Last year, the entire focus was on the health sector, says Sapna Desai, Head of Marketing and Digital Sales, Manipal Cigna Health Insurance, while sharing insights on the company’s marketing and advertising spends and their effective marketing campaigns in 2021.
Q] What message is Manipal Cigna Health Insurance campaign trying to deliver to its audience?
The message we want to send across through our campaign is that people should opt for insurance policies through a simplified process. At Manipal Cigna, we make the process simple for our customers. I give them the right product they need. Our product campaign echoes the thought, ‘Insure once, Insure right’. We have received several awards for our campaigns. Manipal Cigna’s ‘Health Insurance For The Healthy’ campaign received APAC Effie 2021 award.
Q] What is the market emotion toward health insurance as a category post-COVID?
After COVID-19 happened, conversations around health insurance have increased due to increasing health concerns. Earlier, people were not very positive about buying health insurance policies, but the pandemic has prompted them to take health insurance more seriously. They now understand how important it is to buy a policy. Overall, from the category point of view, the conversations are getting deeper into specifics of health insurance. It is moving from a low -involvement to a high-involvement zone.
Q] How much did Manipal Cigna spent on marketing and advertising in 2021 and what is the ROI for the current campaign?
Our overall spends for marketing and advertising in 2021 were around Rs 8-10 crore. The number has been consistent as compared to last year. The campaign for the last quarter is a digital one. The total amount allotted for performance and brand spends has been Rs 2 crore. We have achieved a campaign reach of more than 23 million. This is important for bringing organic traffic to the website. Through the website, our business grew by 25%. The lead flow has increased by 30% on a daily basis.
Q] Will Manipal Cigna increase the spends in 2022 and diversify to reach the right target size?
In 2021, we had kept the budget consistent compared to the year before, but increased our spends on digital and radio as compared to 2020. This year, we plan to accelerate our reach to build consumer confidence. The next two to three years we will focus on expanding our reach further and will increase our spends by up to 20%.
Q] Manipal Cigna also experimented with influencers for brand awareness, does influencer marketing help reach the right target audience?
We have done two or three campaigns with influencers. One of which was on the Children’s Day. Women bloggers and mothers were invited and we talked to them about the importance of health insurance policies and of securing financials in terms of insurance. In both the campaigns, we have got a lot of user interaction. People interacted with us through their stories and created content for us. These projects have worked for us. We have not yet engaged with fintech influencers as such, but have worked with the community. Going ahead, we will experiment further.
Q] What marketing and advertising strategies are you looking forward to implement in 2022?
We will explore other mediums to spread awareness and will expand aggressively in tier-II and -III cities. The challenge for the brand and for my team is to continue with this effectiveness while strengthening the customer confidence. In the first quarter, we will optimize our reach through influencers and conduct podcast with experts to spread awareness about health insurance policies.
