Community Progress Council – Integrated Marketing Execution in Support of WIC
INDUSTRY:
Non-Profit
SERVICES:
– Strategic Planning
– Campaign Creative Concepting & Development
– Content Strategy & Messaging
– Graphic Design
– Digital Marketing
– Media Buying
– Outdoor Advertising
– Print Advertising
– Radio Advertising
– Grassroots & Partner Engagement
– Public Relations
– Social Media Marketing
“The GRIT team was a true strategic partner in our efforts from day one. They asked the right questions to help us determine a roadmap for our key audiences, which made it easy to identify solid tactics for authentic connections. Abby and her team initiated regular meetings to keep us informed and on track, and they could lead a master class in managing multi-layered projects with complex deliverables and timelines, with a collaborative spirit and no ego around other vendors on the project. I am grateful to GRIT for helping us execute our vision and reach more families in an innovative way, ultimately increasing our participation rate for the WIC program by 23%.”
Sarah Chain
Director of Marketing and Communication
Community Progress Council
Strategic Marketing Planning & Execution to Drive Measurable Participation Increases for a Critical Community Program
Community Progress Council of York County, a vital community nonprofit that delivers comprehensive integrated services, resources and support to help low- and moderate-income individuals and families move toward economic self-sufficiency, approached GRIT following receipt of a grant dedicated to increasing participation in the organization’s Women, Infants & Children (WIC) program. Ensuring compliance with grant guidelines and maximizing resources to achieve trackable program gains was critical to project success.
Building a Plan to Maximize Budget Resources to Reach Defined Target Audiences
To create a foundation for success and measurable impact, GRIT worked closely with the Community Progress Council team to define characteristics of primary target audiences aligned with grant guidelines and overlaid with the greatest areas of need within the community. This included solidifying key demographic details such as language, income, location and other factors, as well as understanding key lifestyle, psychographic and behavior insights to guide selection of the right channels for outreach and ensure creative that would hit the mark on educating and engaging. The resulting plan mapped out an 18-month, integrated, multi-channel marketing strategy to be customized for delivery across York County in three languages.
Developing Multi-Language Creative to Educate, Connect & Inspire Action
York County’s Women, Infants & Children (WIC) program provides a wide range of vital benefits to participants including access to healthy foods for families, breastfeeding support, health screenings and much more! In addition to presenting these key program offerings, an important part of building a successful creative campaign was boldly reinforcing the broad range of caregivers who qualify for WIC and the program’s overlap with other key community services. Building on insights shared from the Community Progress Council (CPC) team GRIT built a campaign to:
- Amplify outreach through creative alignment across channels.
- Clearly and effectively communicate key benefits and qualification details.
- Deliver ease in translation from English into Haitian Creole and Spanish in partnership with the client’s preferred translation partner.
- Strike the delicate balance between educating and inspiring inquiry and action among members of the target audiences who could benefit from WIC.
The resulting campaign featured clear, direct language and bold brand-aligned visuals designed to maximize visibility, readability and information recall across delivery channels.
Facilitating Partner Outreach & Engagement
GRIT collaborated with the CPC team to create a plan to engage with partners across the community who also served and connected with members of the target audiences such as other social service organizations, healthcare providers, religious organizations, and more. GRIT created a plan and companion suite of resources for the CPC team to execute outreach.
A Multi-Channel Integrated Campaign Delivery
The WIC campaign was executed across a wide range of traditional and digital advertising channels with language-customized creative driven by audience targeting. Advertising included:
- A suite of dedicated language-specific campaign landing pages.
- A campaign video adapted for delivery across channels.
- Outdoor advertising included traditional and mobile billboards, bus shelters, bus wraps and interior cards.
- Direct mail outreach via a postcard series to high-priority audience prospects.
- Radio advertising focused on rural English and Spanish coverage.
- Print advertising with a specific focus on Spanish language publications.
- Public relations outreach to targeted print and radio outlets.
- Digital and social advertising included Meta (Facebook/Instagram), Google Display, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat and targeted Geofencing.
As part of campaign execution, GRIT executed all media buying and tracking on behalf of CPC with a focus on ensuring delivery in alignment with contracts and helping maximize value through ride over, extended coverage and other added value deliveries.
Monitoring & Measuring Results: Delivering a 23% Increase in Program Participation
From the start, a critical component of project success was defining goals and determining how campaign efforts would be measured. GRIT supported CPC throughout campaign execution with related statistics and metrics to guide milestone grant reporting. Sample metrics shared across the campaign window included:
- Outdoor impressions (well over 3.1 million achieved during peak months)
- Earned media results (multiple articles and value-added content)
- Digital metrics including impressions, clicks, generated leads, and more (13,000+ landing page sessions resulting from 1.6+ million impressions).
- And more!
The Community Progress Council team also diligently monitored direct inquiries and conversions and was able to confirm a 23% increase in WIC participation during the campaign window.
Supporting the organizations whose critical work lifts up our communities holds a special place in the hearts of the GRIT team. It was truly an honor to work alongside the amazing Community Progress Council team to help connect more individuals and families across our community to many benefits available through the WIC program.
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