Open Enrollment for health insurance is just around the corner, and the Annual Election Period for medicare has already started. This year more than ever, people are turning to online or over-the-phone to purchase their healthcare plans for the upcoming year. This creates a big opportunity for affiliates and brands alike to benefit from the use of an affiliate program to generate leads for health insurance.
The Opportunity
For consumers buying health insurance is anything but simple. Plans and premiums are constantly changing, regulations impact degrees of coverage, and consumer health needs are changing. Even if an individual currently has health insurance coverage, rate changes and modifications to policy services mean that their coverage needs to be re-evaluated on an annual basis. Couple this confusion with a shortened enrollment period, and you’ve got a high-pressure scenario for both providers and consumers.
There are many reasons why Open Enrollment can often be a stressful time for buyers:
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Policies aren’t reader friendly. The acronyms and jargon that are common to health insurance providers, are often no-so-common to the average person. It can take a lot of extra time to look up terms to really figure out what you are really getting in terms of coverage.
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Health insurance is expensive. For those without employer coverage, the cost of health insurance is a big feat. It’s not uncommon for monthly premiums to run higher than mortgages or childcare costs.
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Every person has different requirements. While some consumers have no health issues they need to account for with their insurance, many have serious health concerns that need to be accounted for. This, along with budget constraints, make choosing a policy a high-stakes decision.
With this big task at hand, it’s obvious that consumers need some guidance when it comes to choosing their coverage. Spending just a few minutes talking with an expert who can help them find a policy that meets their needs and their budget can make a world of difference when it comes to purchasing a plan. However, the insurance companies can’t do it all. They can talk people through the plans, but they need help getting people through the door.
Where Affiliate Programs Come In
A lot of consumers will be researching various healthcare plans online during the Open Enrollment Period, and a majority of it will be done online. Even the most reputable insurance companies still need help connecting with potential clients who are ready to buy. One of the best ways for health insurance brands to gain more exposure is to leverage the power of content marketing by working with online creators that already have the expertise and marketing strategy to find those consumers. Many of them even have an established audience they can leverage.
In this scenario a consumer sees an ad, reads a blog post, or follows a link to a website page offering them the help they need to find a health insurance plan that works for them. They fill out a form with basic information requesting someone to contact them – or they just call the number specified on the site to have that conversation when they’re ready. The brand gets the leads they need to complete their sales, and the affiliate marketer gets a piece of the pie for generating that lead. What could be more sweet?
Read more: How Form Leads and Open Enrollment Go Hand-in-Hand
Why it Works
Partnering with performance marketing networks allows health insurance companies to scale at a much larger and faster pace than they would on their own. With the short-time frame of open enrollment, there’s not enough time to do it all. As effective as they may be in generating leads in-house, there’s a limit to what they can do and how many consumers they can reach using their own resources. By utilizing affiliates who are experts in publishing ads and content both online and offline, they can get the volume of prospects they need to meet their sales goals.
Affiliates benefit from working with affiliate marketing programs because they have access to a large amount of campaigns to send their traffic to. They can choose when and where they work, and the type of campaign they want to run using their best marketing strategies. The best part? They get paid for every qualifying call or lead they generate. Open Enrollment offers the perfect opportunity for those high-commission payouts due to the limited time frame for consumers to enroll. Health insurance companies are willing to allocate large budgets in order to secure the greatest amount of customers for the next year.
Whether it’s helping the health insurance company making more sales, or generating higher payouts for the affiliates, RingPartner works hard to make the most of Open Enrollment. There’s a big opportunity to earn, and we can help.