Turning member insight into action: How Multicare increased engagement with Vitality
The Multicare Vitality Karma campaign demonstrated that significant engagement gains do not necessarily require a new product, a special promotion or a complex technological solution.
By combining member insight, purposeful segmentation and a coordinated communication journey, Multicare made existing Vitality benefits more relevant to customers according to their circumstances and member engagement level.
The campaign delivered a major uplift in overall engagement, alongside stronger-than-usual registration conversion and sustained growth in physically active members.
We sat down with Tiago dos Santos Carlos, Growth and Engagement Manager at Multicare Vitality, to chat more about the campaign.
Q: What was the inspiration behind the Karma campaign, and what challenge or opportunity were you looking to address?
We saw two clear opportunities within our existing customer base. A significant number of customers were eligible for Multicare Vitality but had not yet registered, while many registered members were no longer actively engaging with the app.
Our working hypothesis was that one-off, single-channel communications were not sufficient to move customers from awareness to action. We believed that a coordinated communications flow combining email, SMS and push notifications, with relatively short intervals between sends, would be more effective. Particularly when the content reflected the customer’s business segment and member engagement level and provided one clear next step.
The Karma campaign was initially developed as a standalone initiative. It was not conceived as the beginning of a new communications model. However, its results provided important evidence about what works, and the lessons from the campaign have since influenced subsequent Multicare Vitality communications.
The opportunity was not to create a new reward or benefit, but to communicate the value already available through Multicare Vitality more intelligently and effectively.
Q: What were the primary objectives, and how did the campaign support Multicare’s broader business and member engagement goals?
The immediate objectives were to convert eligible customers into registered Multicare Vitality members and to reactivate members who were registered but no longer engaged.
Although the campaign had clear acquisition and engagement objectives, its purpose extended beyond increasing activity within the app.
Multicare Vitality supports our ambition to promote prevention and healthier behaviour, demonstrate the value of health insurance beyond the moment of a claim, and create stronger and more differentiated relationships with customers.
Over the longer term, helping customers remain healthier for longer can contribute to increasing their health span, reducing avoidable claims and strengthening customer lifetime value.
Karma connected an immediate marketing objective (encouraging customers to register or return to the app) with that broader strategic purpose.
Q: How was the campaign brought to life?
The campaign consisted of two iterations delivered at different moments during the fourth quarter of 2024.
Customers were segmented according to their business segment (individual, small and medium-sized business or enterprise) and their member engagement level.
The audience included customers who were eligible for Multicare Vitality but had not registered, members who had registered but had never engaged, and members who had previously engaged but had since become inactive.
Each audience received a message, incentive and call to action appropriate to its context.
Customers who had not registered were encouraged to join. Members who were no longer engaged were encouraged to return to the app, earn rewards and use the benefits already available to them.
The value proposition was also adapted by business segment. For individual customers, communications highlighted the insurance discount bonus. For employees insured through small and medium-sized businesses or enterprise clients, the smartwatch benefit provided a more relevant point of entry.
The campaign used a sequenced combination of email and SMS. Communications progressed according to the customer’s response. For example, customers who did not open the initial email could receive a follow-up email and subsequently an SMS. Customers who completed their registration received further communications explaining what they could do next within Multicare Vitality.
The tone was intentionally lighter, less corporate and less traditionally associated with insurance. We presented Multicare Vitality as a health and lifestyle programme, placed greater emphasis on the available rewards and kept each communication focused on one simple action.
No individual component of the execution was particularly complex. The strength of the campaign came from combining the right message, the right incentive, the right communication sequence and the right next step for each customer.
Q: What results have you seen?
Karma delivered an uplift in Multicare Vitality’s overall app engagement, which we attribute directly to the campaign.
Before Karma, we believed that, in the way we were measuring engagement, our main challenge would be managing its gradual decline as previous member activity expired. We did not expect a communications campaign to produce such material improvement.
The impact on registration became visible within days of the campaign, while the engagement effect emerged over the following weeks. The registration conversion rate was also higher than we would normally expect from this type of communication.
More importantly, the effect was not confined to the immediate campaign period. The uplift remained visible for several months, and the absolute number of monthly physically active members has continued to grow since.
Karma showed that targeted activation can materially improve the return generated from an existing customer base without requiring a new product launch, a seasonal event or a limited-time promotion.
It is an approach that can be used at different moments throughout the year because its effectiveness is based on customer relevance rather than external context.
Q: What were the biggest lessons, and what advice would you give other Vitality partners?
The first lesson is to prioritise relevance over channel complexity.
Email and SMS are not innovative channels in themselves. Their effectiveness came from using them as part of a coherent journey, informed by customer data and aligned with each customer’s member engagement level.
The results were driven by a combination of relevant messaging, purposeful segmentation, coordinated channels, carefully considered timing and intervals, simple actions, meaningful incentives and repeated exposure.
The second lesson is to take the customer through the journey one step at a time.
A health and wellbeing programme can offer many different benefits, but attempting to communicate the entire proposition at once can make it more difficult for the customer to act. Each communication should have a clear purpose and one clear next step.
The third lesson is to measure impact at the level of the intended business and customer outcome, rather than relying only on opens or clicks. Those indicators are useful for optimising execution, but the real test is whether customers register, return to the app and begin taking healthier actions.
The results from this campaign have since influenced the way we approach Multicare Vitality communications. We have applied its lessons to subsequent campaigns and plan to incorporate them into increasingly personalised, data-driven and automated communications.
We also believe that some of these principles may inform the way Multicare communicates other services within its wider prevention ecosystem.
The broader lesson from Karma is that meaningful innovation does not always require adding something new. Sometimes it means using what already exists with greater relevance, discipline and purpose.
