The Annual Election Period (AEP) is upon us. AEP is always a challenging time for agents, but even more so this year with the pandemic changing how producers meet with clients. Those who are best prepared and who make the most of their resources, are those most likely to see the greatest AEP success.
Agents who work through Senior Market Sales® (SMS) find themselves at an advantage during the AEP season. That’s because SMS offers a plethora of exclusive resources and services designed to help maximize sales. Many of these are custom-made specifically to help with socially distanced selling strategies.
By now, you should have your contracting, licensing and carrier certification complete. But maybe you want to expand your business to a neighboring state or add a new product or carrier. An SMS marketing consultant can help. SMS has already done a lot of the legwork so that you don’t need to hunt down carrier certification sites. The AEP Agent Central section of the SMS website has this information assembled and organized by carrier. SMS is top-notch in contracting due to the fact that our contracting department is in-house and works closely with the marketing consultants in order to maximize efficiency.
During AEP, efficiency is the key, and SMS is here to help by getting you supplies like marketing materials and enrollment kits. There’s even a useful “cheat sheet” in AEP Agent Central that provides step-by-step directions to ordering supplies from every carrier that works with SMS.
Leads are critical to AEP success. Whether you're looking for solutions for email, website and social marketing, vendors that help you find leads, direct mail marketing campaigns or other types of lead generation; SMS has you covered. Call an SMS marketing consultant to learn more about the available Lead Generation programs.
SMS has a complete suite of exclusive tools offered at no cost. These tools are designed to help you leverage time, make more money and put your business in a position of distinction. Some of these tools include Lead Advantage Pro® and Medicare Insurance Direct® (MID).
Lead Advantage Pro
Lead Advantage Pro is the proprietary tool from SMS that lets you take prospects from lead to enrollment in one place. In essence, this platform is designed to simplify your day and maximize your time. In addition, it works well as a means to meet clients’ needs in a compliant way while maintaining social distancing guidelines.
Ways that Lead Advantage Pro can improve your productivity during the pandemic, AEP and beyond:
Medicare Insurance Direct (MID)
Medicare Insurance Direct is a tool that allows you to help clients help themselves, thus avoiding the need to meet in-person. The idea of MID is to pair your good, sound advice regarding a client’s Medicare solution with the convenience of self-enrollment. You can use MID to match beneficiaries with available plans based on individual healthcare, prescription drug needs and estimated out-of-pocket expenses. You send a Personalized Universal Resource Locator (PURL) to your clients that take them to a micro-site displaying the states and carriers that you are properly credentialed to sell, including Medicare Advantage prescription drug plans, Part D and Medicare Supplements.
Here’s how MID works to help make sales without increasing a client’s coronavirus risk:
In addition to SMS technology solutions, many carriers that work with SMS have their own technology options, some of which don’t even require the client to have access to the internet. Click here to view specific carrier requirements and options.
SMS offers access to a full-time, dedicated, licensed and knowledgeable Medicare Solutions team. They are here to help you every step of the way throughout the AEP season and beyond. In addition to access to your marketing consultant, our case management is in-house. Your entire SMS team works hand-in-hand to ensure efficiency is maximized especially during the all-important AEP season.
As part of the dedicated Medicare Solutions team, SMS allows you access to our in-house pharmacist, Ryan Vlasin. He specializes in helping agents develop creative Part D strategies, designed to save your clients money. Ryan can be reached via email at pharmacist@seniormarketsales.com.
This can be your most successful AEP ever if you utilize what SMS has to offer. Contact a marketing consultant if you have any questions about carriers, certification, supplies, leads or SMS technology. Call 1.877.645.0147 to get connected.
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