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Healthcare Marketing for the Multicultural Consumer, Interview With L.A. Care’s Senior Sales & Marketing Director

We sat down with Alex Gallegos, Senior Director, Sales & Marketing at L.A. Care, to discuss healthcare marketing initiatives for Hispanic Americans in Los Angeles. In this exclusive interview, Alex talks about L.A. Care's marketing tactics and media mix. 

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We sat down with Alex Gallegos, Senior Director, Sales & Marketing at L.A. Care, to discuss healthcare marketing initiatives for Hispanic Americans in Los Angeles. In this exclusive interview, Alex talks about L.A. Care’s marketing tactics and media mix. 

 

In recent weeks, we’ve been following L.A. Care’s moves to improve healthcare in Los Angeles. In early September, L.A. Care Health Plan and Blue Shield of California Promise Health Plan announced a five-year commitment to expand Community Resource Centers across Los Angeles County.  In total, they will jointly operate 14 resource centers in L.A. County. Each center will serve approximately 72,000 people per year when services and staff are fully built out, serving more than one million Angelenos annually.
By the end of the same month, L.A. Care announced it appointed Las Vegas-based Ntooitive as its digital marketing AOR. Together, Ntooitive and L.A. Care’s marketing team now coordinate and manage traditional media buying, digital media services, and digital creative production with a focus on delivering campaigns aimed at raising brand awareness and product growth.
Around that time, Ntooitive announced a new data-driven digital marketing service, Ntooitive Healthcare, that helps companies in the healthcare industry to reach target audiences. Both companies are working together to replicate the success of last year’s enrollment period. They trust that their efforts will allow more local communities access to affordable healthcare insurance. We talked to Alex Gallegos, Senior Director, Sales & Marketing at L.A. Care, about the marketing initiatives and media mix in his mind for this enrollment season.

Healthcare Marketing Tactics

Portada: What would you describe as advanced multicultural healthcare marketing tactics?

Healthcare Marketing Expert Alex GallegosAlex Gallegos: There is certainly a broad definition that can be associated with a term like “advanced multicultural marketing tactics”.  We approach our audiences in a way that I feel is very practical. The first step to that is listening and understanding. Our members all have diverse backgrounds, needs, and wants, and it’s our job to act in a way that is relevant to them. In some cases, that means we have different marketing channels for different audiences, and in some cases, that means we say things differently. In other cases, that means that we partner with community-based organizations. I feel that being advanced means being ready to do things differently because it’s the right way to do it for that person/audience.

 

Portada: How many Californians qualify for Covered Open Enrollment?  What amount of the above are Hispanic?

A.G.: In theory, the pool of people who are eligible for Covered CA is very high. The point of distinction here is how many people really do need access to the Covered CA exchange. A large majority of people receive coverage through their employer and even Medicare, this means the difference of people left are those that should consider Covered California as an option. California has done well in the last six years to get people to enroll into Covered CA, and now the opportunity really is focused on the people who may want to switch through shopping health plans based on their needs. The demographics of L.A. County eligibles is very reflective of the county demographics as a whole, I would say roughly half the market is Hispanic or identifies as Hispanic.

 

 

 Top VS. Bottom of the Funnel

Portada: What marketing activities of L.A. Care would you categorize as top of the funnel?

A.G.: We utilize a lot of outdoor marketing to create product visibility – billboards, bus advertising, digital billboards, transit shelters. In addition, we are investing more and more in digital, it just makes sense. We are all connected to a device and use the internet for everything, so we need to be more omnipresent in our advertising. You can expect to see our digital advertising on Pandora, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify and many leading websites.

 

Portada: What about the bottom of the funnel?

A.G.: We leverage our television and radio partnerships to really drive calls to our enrollment call center. We also leverage our medical group and broker partnerships to help create sales opportunities. And lastly digital. Digital, while being at the top of the funnel, also creates plenty of conversion opportunities with lead generation and the use of our shopping website for L.A. Care Covered.

 

 

Portada: To what extent is the success of your campaigns based on your users’ online experience?

A.G.: We look very closely at web traffic, search traffic, and the performance of our digital investments. It helps us understand what people are looking for, what people use on our websites and how we need to enhance our digital touchpoints. We know that a bad web experience can derail an enrollment opportunity, so we take our web and digital experience very seriously. Websites have to be easy to use and very functional.

 

L.A. Care’s Media Mix 

Portada: Please describe the media mix of LA Care’s current campaign.

A.G.: I would break it down as follows:

30% – Outdoor, out of home

10% – Print and events

30% – Radio and television

30% – Digital

 

 

Portada: How has the media mix changed compared to 5 years ago and why?

A.B.: We have invested more in our digital offerings and Los Angeles being a commuter market, we have also grown our outdoor partnerships. The feedback and the research we undertake tells us that product and brand awareness has grown. Also, our membership has grown significantly. We will continue to monitor trends and make adjustments as necessary. A good marketer is always evolving.

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