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Focus on Engagement
WebMD Health Services offers custom engagement programs to client companies, along with complete deployment support by National Wellness Institute-certified worksite wellness program managers. We talked to David Rowe, WebMD vice president of consumer marketing, about how WebMD supports its customers with best practices in consumer engagement.
First of all, why is engagement such a difficult part of health management?
One challenge is that most people only pay attention to their health if they have a chronic condition or if they experience an acute medical event. With health management, we’re trying to get people to think about their health before something goes wrong; before they feel a sense of urgency. That’s a fundamental change and it requires the same kind of marketing strategies that companies use to get consumers to buy new products and services.
A second challenge is that many companies try to promote health management the same way they promote benefits activities like open enrollment or 401(k) program registration. Those are once-a-year events for which people recognize the immediate risk of inaction. Health promotion is different. Making people aware of the risk of inaction requires ongoing, personalized communication to engage them and help them manage their health over time.
So what best practices should companies adopt to improve consumer engagement?
Our leading-edge customers have recognized that consumer engagement is more than a one-time activity. It begins with a health risk assessment (HRA) campaign, which raises individuals’ awareness of their health status. On-going campaigns reinforce that engagement and motivate people to take the actions recommended in their HRA results or by their health coach.
Companies who are on the leading edge of engagement best practices use constant, profile-driven communications to give individuals relevant information that prompts the appropriate behavior change. WebMD clients are able to do that with our Insight Engine, which leverages individuals’ master health profile to personalize their communication and interaction. The master health profile is what drives targeted messages that are personalized based on each individual’s health interests, risks, and readiness to change their behavior. And it tracks individuals’ activities to reward them for desired behavior changes.
Do you have proof that this works?
We test and measure every campaign, and we’ve built a knowledge base around what works. For example, we know that profile-driven messaging outperforms general-interest messaging by orders of magnitude. We recently compared two messaging approaches with a client. The company’s pharmacy benefits manager sent an email regarding an important health topic to about 18,000 registered users of the company’s health site. The open rate for that email was about 8%, and the click-through rate (taking action) was less than 1%. In comparison, WebMD sent a profile-drive message on the same health topic to about 2,400 individuals who had expressed an interest in that topic. The open rate was 32% and the click-through rate to the online tool to help manage the condition was 24%. The targeted message prompted 50% more individuals to take action on a costly health condition. And the targeted message didn’t annoy the 92% of registered users who weren’t interested in the topic.
Results like this reinforce personalization as a critical aspect of engagement best practices.
You mentioned incentives. How do they affect engagement?
Today’s lifestyle and behaviors are key causes of our future health conditions, but it’s difficult to get people to give up a pleasurable behavior now to avoid the pain of an event that might occur tomorrow. Incentives provide immediate gratification for taking action. Companies who have adopted best practices have aligned their incentive programs with quarterly campaigns that sustain engagement and reward for incremental behavior change. One without the other just doesn’t lead to the same high participation rates.
Our leading customers are using “frequent flyer” types of incentive programs very successfully. These programs allow people to earn rewards through continued efforts to improve their health. The WebMD Health & Benefits Manager system integrates all of these things: the individual’s health risks and interests, personalized communication, relevant health management tools, and incentives for participating in Lifestyle Improvement Programs and seeking counsel from their health coach.
Can you lay out the steps companies need to take?
Our Advisory Services team helps our clients achieve maximum program participation. We help them develop a health promotion strategy that defines the required changes in population health risks and how to accomplish them. Then we develop an engagement strategy that includes broad multimedia communications and incentives. Finally, we create and deploy a 12-month campaign that is designed to drive real behavior change, and we report on its effectiveness to achieve those goals. Our approach recognizes that not everyone in the population is in the same place with respect to their health or readiness-to-change. So our plans are tiered, using quarterly campaigns to move segments of the population through a continuum that includes awareness, engagement, and finally, activation – when people take responsibility for improving their health.
For more information, download our Consumer Engagement Services Brochure or contact your account manager.
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