Videos Prove to Be Engaging Benefits Communication

Flimp Media, which provides video production and Web-based communications services for the employee benefits industry, tracked interactive video postcards sent internally by employers to inform participants of benefit changes. Flimp put together a study about the responses, and Wayne Wall, chief executive of Flimp, says the results were surprising. “Overall, with these benefit communication campaigns, I never expected this level of response,” he tells PLANSPONSOR. “It seemed really high.”

The video communications campaigns generated an average 79% employee engagement rate (the percentage of employees who opened and watched the video postcard content) and 1.03 responses per employee video view. How long people spent engaging with the content was also surprising to Wall—the average time was just over 3.5 minutes per viewing session.

Wall calls the video postcards a very efficient way for a plan sponsor to get out an initial message about benefits, changes to the plan or a message from the CEO. “You might want to drive employees to other information, such as a PDF or collateral information about their benefits so they can start the decision-making process,” he says.

Employee engagement rates are about 80%. Participants interact with the video content, Wall says. Flimp captured data on rates for opening the email, and then viewing the video itself. Other metrics examined how long each person engages, how long they watch a video, and how many touches took place for the communication.

“A primary benefit is that you’re increasing the engagement rate of employees and making it simpler and more cost effective” to reach plan participants with information, Wall says.

About four years ago, Flimp provided video communications for a school district in Philadelphia for teachers and administrators. Now it works with Mercer, Towers Watson and Willis, among other HR and employee benefits consultants.

A typical communications campaign starts at $300. A plan sponsor can use one of the firm’s generic video introductions for enrollment, but the cost can vary greatly depending on customizing, branding and use of an interactive microsite that uses Flimp’s technology.

If Flimp provides the service campaign, the cost is typically $1,500 and includes a trackable interactive landing page and video postcard branded to a company’s annual open enrollment or to a wellness initiative.

Delivery is through the employer's own email system and responses can be integrated for campaign tracking to provide lots of data about employee engagement and response. An all-in cost with more services and branding would be $1,750, with higher prices for very large firms. A custom open enrollment video lasting two to three minutes can run $2,000 to $8,000.

The main value is to engage and drive to a response, Wall says, and then measure the ultimate conclusion of that response. But most important is funneling people into the enrollment process.

Plan sponsors may find it intriguing to browse the video communications of other firms, including well-known brands like Louis Vuitton and Hasbro. Video email postcard messages were sent to 126,390 employees across 20 separate video communications campaigns in 2013 and 2014.

A link to the Flimp study results can be downloaded from its website.