The OMA discovered that 80% of physicians don’t feel adequately prepared for retirement while 75% of them wanted OMA to create some kind of pension-like plan. With this insight, OMA asked Yield to articulate a value proposition, define the brand platform and recommend a roll-out program for a retirement product that would be called the Advantages Retirement Plan™. The plan was essentially a lower cost, tax-efficient group retirement program with institutional-style investing and physician oversight. Physicians would be able to manage their portfolio through an intelligent online platform that would automatically self-adjust, depending on their life-stage.
It was important to recognize the stature of physicians and develop a creative idea that would not make them feel in any way ill-equipped or inferior about retirement. Our idea, “Reserve your Retirement” spoke to the exclusivity of the program for doctors as well as connoting affluence, privilege and the expectation of finer things in retirement. The line also became a strong call to action that would invite physicians to participate. The go-to-market program was based on a multi-stage, omnichannel campaign combining a soft and hard launch over a period of six months.
There were five key pillars to the plan:
1. Instilling Pride and Knowledge within the organization
Critical to the program’s success was to build internal staff alignment and buy-in. To this end, we conducted a series of staff briefings where the program was presented, followed by a Q &A. These were followed with Executive ‘lunch & learns’ where a more in-depth discussion of the program was conducted, allowing for valuable feedback around potential obstacles and concerns. Finally, the OMA Insurance staff who would be at the front-line of the program guiding members through the sign-up process were given advanced training sessions.
2. Building the Influencer Network
The core of the influencer network was the OMA Council, 270 elected members from across the province who would be meeting in November 2019 for their annual conference and whose endorsement and participation would be critical to the program’s success. To that end, each council member received an outreach package from OMA prior to the meeting that outlined the benefits of the program and why they should consider participating.
Additionally, two videos were created, one targeting council members with an endorsement message and program recommendation from their peers, while the second was more educational and sent to the broad membership providing detailed information around each pillar of the retirement program. The Council meeting also featured a custom-designed Advantages Retirement Plan™ booth, created to look like a cottage retirement scenario, manned by consultants who could explain the program and pre-register council members.
3. Creating Interest & Demand
In parallel with preparations for the Council meeting, a landing page was created to provide more information and detail on the Advantages Retirement Plan™ while capturing the contact information of interested site visitors. We also placed 3 successive articles in OMR, the OMA’s in-house magazine to make the case in an advertorial type format for the Advantages Retirement Plan™, explaining why members should re-think their retirement readiness and why the plan was best for them.
4. Capturing Early Adopters & Hand-Raisers
To acquire early hand-raisers, Yield developed a pre-registration package for members who expressed interest in the program on the landing page/marketing website. The package was customized according to the four career/life stage that every physician passes through:
- Getting started
- Getting serious
- Ready for retirement
- In Retirement
5. Omni-channel Launch Campaign
The launch campaign utilized a mix of print and digital channels in order to reach doctors in the medium they were most likely to consume. Additionally, insert advertorials in OMR and Scrub-In (for early-stage doctors), as well as inserts and ads (print and digital) in the Medical Post, a national publication sent to doctors across the country, were planned. Finally, there were info-bites, short online animated videos capturing key pillars of the value proposition deployed in OMA owned and social media channels.
If you would like to learn more about how Yield could help you with a branding challenge, please reach out to me at:
Ted Nation
tnation@yieldbranding.com
416-588-4958 x 245
