Legal Aid of North Carolina is the organizing force behind the NC Navigator Consortium, a partnership of health care, social service and legal aid organizations that educate North Carolinians on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Health Insurance Marketplace (online) at HealthCare.gov.
NC Navigator Consortium partners provide factual information and unbiased support to anyone needing assistance enrolling for coverage on the Healthcare.gov website. While they provide year-round support to North Carolinians needing to enroll in or change coverage due to qualifying life events, their largest push is during annual Open Enrollment.
The challenge
The NC Navigator Consortium reached out to Kcomm for help to drive traffic to the ncnavigator.net website so that users could call or use the website to sign up for appointments with health insurance navigators during Open Enrollment 2022 (Nov. 1, 2021, to Jan. 15, 2022). Our engagement included creating branded materials for the NC Navigator Consortium to use in its outreach efforts, and coordinating organic social media content, paid digital advertising and public relations to leverage earned media.
The plan
Our promotional campaign consisted of digital display advertising, paid social media and paid search, which brought exponentially more qualified users to the ncnavigator.net site during Open Enrollment 2022 compared to the previous year. With these efforts, awareness of the NC Navigator Consortium increased, sparking a 153% increase in organic search from the year prior. Kcomm dedicated substantial time and energy to organic social media, which helped promote the NC Navigator Consortium brand, increasing web visitation by 210% year-over-year.
Ncnavigator.net web users from 11.1.21 to 1.15.22 compared to the same period the year prior
The role of PR (earned media)
Public relations played a key role in raising awareness of the organization, especially toward the end of the campaign. The Dec. 21 WRAL story “More in NC now eligible for health insurance help” by Laura Leslie, WRAL Capitol Bureau Chief, originally aired in the Raleigh/Durham market, but was aired all over the state, earning carry-over coverage in Greensboro/High Point/Winston Salem, as well the Greenville and New Bern (NC) market.
The client organized an “Affordable Care Act Call-in Event,” held Monday, Jan. 10, 2022, a virtual telethon-style call-in event that put consumers in direct contact with health insurance navigators. The Jan. 7, WFMY story FREE ACA health care plan registration call-in event, January 10 by Tanya Rivera aired in Greensboro/High Point/Winston Salem and reran the day of the ACA Call-in Event, driving large spikes in website traffic from that area. Kcomm negotiated and coordinated a partnership with WRAL producers that promoted the ACA Call-in Event, including live reports from reporter Monica Laliberte from 4 to 7 p.m. during the event and a wrap up package.
The results
The WFMY story and WRAL partnership were key to the success of the ACA Call-in Event, which generated 900 total calls, 323 appointments scheduled with Navigator, and 134 appointments scheduled for the statewide virtual enrollment event held Thursday, Jan. 13.