Enterprise marketing is hard enough without a gatekeeper. If your business strategy includes employers, have you thought about how to win over your HR partner? More importantly, how to win with your HR partner?
- Offer flexible implementation tools
Build your ideal rollout campaign for your product. Dream big: targeted postcards based on coverage tier, email drip campaigns triggered by health events, infographic library, patient accolades, video testimonials, and free ice cream and swag for the health fairs. Now, assume you must meet your goals with a quarter of the creative contact you recommend. And perhaps a tenth of the panache you think necessary. What is truly essential? What experiments are you willing to run? Instead of thinking of your HR partner as a gatekeeper, think of him or her as the product’s best fan. What in your flexible toolkit is helping him or her become that fan? You might need to supplement the marketing tools you’re creating to include internal presentations—that turn down the sales and turn up the diplomacy. - Schedule regular meetings
Any employer investing in digital health tools believes their employees are their most valuable business asset. Your engagement goals will never be their priority, even if they asked you to put those engagement goals into the contract. Of course, everyone at the table wants to see meaningful change. Your media calendar needs to be in tune with the unique news cycle of employees at the worksite. The most reliable news source: your HR buyer. But you need to ask the right questions. For instance, do you know when the performance management cycle is? Are earnings up or down? Which business units lost benefits when they were acquired? How are engagement scores looking? Does anyone like the high deductible plan? Only when you offer ideas that work within the context of the current business reality—not just in your creative war room—can you hope to be your HR partner’s trusted advisor.
- Create a feedback loop
Despite walking the same halls as employees, HR isn’t a customer service department. While they are oftentimes seen as the underdog’s advocate, they also hand out pink slips. This unique role doesn’t encourage honest customer feedback. You can do that work on behalf of your HR buyer. Data mine the heck out of any employee contact: usage stats, customer service trends, satisfaction surveys and claims data. If you have them, include write-in comments. Benchmark and analyze the data by any meaningful differentiator: hourly versus salaried, warehouse versus sales, HDHP versus PPO. Offer to host a focus group to test your theories and new media. If you can show insight on the engagement you have, it’s easier to push further.
What are the trends you’re seeing? Are you finding it a breeze to partner with HR to engage employees in your digital health solution?