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The purpose of writing this Medicare marketing blog post is to show that your ideal target audience is on Facebook. Try this on another platform like Twitter, LinkedIn or YouTube and you’ll FAIL! Facebook and the Google Display Network (we’ll talk about this in another blog post) are the only places that can get you real Medicare leads. You should probably print this blog post, go to a cafe, and study it so you can determine if Facebook Ads is the direction you want to go. I’m going to talk about:
- Campaign Objectives for the Medicare Industry
- Ad Sets and Creating Your Ideal Target Audiences
- Creating a Sponsored Ad
- Costs (Facebook Won’t Do This For Free)
Campaign Objectives for the Medicare Industry
Facebook has 11 Campaign Objectives to choose from. Each one has it’s own structure. For instance, a Traffic campaign is designed to send people from a Facebook sponsored post to your website or landing page. A Messages campaign is designed to use Facebook Messenger to start conversations, almost like a live chat. Think about Facebook campaigns as the top level where you start. Everything thing else falls within your campaign. The image below shows the 11 Facebook Campaign Objectives.
For a Medicare insurance agents, I have found that Traffic and Lead Generation Campaign Objectives work best. If you have enough of a budget and a small staff, you can use Messages. Video views are good if you are trying to educate people and build trust, but nearly all Medicare insurance agents I talk to need a lead: Name, Phone Number, and Email. Forget all the other Campaign Objectives!
For the purposes of this blog post, let’s choose Lead Generation. A Facebook Lead Generation Campaign is perfect for any sales person because prospects submit their contact information and expect a call back. You’ll be able to ‘see’ the lead generation form when we’re creating an ad. But for now, it’s time to explain Ad Sets.
Ad Sets and Creating Your Ideal Target Audiences
Most likely, here are your ideal target audiences:
- People who are currently 64 years old that are turning 65 in about 3 months.
- People over 65 years old. In this case you would show ads during Open Enrollment (annual election period).
Getting leads via Facebook isn’t like buying a lead that has been sold 3-4 times over. When you get a lead from Facebook, it’s yours! You’ll have a 1-to-1 relationship with your prospect. An additional benefit of Facebook is that you’re not competing with the 100s of snail mail offers.
Detailed Targeting
This is the area where you can use the power of Facebook Ads. You want to show ads only in the state you’re licensed to sell in. Sometimes insurance agents want to show ads only in their own county or in a 50 mile radius. That’s all up to you.
In the image below, a Medicare insurance agent can target people with a birthday in October. You don’t want to show ads to people who are 64 years old, in general. You need to narrow down and show ads to people who are ‘eligible’ to apply to Medicare very soon. In addition, you want your ads to show before the 100s of snail mail offers come so you don’t have to compete with them.
One question I get asked from Medicare insurance agents is, “I only want to sell Medicare Advantage” or “I only want to sell Supplemental Medicare”. When you’re advertising on Facebook, it only knows info the prospective customer has given to Facebook, like birthday, home, phone number, email, work, job title, etc. Facebook’s job is to get you leads. You’re job is to sell Medicare Advantage, Supplements, etc.
Optimization & Delivery
The Optimization & Delivery section is where you control your bidding. I recommend that if you have never advertised on Facebook before that you go as conservative as possible. You can gradually release the breaks so Facebook shows your sponsored ad. Remember this, Facebook Ads is a bidding platform where advertisers are paying for ad space. No matter what industry, you will have some competition. Under Cost Control (Optional) you can enter what you are willing to pay for a lead.
Creating a Sponsored Ad
When you’re creating an ad, get to the point! You don’t have 10 seconds for people to read your ad. You have more like 1-2 seconds. Your image matters. If you can do a video with captions, that’s great too. Use my ad as an guideline. Don’t copy it. Write the ad specifically for your intended target audience that you created in the Ad Set. The ad should ‘talk’ to the prospect. Give them your offer and tell them what to do. Put your phone number in the ad. Tell them to what to expect. You can see that in the example below.
When using a Facebook Lead Generation Campaign Objective, you’ll be able to create an “Instant Form”, which is basically a Lead Form. You’ll be able to capture the information you need like Name, Email, Phone Number. You can add additional fields, but the more information you ask for, the less likely people will fill out the form. For instance, Facebook already knows their users Name, Phone and Email, but it doesn’t know their physical address. Do NOT ask for an address or when people’s birthday because people think it’s awkward. Stick to the bare minimum for a qualified lead: Name, Email, Phone Number.
Facebook Lead Generation Lead Form
These are the 3 steps a prospective Medicare insurance lead will see. In step 1, Facebook will Prefill the user’s information. In the 2nd step, you will need a Privacy Policy that links to your website. Most Medicare insurance agents who I work with don’t have a privacy policy nor a website, so I provide one for them. The 3rd step is a confirmation page that allows you to hyperlink the blue button to your website or to call you directly.
Quick side note: Read the “Top 7 Facebook Ad Hacks of All Time“, written by our friends at Mobile Monkey.
Costs (Facebook Won’t Do This For Free)
“How much does it cost?”
This is more of a two-part answer. If you want to put $1000 into advertising spend on Facebook, they won’t take it out all in one lump-sum. Facebook will charge your account based off Impressions or Clicks. It’s what you put in the Optimization & Delivery section.
The more important thing to understand is “What can I expect my Cost-Per-Lead be?” In my experience of launching 50+ Facebook marketing campaigns for the Medicare insurance industry, you should be able to get leads ranging from $25-$35. As I mentioned before, Facebook is a bidding platform so those numbers may be different in your neck of the woods. If you put $0.50, Facebook most likely won’t show your ad. If you put $100, then Facebook will most likely show your ad, but you don’t want to overbid for ad space.
If you spend $1000 and on average you pay $35 per lead, that’s about 28 leads. Would you take leads for $35 each? These leads are from people who submitted their information and are expecting a call back. Oh, and before I forget to mention, out of those 28 leads, you’re not going to connect with all of them. Send them a text message, an email, AND call them!
Regarding how much money you should put into Facebook, it’s all up to you. I normally recommend that you use about $1000 in advertising spend so Facebook’s algorithms can kick in. The amount of money you spend will gather more data. If you start with only $100, then Facebook doesn’t have a chance to use its algorithms in your favors; it’s too little of data. However, if you use $1000, then there way more data that Facebook can gather and those algorithms can start working in your favor.