Meru Health: B2B/B2B2C digital mental healthcare

Product and performance marketing to drive B2B2C app subscriptions

I joined Meru to support the overhaul of their entire commercial strategy. Initially brought on to support their B2B pivot from employers to health plans, after two months I was handed the entire global marketing function.

Challenge 1: Marketing to health plan members

Typically, digital therapeutics sell into employers as free employee benefit, which means easy marketing access to employee populations. But Meru’s commercial shift from employer sales to health plans meant we effectively ceased being a B2B vendor and became an approved provider in the health plan.

Employers aren’t in the habit of letting providers in their health plans reach out to their employees, and health plans are set up to surface providers based on geography.

Actions

We worked closely with health insurers and health plans to surface Meru in their portals and member experiences whenever possible. We provided marketing toolkits and built account-specific experiences.

We also leaned into our position as an approved provider. Because benefits buyers are suffering vendor fatigue and tight budgets, we launched a campaign to plan sponsors pointing out that they could ignore the mental healthcare vendors vying for their attention and money, since they already had a best-in-class option right there in their health plan.

Outcomes

We tripled ARR and saw a nearly fourfold increase in monthly deal volume by the end of the first year.

Challenge 2: Driving paid subscriptions in an insurance setting

The shift meant that, instead of being a free-to-use employee health benefit, we were now in the maze of eligibility checks and co-payment that define US healthcare. And, as a provider, we were subject to healthcare regulations that prohibited us from offering freemiums and other experiences typical of DTC marketing.

Actions

Completely overhauled our landing pages and in-app onboarding flow. If we were going to ask users/patients to pay, we had to deliver a consumer-grade experience. I wrote onboarding copy and in-app experiences, video scripts, and user guides. Reviewed user data weekly with the product team and A/B tested everything.

Outcomes

49% increase in landing page conversions (sign-ups) and 34% increase in conversions to paid subscriptions.