Maternal mortality is too common in our country and North Carolina is no different. Once you layer the challenges women of color face in the healthcare system, the issue compounds.
4th Trimester came to us with an existing campaign that was designed around listening for the first warning signs that something is wrong with a new mom’s health. We were challenged to spread the Hear Her campaign across the state, with an emphasis on rural women, women of color, and Spanish-speaking women.
The kicker…we had two and a half months for this blitz. The goal was to reach at least 500,000 women in North Carolina.
Ready, Set…Go!
We started on the strategy and research immediately. We knew that we had to reach, connect, and engage across multiple channels to have an impact. Through our research, we created an outreach plan from billboards to influencers to connect with our audience.
New (old) Tactics Work
As people and an agency that are very online in the digital space, it can be easy to forget or discount that long-standing tactics can still work.
We learned that, for our rural and Spanish-speaking audiences, they receive a large portion of their media and messages from traditional sources. This is why it’s important to research and know your audience before acting. Most of the time you aren’t the audience.
So, we put a significant portion of the budget toward billboards, Spanish-speaking newspapers, and radio.
Digital & Social Media
Of course, we also blanketed the geographic area with digital ads, too. These ads did the job of filling in the gaps traditional media leaves behind and also a way to reinforce the message seen in other mediums.
Social Media Influencer
In a first for the campaign, we worked with Mediavine to connect the cause to an influencer. We found a perfect person with ties to North Carolina’s substantial military community. Her posts and comments about the campaign gave us visibility into a group that can be difficult to reach with campaigns.
Results
This was an overwhelming success! The original goal was to reach 550,000 women in North Carolina. We surpassed that not by a little bit, but by 40 times! We reached people in all 100 counties in North Carolina. The website saw a huge spike in traffic. All in just two months.
That’s the power of being heard.