Turning open enrollment into a marketing plan
What if employers stopped looking at their employee benefits as a list of expenses but rather as a product they were selling?
When you think of successful companies, what comes to mind? Brands like Apple, Facebook, NIke, perhaps? These companies are all known for the products they offer, but what really makes them recognizable is the branding and marketing of their products.
What if employers stopped looking at their employee benefits as a list of expenses but rather as a product they were selling?
In a recent webinar, Hodges-Mace vice president of communications Emily Dobbins and communications manager Lindsay Obrentz explored how HR professionals can borrow a few marketing plays to develop a more impactful benefits enrollment strategy. After all, good benefits are the key to employee retention, or, in marketing terms, brand loyalty.
1. Define your audience
When rethinking enrollment as a marketing plan, it’s necessary to stop looking at employees as employees and instead look at them as an audience. “The purpose of defining your audience is so you define what they care most about and speak to that,” Obrentz said. “Marketers love labels. Who gave us yuppies, preppies, hippies, tweens? Having those market segments well defined is what makes an effective communication strategy in the first place.”
There are four ways marketers segment their audience that employers can use when looking at their own workforce:
Geographic: Where are your employees? Do some work remotely or in different states? Obrentz recommended developing a strategy specifically to address hard-to-reach workers so they’re not missed in your enrollment communications–reminder posters and in-person meetings aren’t going to go over well with your employees six hours away.
Demographic: Most workplaces will include employees of different ages, backgrounds, income level, and more. Trying to speak to every individual based on their unique demographics will be impossible, but Obrentz suggested looking for commonalities that can be used to group them together.
Psychographic: Believe it or not, employees’ benefit choices are impacted by their personal beliefs, and it’s important to recognize the different attitudes and opinions influencing workers.
Behavioral: Known as ”buying patterns” in the marketing world, you can look at how employees have acted in the past and base enrollment messaging off of that. Take emergency room visits, for example. “Do you have a ton of people going to the ER when they don’t really need to?” Obrentz posited. “You can create an entire campaign around that.”
HR professionals have access to a lot of data about their employees that can make segmenting their audience easier, but Obrentz also stressed the importance of using surveys or focus groups–just like in marketing. “We’re not mind-readers,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to ask questions directly of employees. How do you want to be communicated to? What’s most important to you and your family?
“It also helps you go to leadership and say we have heard from employees this is what they want and we’re going to pursue it in this way,” she added.
2. Channels and topics
Once you know who your audience is, you can determine the best methods to reach them. Creating a benefit guide for employees will offer all of the information they want in one place, but as anyone working with benefits knows, very few employees will actually read through all of that information. “They’re not for everyone,” Dobbins said. “That’s why we stress how important it is to know your audience. It’s more about personal preference.”
Product purchasers aren’t going to just go to the store and pull something new off the shelf. They have to be looking for it, which means they have to know a little bit about it beforehand, and they have to be curious to learn more.
How does that translate into employee benefits enrollment? “When you develop a campaign, it’s important to understand that feeling that you want the pieces to create,” Dobbins said. “First, let’s create awareness for the announcement for the upcoming enrollment–a postcard, initial email blast.
“Then you want to create interest for employees,” she continued. “This may be a really good time to personalize a piece. Next, create a desire or need in wanting to enroll in the benefit–how plans will help them save money.”
These communication pieces come in a variety of forms, including posters, emails, texts and meetings, to name a few. Expanding the channels helps build awareness of your message, but Obrentz also cautioned that the message will not be the same for each. “If you have digital means of communication that are not as robust–text messaging, for example–you won’t send lengthy communications, but you can tie it into email campaigns: ‘Be on the lookout for…’”
3. Design your message
Once the audience and strategy are defined, then it’s time for designing the actual enrollment messaging–which should be a fun experience,” Obrentz said. “Let’s take a play from that marketing playbook and not be afraid to let our benefits brand show a little personality and be a little bit more human.”
Dobbins and Obertz offered the following tips:
- Write plans to be more approachable, down to earth and friendly.
- Use less words and more visuals, such as infographics.
- People love bullet points.
- If a sentence or paragraph looks daunting to you, it is. Choose simpler words and break it up.
- Instead of creating several different communications, break up and repackage existing ones–taking callouts from an email, for example.
- Step outside your own team or department and get a fresh set of eyes to help ensure your message is clear.
- Use humor, be candid be creative.
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