Rethinking Group Marketing: Building a Pull Strategy That Attracts Employers
Reframe Group Marketing from Push to Pull
Historically, health insurance marketing teams have supported their Small and Large Group lines of business primarily through push tactics – sales enablement, broker collateral and general awareness messaging and education. But in an environment where employers scrutinize every dollar and expect more from their partners, that model doesn’t go far enough.
An Account-Based Marketing (ABM)-inspired pull strategy shifts the focus from pushing out messages to drawing in the right employers—using their priorities, pain points, and timing as the starting points. By creating useful, relevant content and experiences, marketing teams can encourage employers to actively explore their options. When nurtured through automated communication journeys, these moments of interest become more than marketing signals—they become meaningful opportunities for brokers and sales teams to act on.
This isn’t about marketing replacing the broker relationship. It’s about building a system that draws employers in, educates them with purpose, and gives brokers a more informed, more motivated audience to engage.
Before diving into the tactical approach, know that in today’s group insurance market, cost is the primary driver of employer decisions. If your health plan isn’t ready to compete on cost and offer innovative funding options, even the most sophisticated ABM strategy will face an uphill battle. This pull approach works best when you have a compelling value story. If cost competitiveness isn’t there yet, focus on building that foundation, then marketing can amplify it.
Target with Precision
For an ABM approach to work, you need to start narrow. For example, start by identifying 20 to 50 large group prospects and 100 to 150 small group targets that best align with your offering. Then dig deeper – not just into who they are, but why they might be a good fit.
Focus on characteristics that can signal both opportunity and compatibility. Employee size and industry are good starting points but go further: look at workforce composition — younger vs. older, white collar vs. blue collar — and geography, especially if your network strength or provider footprint varies by region. Layer in other factors when available, like funding preferences, growth or disruption indicators, and even whether the company is unionized or has a history of collective bargaining. Companies working with brokers who already know your story may also be more receptive and easier to engage.
The tighter your list, the more targeted your message. And in today’s digital landscape, that precision doesn’t just make your media spend more efficient — it also makes your entire campaign more relevant, more measurable, and more likely to drive results.
Uncover Messages That Resonate
Before building campaigns, marketers must take an honest look at what their health plan can offer that’s actually meaningful in today’s market. With rates climbing, employers are hyper-focused on cost and funding flexibility. Network size, while still relevant, is often a secondary consideration.
This is the time to clarify your messaging pillars. What can you credibly say that will make an employer pay attention? Can you back up your story with specifics – not just about what makes your plan different, but why that difference matters now?
Focus on messages that resonate in today’s group insurance market. Costs. Costs. Costs. Hopefully, your plan offers a variety of innovative funding options. Employers need to hear them clearly and early. Beyond cost, identify what else sets you apart—whether it’s network strength, digital member tools or member experience – all can help further differentiate your offering. Know which messages resonate with each target audience.
Connect the Dots Across the Team
Once your targets are defined and your messaging is in place, it’s time to connect the systems behind your outreach. A pull strategy only works when data from marketing, sales, and broker activity flows freely and usefully.
That means having a centralized view of target accounts, including broker relationships, internal decision-makers, renewal timelines, industry, employee size, and, if possible, employer demographics.
It also means tracking media engagement, website visits, email clicks, and content downloads. And it means being able to trigger intelligent, timely follow-up based on that behavior.
When an employer engages with your site or downloads a piece of content, marketing should know. Sales should know. And most importantly, the broker should know — especially if that employer is their client. Visibility drives relevance, and relevance drives action.
Drive to a Smart Digital Hub
A key piece of a modern ABM strategy is the digital destination. Whether it’s a campaign microsite or a curated landing experience, this environment should do more than summarize plan options. It should educate, guide, and inform – all while capturing behavioral data that fuels next steps.
With the right tracking technology, health plans can identify who’s visiting, what they’re interested in, and when they’re most engaged. Even without personal identification, company-level insights can be captured and used to trigger personalized outreach. A CFO visiting a funding options page, for example, might warrant a different follow-up than an HR lead spending time on network maps.
The smarter your hub, the more actionable your marketing becomes.
Coordinate with Brokers
All of this — the targeting, the messaging, the digital experience — is meant to amplify broker efforts, not replace them. That’s why broker communication must be built into the campaign from the beginning.
Let brokers know when their clients or prospects engage. Give them customizable tools — like one-pagers, short videos or proposal-ready narratives — that they can adapt to their conversations. Make it easy for them to pick up where your campaign left off.
When brokers see that marketing is supporting their sales motion, not competing with it, they become more likely to participate and more prepared to succeed.
Build a Pull Engine That Drives Employer Interest and Broker Action
A pull strategy doesn’t need to launch at scale to deliver results. It just needs to be focused, aligned, and responsive.
Start with a pilot. Measure engagement. Learn from what employers respond to. Then optimize your messaging and channels before expanding to a broader group.
In a market where cost concerns are high and differentiation is low, marketers have an opportunity to reframe the conversation – not by talking louder, but by pulling the right employers closer. With a clear strategy, a connected system, and a focus on relevance, group marketing can become a stronger engine for growth than it’s ever been.
