Marketing Strategy of Anthem: Overview & STP Analysis

We have previously written an article on the SWOT analysis of Anthem. This time we are back with another blog on the Marketing strategy of Anthem.

Anthem, Inc. is a United States-based health insurance company. It is the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association’s largest for-profit managed health care firm. WellPoint, located in California, and Anthem, based in Indianapolis, both acquired multiple health insurance companies and merged in 2004 to become the corporation. Before 2014, the company was known as WellPoint, Inc. and later it became Anthem.

Anthem’s marketing initiatives are another factor that has helped the company grow into the behemoth it is today. As the world goes online, marketing is changing and if you are interested in learning about the latest – check out our Free Masterclass on Digital Marketing by the CEO and Founder of IIDE, Karan Shah.

But, before we begin with the Marketing strategy of Anthem, let us learn more about Anthem, the company, its founding, its products, financial status, and competitors.

Marketing Strategy of Anthem

Having learned about Anthem, let’s look at its marketing strategy and how they carry out its marketing campaign.

Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning

Anthem segmentation is based on the following criteria – geographic, demographic, usage, user status, income, lifestyle, value proposition, priorities, benefits sought, loyalty status, gender, social class, self-perception, psychographic factors, and other attitudes.

Their target audience is of six characteristics: Medicaid recipients, aged 18-34, low-income earners, mothers, Hispanic persons, medicare recipients, and caregivers.

Anthem made its positioning in the market through its brand and products in the mind of target customers based on distinctive features, qualities, and functions.

Marketing Campaigns

In 2019, Anthem used various advertising strategies like billboard advertising, bus advertising,  gas station advertising, mall advertising, mobile billboards, daily updates, lifestyle media etc. The campaigns featured dozens of media types and thousands of creative executions to reach Anthem’s target audiences. In major markets, the most effective media were pharmacy bags and posters that could reach people while health and medical needs were top-of-mind. The theme of the campaign was to inform consumers about what benefits the company could offer. The campaign saw many successes in the form of increased enrollment and website traffic.

Anthem featured another campaign in 2015, LiveHeath Online which uses two-way video to connect patients with doctors. The theme was to enable consumers to gain convenient and cost-effective ways to access health care. The campaign was successful because Anthem directly promotes its telehealth benefits through its websites and also works to educate its members (and others) about telehealth via several other channels.

Another marketing campaign was organized by a marketing agency called Kabookaboo. They created a human resources-focused social media campaign for Anthem to help recruit and hire top talent. The campaign established Anthem as a nationally recognized employer of choice where an individual can start and develop a rewarding career in a fast-paced but flexible environment that is full of challenges and chances to make a difference.

The campaign involved general social media and advertising tactics to strengthen Anthem’s national image.  In addition, the campaign provides quick-to-market, highly localized promotions necessary to attract top candidates for their hiring initiatives, which may entail anything from 50 senior IT professionals needed in Atlanta to several hundred nurses required in Virginia.

Social Media Marketing

Anthem is active on Social Media like LinkedIn, Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter, It has about 309 million followers on LinkedIn, 176 subscribers on youtube, and 73.9 million followers on Twitter. and their posts contain more of what they do, their events, health resources, and their mission.

Anthem also has different subsidiaries with many followers. The subsidiaries are relevance careers with 19k followers, anthem blue cross blue shield with 732k followers, anthem healthcare Pvt ltd with 1917 followers, and anthem healthcare and maternity with 3217 followers.

SEO Strategies

In SEO ranking. It is said that the number of keywords – below 500 is bad, above 1000 is good and 10,000+ is awesome, as we can see from the above diagram, Anthem has 549,557 and is being considered awesome. This means that the digital marketing of Anthem is gaining a good amount of insight and the company is working hard to keep its SEO strategy growing in the Google organic SERP results.

Influencer Marketing

Anthem helps all Americans be their healthiest. Their campaign is more than another health and wellness message from another health insurance company. They have received almost 400,000 total site visits to date with traffic to the site with year-over-year growth of over 80 per cent. 

Ecommerce Strategies

Regarding the e-commerce strategy, Anthem has its website as its selling point. On the site, you can choose your account type and register as medicare, individual or family, Medicaid, employer group, producer, provider, or return shopper. You can also find a doctor, chat with an agent and also review claims and payments.

Mobile apps 

Anthem developed a mobile app to increase sales It’s all super convenient, of course, and allows users of the service to access healthcare easily

Content Marketing Strategies

Anthem is active on social media. Their post content is related to potential healthcare products and resources. Their source of posting content is LinkedIn or Twitter. Anthem uses a feature that is situated right on the homepage of its website with cost-friendly and convenient chats with a doctor. Their focus is on students, busy parents, and the public at large.

This ends with an elaborative marketing strategy of Anthem. Let us conclude our learning below from the marketing strategy of Anthem.

Conclusion – What’s Unique in Anthem Marketing?

Anthem is a well-known insurance brand with a significant global presence. In the Marketing strategy of Anthem, we observed that the company is heavily reliant and enjoys strong brand recognition and trust with its customers. It has a strong distribution network and has reached across all the markets it serves, but suffers from an increasing number of suppliers in the same space and better R&D efforts by its competitors.

Digital marketing is crucial since it links a company with its clients when they are online and is effective across all sectors. It links businesses with ideal consumers through SEO and PPC on Google, social media marketing, and email marketing. If you would like to learn more and develop skills, check out IIDE’s 4-Month Digital Marketing Course to learn more.

Alternatively, you can enrol in one of our free online masterclasses led by IIDE’s CEO, Karan Shah, to gain insight into the field of digital marketing. 

We hope this blog on the marketing strategy of Anthem has given you a good insight into the company’s marketing strategies.

If you like such in-depth analysis of companies just like the marketing strategy of Anthem check out our IIDE Knowledge portal for more fascinating case studies.

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