Branding Your Self Funded / Self Insured Plan Offering

Alex Piper

Jan 5, 2010

Enrolling employees in healthcare benefits and  marketing healthcare benefits enjoys the advantage of having a captive audience AND established channels to reach them.  Whether it is to comply with employee communication regulations, or as good corporate citizens, most employers have established channels of communication with their employees.  These range from electronic and online channels to hardcopy and, what I refer to as, congregational marketing.

Congregational marketing simply put, is the science of marketing to target markets when they congregate in certain places.  Whereas the history of congregational marketing started with physical applications such as notice boards, cafeteria areas, entrance and exit locations, etc., it has developed, as you’d expect, to include email applications, employee intranet sites and other company online and electronic “locations.”  This article will dive a little deeper into one of the marketing aspects of healthcare benefits marketing, namely branding.

Let me start with an introduction of Branding.  From one of my Branding workshops, I have extracted the following overview bullet points for this article:

• Communicates value, benefits and mission
• Utilizes concise and consistent messaging
• Reflects the quality, value and professionalism
• Timeless in design
• Should be reduced to simplest form
• Foundation for all succeeding communications

In addition to the above, Branding is a company’s major tool in building their image.  It is the only way some have of building recognition of them and their products.   I have a theory of Branding called “The Cumulative Theory.”  This theory, as it relates to marketing, simply means that a company or entity builds their brand image and recognition by consistent communication.  Every time consumers receive communication that resembles previous communications, the image is strengthened and recognition is built up.  Conversely, for every confusing, inconsistent communication that consumers receive, the brand image or recognition is weakened and destroyed.  Therefore, in theory, one consistent communication partnered with one inconsistent communication, results in a net zero gain because the use of the latter cancels out the strengths of the former.

Now that we have an overview of Branding and have visited “The Cumulative Theory,” let’s examine how voluntary benefits marketing should consider Branding.  Based on the overview, I hope we all agree that Branding is a good thing, regardless of the object of the branding campaign.  Therefore, the only issue that should be valuable to this article is exactly how voluntary benefits should be branded.

The first difficulty is that there are so many products and services offered in the benefits marketplace to employees.  Healthcare benefits, Accident coverage, life insurance, dental, vision, health prevention, teeth whitening, long-term and short-term varieties of coverage, and the list could go on.  Most employers also include home and auto coverage products in their menu of offerings.  If one imagines that different providers deliver each of these products, one can easily see the dilemma that a benefits manager faces.  How exactly can all these products be packaged so that the employees realize their value, especially the healthcare benefits offered under a self funded program?  More importantly, how can they be marketed so that they achieve traction, namely high enrollment levels?

So, how about that for the first recommendation?  Create, select or design a name, or brand name for your healthcare  benefits package.  I propose to my readers that the actual selection is less important than the fact that a selection is made.  In other words, your brand name could be anything that you please.

The fact that future communication will be consistent is far more important than the name.  Take a look around and observe the practically ludicrous brands that exist out there, but admit that many of them have achieved incredible brand recognition through consistent and oftentimes countless messages.  I perhaps simplify and dilute the importance of a brand name by hinting that the name itself is not important.  Of course it is, but I’ve seen countless brilliant brand names bite the dust because of consequent inept marketing.  Now that we have a brand name, we have a cover so to speak, that covers the details of the benefit offerings until we choose to expose them and do so in a manner that we carefully plan and execute.

Your employees won’t mind as much that a certain provider has changed, as much as they’ll appreciate that the particular benefit is still being offered under its original name.  The original offering name lends confidence and credibility to the management of the benefits package.  Your target audience is your employee base and they certainly don’t want to see their benefits reduced or the buying power of the company weakened, and result in higher rates.

With over 17 years experience in Insurance, Marketing and Employee Benefits Management, Alex Piper possesses extensive knowledge of the U.S. Healthcare Market and the influence that Insurance Carriers, U.S. Employers, Hospitals, Physicians, Physician Groups, Healthcare Professional Organizations and Government will have on the next generation of global healthcare.
As an insurance executive at a top Fortune 50 U.S. company, he spent the last eight years designing employee and customer benefits programs including healthcare programs for the large supplier and distribution partner companies of his employer.  He was responsible for creating a benefits program that had over U.S.$140 million in assets and had over 1300 companies enrolled.  His latest program grew from zero to $40 million in insurance premiums in less than two years!

Alex’s experience also includes the design of marketing communications plans that grew his company 20% annually, and made it the 12th most profitable company in its industry in America.  His skill set is nicely rounded with his experience in being responsible for complete marketing communication strategy and execution for a growing $156 million company, including public relations, multimedia advertising, event marketing and Internet marketing.

Alex Piper is President of the Self Funding Employer Association.  He can be reached at