How Many Calls Are Made During Open Enrollment?

Between November 1, 2019, and December 15, 2019, millions of Americans will have the chance to get or change health insurance during the open enrollment period in the Affordable Care Act. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services last released data on phone call volume during open enrollment for the 2016 coverage year. That year, an estimated 14,569,000 calls were made during open enrollment. Some 8.5 million people signed up for coverage during the open enrollment period for 2019, and with premiums expected to remain flat or decline for coverage starting January 1, 2020, millions more will be placing millions of calls to learn about coverage. The question remains, what can you do to take advantage of this uptick in phone calls?

Read More: How to Generate Better Traffic During Open Enrollment 2020

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Optimize Keywords

One of the first steps you should take involves the keywords in your Pay Per Call campaign. You should focus on primary keywords that apply to this period of the calendar year. This includes using terms such as “open enrollment,” “Obamacare,” and “2020 health insurance plans” in your content. This applies to blogs, landing pages, and other ad content you might produce. Don’t forget to take advantage of negative keywords as well. Negative keywords are those you want to be excluded from your campaigns. This would include terms such as “auto insurance” or “life insurance.” You may offer those plans, but now isn’t the time to focus on your brand’s visibility in that realm. You want to specifically appear in the searches of those looking for new health insurance coverage during open enrollment.

Read More: How Many Keywords Are Too Many Keywords?

Specialize Content to Open Enrollment

As you are optimizing your keywords, it is also a good time to make sure your specialized content speaks to consumers shopping for new coverage during open enrollment. One good example is to produce blog posts that answer common questions and frustrations about open enrollment. When it comes to landing pages, you can create specialized content that focuses on short, to-the-point blurbs that highlight basic plan details and pricing. The goal of a landing page isn’t to get a customer to buy, it’s to get them to reach out with questions and then convert. For your landing pages to show up, you’ll need a good combination of open enrollment-optimized keywords and relevant content.

Read More: The Value of Content Marketing: 6 Powerful Statistics

Improve IVR Directions

If you successfully get your brand out there, you are going to experience an influx of phone calls. While that is a good thing, you want to ensure you are prepared for all those phone calls by improving IVR directions. Pay Per Call campaigns are no good for your business if customers end up on hold or get through to the wrong person. With more people calling, now is a good time to improve Interactive Voice Response, or IVR, systems to ensure consumer calls are routed quickly and efficiently to the best representative. This saves time for your rep and for the caller.

Read More: 5 Benefits to Using Customized IVRs

Offer a Call-Back Option

It might not be a bad idea to include a call-back option either within the IVR system or on a landing page. Not every consumer is going to be in a huge rush during the open enrollment period. Some may be in the initial stages of the search for new plans. To help lighten the call load your Pay Per Call campaign generates, offer callers the chance to get on a call-back list or leave a message to ensure that those in a rush to get coverage are served first.

Benefit from Pay Per Call

Pay Per Call campaigns put your company front and center for consumers shopping during the open enrollment period. There are many ways to get your brand name out there through Pay Per Call campaigns, but the goal of each approach is the same: grab your slice of 14.5 million-plus phone calls. If you want Pay Per Call to work for your health insurance company during this period of the year, consider taking the following steps.

Read More: 6 Reasons Your Business needs Pay Per Call Marketing

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