How Delta Dental of Arizona Modernized its Member Experience with Salesforce Data and Marketing Cloud

When Jason Greenwood started at Delta Dental of Arizona (DDAZ) in early 2023, he had one goal: to modernize the company’s marketing. The dental payer was sending simple batch and blast emails to its subscriber base, but Greenwood wanted to do more, specifically an integrated member experience with personalized journeys. 

Greenwood was familiar with Salesforce from a previous job. He and Sr. Director of Marketing Tiffany Di Giacinto shared their vision with a Salesforce account executive and learned what was possible. “The account executive was able to help paint in my mind how Marketing Cloud could serve as the foundational integration for all the things that I wanted to do,” says Greenwood, now the Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer at DDAZ.

After getting buy-in from his CEO and CFO, Greenwood and Delta Dental of Arizona began their Data and Marketing Cloud journey a few months later. His next step was hiring Josh Fredrickson to manage the implementation. “I said, ‘Your first project is Salesforce Data and Marketing Cloud – that’s all I want you to work on’,” says Greenwood. “‘We need to successfully start some journeys and show ROI from this effort’. Josh said ‘okay’ and dove right in”.

Fredrickson partnered with the Salesforce AE and a third-party vendor to implement Data and Marketing Cloud in late 2023. Here’s a look at four ways DDAZ has used it so far: 

1. Educational email journeys. One of the first projects Fredrickson and Di Giacinto built on Marketing Cloud was an email campaign explaining why dental insurance is important and how it’s connected to whole body health. The campaign also showed the advantages of Delta Dental. That journey resulted in more than 2,000 new member subscriptions. 

“We were able to see results pretty quickly,” says Fredrickson. “I could show member lifetime value and clear ROI.” 

2. Automated follow-ups to interested prospects. DDAZ’s research showed that a lot of people struggle to fully understand insurance plans and terminology. Greenwood and Fredrickson created a self-service experience on the DDAZ website that asked five questions and then recommended a plan based on the answers. If someone started to fill out an enrollment form to sign up and stopped before completing it, an abandoned cart journey through Marketing Cloud sent a follow-up email.

“Purchasing insurance isn’t like buying a laptop or a purse – it’s not an impulse buy,” says Fredrickson. “Maybe the person needs time to talk to their spouse or do more research. This journey allows us to circle back and say, Did you have any questions? Is there some terminology you don’t understand? Do you want to talk to the call center? Do you want to email us questions?” 

Members can then go back and finish the form when they feel comfortable. 

3. Interactive email triggers a personalized journey. DDAZ used Marketing Cloud to include a survey question in the second email of a journey. It asked what was causing their hesitancy to purchase. The answer triggered a third customized email that was sent in certain scenarios.
   
4. Proactive email follow-ups. Delta Dental also used claims data to see which members hadn’t had an exam in a while and then reached out to them to schedule an appointment. This journey resulted in more than 12,000 people booking exams within 6 weeks of entering the journey. “That shows we’re moving in the right direction,” says Fredrickson. “It’s a way to improve the member’s use of benefits and it lowers costs, both for them and for us.”

Looking ahead, the team feels like they have the foundation needed to continue growing their marketing and reaching members in new and innovative ways. They are in a good place to use technology to build strong relationships and help their members get the care they need to live healthy and happy lives.

“Salesforce is a deep ocean – there’s a lot you can do, and it just takes somebody to work on it and learn it,” says Greenwood. “We feel like we have a platform that can give us the power to go as far as our imagination can take us.”