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Most marketers would be ecstatic with the $2 million-a-year savings in print costs alone that United Healthcare's custom e-mail newsletter has achieved. But the health insurance provider has more lofty goals.

Launched a little over a year ago, Healthy Mind Healthy Body offers readers advice on making better lifestyle decisions, which eventually could result in fewer costs being imposed on the healthcare system.

“Our mission as a company is to help people live healthier lives and to make more informed healthcare decisions for themselves and their families,” says Kara Ellinger, director of consumer marketing and business development.

Put another way, everybody from United Healthcare to the employers and employees who buy its services has a vested interest in this newsletter paying off. E-mail's ability to deliver customized content inexpensively makes it uniquely suited to the task. A chronic asthma sufferer, for example, may have no need for articles on diabetes.

Ellinger adds that before United Healthcare started the e-newsletter, the company sent several different publications to its members.

“What we really wanted to do was serve up a single, consistent experience that delivered more relevant health and wellness information,” she says. “We wanted our newsletter to address some chronic-care issues as well as a number of preventives, such as fitness and nutrition, so we could really have an impact on areas such as diabetes and heart health.”

With this idea in mind, Healthy Mind Healthy Body's 2 million-plus subscribers are given a list of 10 topic categories — men's health, women's health, fitness and nutrition, cancer, asthma, diabetes, mental health, family health, healthy back, and heart health — from which they are to choose five. They then receive a customized newsletter once a month.

“It's a completely customer-preference-based model,” Ellinger says, adding that subscribers can select different preferences at any time. The newsletter is delivered using Responsys Interact on-demand software.

“There aren't a lot of healthcare companies that are as committed to the e-mail channel as United Healthcare,” says Ed Henrich, vice president for professional services at Responsys, San Francisco. “At a technical level, they are more sophisticated than their peers. Also, e-mail is much better for delivering content on a one-to-one basis.”

Along with the custom content, United Healthcare's newsletter offers articles in two general-interest categories, “Managing Your Health” and “Maximizing Your Health Plan.” Information is offered on such topics as the various types of plans, finding doctors, handling claims and estimating treatment costs.

“It directs our members to the online tools to help them get through the maze of everything they have to keep track of regarding their health,” Ellinger says. Not surprisingly, United Healthcare has a fairly large internal editorial team dedicated to crafting the newsletters and other material.

“Our editorial team is made up of clinical experts and people who are very experienced in writing health content,” she notes. “We also have doctors who weigh in on all this content. We have a very robust editorial process.”

United Healthcare drives new subscriptions by promoting the newsletter on various member Web sites and in a print publication that goes to its 9 million customers twice a year. Additionally, employers tout Healthy Mind Healthy Body on their sites and in e-mails to employees. “Employers are often looking for this kind of thing,” Ellinger says.

And in another move aimed at responding to subscriber preferences, United Healthcare has developed a rating system for articles based on what people click through to. “Our editorial staff takes that into account whenever they plan for the next quarter,” she points out. The most popular categories tend to be preventive in nature, such as healthy living/well-being, fitness and nutrition. The common plan- and health-management areas pull a high readership as well.

So is the program working?

In a recent survey of member subscribers, 90% said they're better informed about particular health issues because of the newsletter. According to Ellinger, “more than 60% of them use our member portal — which again, has a lot of the tools to help them make more informed decisions — so we know we're driving people to it.”

And in the most striking finding, more than half of those polled say they've made a change in their lifestyle as a result of reading Healthy Mind Healthy Body.

“That's huge for us,” she says. “It means we're accomplishing our goals with this newsletter.”

Ellinger says United Healthcare plans to segment the newsletter to customize it even further, but she declines to elaborate except to add, “That's a point of differentiation from our competition.”