KelseyCare Advantage
Medicare Advantage Plan Uses Direct Response Strategy to Increase Enrollment by 153%
KelseyCare Advantage evolved its marketing strategy and tactics to leverage a local celebrity spokesperson and modern assets to demonstrate its highly competitive advantage over other plans.
The Background
KelseyCare Advantage (KCA) is a Medicare Advantage plan that has held a contract with Medicare since 2008 in 13 select Texas counties.
In 2022, the new marketing team at KCA faced unique challenges that required transforming the organization’s marketing approach from an extensive brand strategy to a highly efficient direct response strategy. No tracking mechanisms had been in place, which meant the team needed to quickly develop and implement a hyper-focused tracking strategy with extensive versioning of creative by direct mail piece, medium, and television station. The marketing team was also expected to meet unprecedented growth goals—namely gaining more members at a lower per-subscriber cost.
The Lee Group was challenged to identify and execute a creative multimedia direct response campaign that would demonstrate KCA’s new plan benefits and reinforce KCA’s unique position as Texas’ Best Medicare Advantage Plan*.
The Challenge
The most critical marketing time for any Medicare plan is during the Annual Enrollment Period (AEP) each year between October 15 and December 7. This is the time period each year when Medicare-eligible adults 65+ may switch to a new plan. It is also the time when all Medicare plans are advertising, so the airways are saturated with Medicare advertising.
To ensure success during this crucial time period, KCA needed a highly effective and efficient marketing campaign that could compete with the deep pockets of major national carriers offering Medicare Advantage plans.
In short, KCA needed a hard-hitting and memorable advertising campaign that would resonate with audiences and effectively communicate the benefits and affordability of the plan. KCA needed the right creative message, delivered through a direct response strategy, that could be continuously measured and optimized for efficiency to deliver more qualified leads at a lower cost.
The Solution
The “Get More Without Paying More” campaign established Art Rascon, a popular news anchor in Houston, as KCA’s spokesperson. The campaign demonstrated how seniors can get more healthcare coverage and benefits without paying more. Rascon’s role also added credibility to the campaign and created consistency in design and messaging across the campaign’s channels: television commercial, direct mail, and free-standing inserts (flyers) for print.
TLG also used other creative assets, including an easy-to-read comparison chart and animation, to demonstrate how the KCA plan is superior to original Medicare. To assist with tracking, a unique phone number that was answered by the KCA Call Center was used for each medium.
:60 Television
English and Spanish Print Ads, Collateral, and Direct Mail
English and Spanish Print Ads, Collateral, and Direct Mail
English and Spanish Print Ads, Collateral, and Direct Mail
English and Spanish Print Ads, Collateral, and Direct Mail
English and Spanish Print Ads, Collateral, and Direct Mail
Direct Response Animated Display and Companion Paid Social Ads
Direct Response Animated Display and Companion Paid Social Ads
The Results
The success of the campaign yielded many impressive results, but the crown jewel was the fact that KCA solidified its position as Texas’ Best Medicare Advantage Plan* based on their U.S. News rating and also became Houston’s fastest-growing Medicare Advantage Plan based on CMS (Medicare) reported enrollment data for December 2021 to December 2022.
The “Get More Without Paying More” campaign with Art Rascon resonated higher with target audiences than all previous campaigns. In 2022, KCA increased membership enrollment by 153% year-over-year. Further, KCA’s ability to optimize the television buy on an ongoing basis enabled them to reduce their cost per lead significantly.
*KCA is the only Medicare Advantage plan in Texas that has earned a 5-Star rating by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the U.S. News “Best Medicare Advantage Plans” rating for seven consecutive years.
