Healthcare Nonprofit PR Case Study
OVERVIEW
Heroes for Children (HFC), a unique 12-year-old nonprofit that provides financial and social assistance to Texas families with children (birth to 22) battling cancer, launched a public relations campaign to help spread awareness of its Milestones Program. The Milestones Program helps families with a child fighting cancer celebrate life's special occasions. Most of these families are struggling financially, and a graduation party or celebration of life would only be an option for them if HFC had this program.
For the first time, the nonprofit was tasked with raising funds to host and plan a wedding in less than two months for Sarena Saad, a 21-year-old who was given less than a year to live with her high school sweetheart Tyler Vilandre.
TrizCom donated its services for this campaign. HFC was contacted on July 21, 2016, and the campaign began on July 27, 2016.
OUR RESEARCH:
Due to budget and time constraints, research for this campaign focused on informal methods to determine what awareness currently exists of the Milestones Program to better inform the objectives behind increasing awareness of the program with the public.
A fourth birthday may not seem like a typical milestone in a child's life; however, when you've never celebrated a birthday due to cancer treatment or hospitalization, and your family is struggling financially, a fourth birthday is suddenly the most important day of that child's life. This is the basis of the Milestones Program. We discovered that awareness of this program among HFC donors was extremely low due to the percentage of donations (less than 2 percent of the entire budget).
The "Sarena Wedding" committee devised a needs list, timeline and action plan. We also discovered that the Milestones Program had a minimal share of voice in media mentions tracked over two years – >5 percent. Research on HFC social media channels found that less than 5 percent of the posts mentioned the Milestones Program. We learned that the best time to post on Facebook was between 1 and 4 PM.
Working with HFC, we discovered that our target donor for a Milestones gift was men and women, typically ages 25-65, who work in the service industry. We conducted interviews with supporters to gauge their knowledge of the program and to determine the best media outlets to reach out to regarding their preference for receiving news via online and direct communications. We researched and monitored competing organizations for similar programs to create a best practice.
After speaking with the board of directors and the staff, we learned that there wasn't a budget for this specific project and that all resources would need to be donations, thus formulating the objectives to garner earned media exposure to communicate the needs of the Milestones Program. They also shared their key messages and limited available resources. Additionally, through our anecdotal research, we discovered that because time was of the essence, it was necessary to identify media outlets that could syndicate the news through multiple channels without much lead time. We identified key messages, and media trained the bride-to-be to participate in interviews.
PLANNING:
Budget: $0
Audience: Men and women located in Texas with household incomes of $60,000 ages 25-65 (includes past, current and potential Heroes for Children donors).
Timeline: July 2016 – February 2017 – Wedding date 9/17/16
GOAL: To have all of Sarena's wedding needs donated while increasing awareness and consideration of the Heroes for Children Milestones Program.
Objective 1: To increase awareness and consideration of Heroes for Children's Milestones Program via earned media and securing one television, five print, and 10 electronic earned media stories resulting in an increase of five percent Milestones Program donors with an audience of over a million.
Strategy: To secure media placements about the Milestones program by telling Sarena's Wedding dream story and communicating her needs, increasing third-party validation.
Strategy: Encourage amplification of earned media successes.
Objective 2: To communicate the Milestones Program and Sarena's story via email with a need request and a wedding update with a specific call to action to encourage future donations with a 15 percent open rate (increased over 5 percent from regular email communication).
Strategy: Create an email campaign that touches the heart of the readers and motivates them to donate.
Objective 3: To increase social media followers by 5 percent and increase engagement and shares of HFC social media posts by sharing Sarena's Wedding stories and updates.
Strategy: Engage target audiences with compelling social media content that makes them act.
Strategy: Create noise with influencers to help share the Milestones Program.
EXECUTION
We developed a communication plan, a key messages worksheet with proof points, and an editorial calendar for pitching and disseminating communications.
We set up all tracking software to monitor coverage – TrendKite, TV Eyes, Facebook, Google Alerts, Cision and Talkwalker.
Recognizing that we would get more viewers from a national television story, we decided to focus on the networks that syndicated their stories (i.e., NBC and CBS). We created a specialized exclusive pitch.
Researched, wrote, edited, formatted and pitched press releases to targeted media contacts.
Created a specialized folder of Sarena and Tyler's photos for media download.
We created two press releases and distributed them via one-to-one outreach and a wire distribution for SEO. The distribution included targeted media lists: local/national reporters covering health and wellness, family, human interest, nonprofits and community news; online content marketing platforms/article directories.
We coordinated all on-site interviews, including talking points, media training, follow-up and follow-through.
We identified key influencers to share Sarena's story with and encouraged additional content.
After earned media was generated, we created sample posts to be promoted via social media, email marketing, newsletter content and stakeholder communication.
We created the email marketing content using the key messages worksheet with storytelling attributes and a clear call to action.
Many interactions (in person, by text, telephone, email) with Sarena and Tyler took place to help pitch, place, update and train. Due to Sarena's health, extra precautions had to be taken as well as quite a few stops and starts/rescheduling.
We created auxiliary pitches surrounding upcoming holidays such as Christmas and Valentine's Day.
RESULTS
The goal of the campaign was achieved. Sarena and Tyler were married on September 17, 2016, in Fort Worth, thanks to the generosity of Heroes for Children's donors. The nonprofit secured donations from vendors to provide flowers, centerpieces, DJ, catering, invitations, guestbook, wedding gown, wedding and groom's cakes, candy bar, photography, makeup, limo, videographer, the groom's tux, the honeymoon and much more.
Objective 1 – To increase awareness and consideration of Heroes for Children's Milestones Program via earned media and securing one television, five print, and 10 electronic earned media stories resulting in an increase of 5 percent Milestones Program donors with an audience of over a million.
Outcome: Heroes for Children received over 150 media hits reaching national and local outlets, including two television, 20 print, and online wins. Key wins included NBC 5 DFW (five-minute 10 PM feature including wedding footage), People Magazine, KRLD, CBS 11 NEWS at 10 PM, The Dallas Morning News (liked 378,000 times), 106.1 Kiss FM, Kansas City Star (syndicated in 49 U.S. newspapers) and Star Local Media, totaling an aggregate readership of 76,632,303. HFC generated $3,321 in direct Milestones donations (2016 was $0); in 2016, individual donations were up 22 percent. 259 of the earned media were shared on Facebook directly from the publisher's site.
Objective 2 – To communicate the Milestones Program and Sarena's story via email with a need request and a wedding update with a specific call to action to encourage future donations with a 15 percent open rate (increasing over 5 percent from regular email communication).
Outcome: Resulting in an increased open rate of 25 percent and an overall rate of 9 percent from regular email communication.
Objective 3 – To increase social media followers by 5 percent and increase engagement and shares of Heroes' social media posts by sharing Sarena's Wedding stories.
Outcome: Within the time period, Heroes for Children increased its Facebook followers by 9 percent and their Instagram followers by 48 percent. Shares and engagement were significantly up with Sarena's posts – 13 posts on Facebook generated 213 shares, 1047 likes and 23,056 video views.
Influencers also played a role and were received well, with multiple blog posts and social posts.
Additionally, Heroes for Children used the Sarena story in its end-of-year gift appeal and other marketing materials. Not related, but of note – When Dr. Goldman (board member and oncologist) contacted HFC about Sarena's wedding needs, she was going into hospice with a few months of life expectancy.
Following Sarena's wedding, she had 443 more days (14 months and 17 days) married to the love of her life. She said her marriage gave her the extra will to live.
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