is important to personalize the actual content in a way that is relevant to each member and their health. On your member portals make sure your delivering content that is relevant to them and their health. If someone has heart disease it would be advantageous to present articles on diet and exercise, signs to watch for stoke or health attack and heart healthy recipes. This type of content will ensure your members are engaging and keeping their health top of mind.

Making personalization seamless can be as simple as thanking current members for their loyalty during the Annual Enrollment Period, along with receiving plan information about the next year’s offerings. Welcome-back and thank you messages can be sent to those who re-enroll with the carrier for the next year. Personalization for returning customers can help ensure they feel like more than a number to your plan and that you do care about their repeat business.

The more you can personalize your content to the member the more likely they are to remain satisfied loyal members with driving healthier outcomes. Some effective out-of-the-box ideas for personalized content for approaches spanning both traditional and digital channels include:

• Make deeper connections — Businesses with the most sophisticated needs, such as HIPAA compliance, can utilize pre-approved CMS content through template-based design to personalize the content their customers are viewing in email newsletters or direct mail pieces. Suppose the member communications are being routed through a dynamic publishing solution that truly enables personalized communications. In that case, the content can be personalized from such characteristics as the customer's age, gender, or location.
• Utilize targeted recommendations — A services organization, such as a health insurance provider, could take an algorithmic approach to consider the different medical treatments a consumer has undergone and suggest content on how to prevent related illnesses. The recommended content could be delivered via app notifications or email newsletter. Or perhaps a little extra personal touch is needed, and such content could be placed in the customer's hands as a physical mailer.
• Leverage gamification — A variety of organizations could use information such as purchase history or consumer location to get extra personal, providing calls to action for additional loyalty program points if they complete a specific challenge. For example, Starbucks' introduction of such a gamified loyalty rewards program assisted in lifting its revenues to over $2.5 billion. Similar gamification tactics could be used through a variety of channels, such as event marketing or direct response marketing, to move current members along the customer journey toward advocacy.

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