Silver Sneakers Member Portal

Company: Silver Sneakers
Role: User Research, UX/UI design; Digital Strategy; Content Management System (CMS) implementation
Resources: Sketch; Photoshop; Illustrator; After Effects

SilverSneakers is a health and fitness program designed for adults 65+. The program is part of many insurance plans. I created and led a small team of creatives to re-envision the member portal for the digital age. With less than half the eligible members using the benefit, a new digital approach was undertaken to increase user engagement in the program. To achieve this my team took a holistic approach to reach the members where they were. This included a big focus on utilizing social media and video content.

Technical Direction

The SilverSneakers program is available widely across the United States in over 15,000+ locations. The member portal is the hub for members to receive the latest news about health and wellness. There are also dozens of classes on-demand, as well as classes regularly scheduled to be streamed live. Given the demands of the member portal, a robust Content Management System was required. We worked with the team at Microsoft Azure to ensure the portal would meet the demand.

User Research

To ensure the focus was in the most impactful areas for SilverSneaker members, I lead a large effort to perform user research. This consisted of a three-tiered approach to engage both active members and non-active but eligible members. By utilizing the most popular and influential staff members from the SilverSneakers program, we identified key groups to ensure we defined our user personas.

The team also utilized research experts to augment our efforts. In total we conducted over 50 customer interviews at 5 different locations nationwide. This resulted in a robust set of data that was utilized throughout the digital strategy and roll-out of the member portal.

Digital Strategy

Since the SilverSneaker program has a very diverse group of members, the digital strategy had to consider multiple variables with the our target audience. I led the team to ensure the user experience was sticky and cohesive throughout customers’ journeys. This encompassed any point a SilverSneakers member would encounter the brand online. Whether it was through the website, the sponsored articles with our media partners, to various online digital campaigns, the overall strategy remained the same. We were able to maximize the digital landscape to help get our already active members more engaged in the community via the new portal. We also me the objective of increasing brand awareness to the large community of eligible, but not yet active members. Overall, this digital strategy drove the program and the brand into the audience of millions of active adults looking to stay healthy and fit.

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Member Spotlight

The community of SilverSneakers members are very engaging and inspiring. To help illustrate how we all start where we are at and work towards where we want to be, we did several feature videos focused on several members. These videos helped promote the idea that a healthy lifestyle is something we continue to pursue, and it is not a destination we arrive at.

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The Results

By weaving together the active SilverSneakers member community, along with the efforts around digital engagement, the results were amazing. We witnessed an increase across the board, including increasing active members, as well as getting active members more engaged in the program offerings. This also had a large overflow effect through member and gym referrals. We saw a rise in our requests from employers and benefit providers due to the increase of the brand awareness. Overall, the efforts helped tens of thousands of seniors to live healthier and happier lives.

Increased Online Engagement

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Increased Gym Engagement

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Larry combined the imagination of a visionary and the practicality of a tactician to create Tivity Health's first digital marketing capabilities. He introduced the inbound marketing funnel, marketing email apparatus, website functionality, and social media presence that would later grow to one of the most robust and respected marketing operations in the senior fitness and wellness space. The work I've carried on for the past eight years wouldn't exist without Larry.

I consider Larry to be an expert in current digital/web best practices. Larry was able to successfully transform Healthways fitness business unit's online presence by gathering and analyzing business requirements and translating those requirements into game-changing digital strategies. Larry is also very collaborative and responsive -- we could always count on him and his team to execute in a professional and timely manner.

We had the pleasure of working with Larry while developing the SilverSneakers member portal while he was the Sr. Design Manager heading the project. Larry challenged the status quo and lead the charge of bringing a conservative organization into the digital era, advancing the organization by decades in a very short period of time. Larry knows how to bring together designers, developers, and marketers to create a highly effective and engaging user experience. I would highly recommend Larry and I look forward to the next time we get to work together again.

Larry hired me as part of the Digital Strategy Team at Healthways. He's a great team-builder and leader, compelling those around him to do their best work. His creativity cultivation, technical competencies and biz dev. experience, makes him an integral asset.