Anne Jessup Explains Using Experiential Marketing to Target the Uninsured

Improved health literacy will help consumers understand plans and benefits so that they can make better decisions and Florida Blue has focused on experiential marketing where customers are engaged in community events, outreach programs, and educational sessions, explained Anne Jessup, senior director of digital channels at Florida Blue.

Transcript (modified)

What role does improving health literacy play when enrolling consumers?

I think the ability to really meet the meaningful access standards and making sure that when we’re communicating to a consumer—as we’re talking about our plans and our benefits—that we’re communicating in a way that makes sense to them. Not using a ton of acronyms, not using words that are unfamiliar, but trying to make it really common language that everybody can understand and hopefully make a good choice because of it.

What has been the plan for attracting the uninsured and getting them to enroll?

We’ve seen a couple of opportunities with the uninsured space. Again, we really leverage something that we refer to industry-wide, and in the marketing spaces, as “experiential marketing.”

We go to where the customer is and engage them in a way that makes sense. So we participate in community events, we set up outreach programs, we have weekly and monthly education sessions both in our retail center as well as in prominent points around the community. So that it’s very easy for someone to say, “Oh, you know what, they’re talking about insurance. Maybe I should stop by; maybe I should set up an appointment; maybe I should come and just ask some questions and make sure I understand what health insurance is all about and what open enrollment really means to me.”

In addition, we do a lot of outreach through various marketing campaigns—again, both digitally as well as in the community—and really try to get a customer’s attention and get them in and help them understand what they have available to them.