Designing, Executing, and Measuring Social Marketing Strategies that Connect Disparate Populations to Tobacco Cessation Services on Any Budget

Background:

Novices to more experienced tobacco control staff, as well as other public health program managers, communicators, and social marketing professionals are invited to attend this session, which seeks to provide practical solutions to a common problem experienced throughout public health sectors: Amidst shrinking budgets and competing public health priorities, how can reduced, low-budget social marketing campaigns continue to effectively promote evidence-based services and resources to make positive and long-lasting population health impacts? While reinforcing sustainability and clearly defining the client program’s core business need, advertising and marketing budgets of varying sizes and campaign duration will serve as examples, along with ad concepts, campaign analytics, and case study smoking cessation “quitline” call volume traffic tracked against paid advertising campaigns.

Program background:

In this case study of the Rhode Island Tobacco Control Program, discussions will also share campaign development methods and processes that: prioritized and defined the audience’s target populations, developed strategies to maximize audience reach and overcome potential messaging barriers, identified novel technological approaches while leveraging traditional media channels, utilized evidence from past campaigns to maximize current investments, recognized, embraced, and integrated unforeseen opportunities, and budgeted accordingly to seek maximum audience reach. Methods for budgeting, executing, adopting, and adapting campaign strategies will be presented. Cost-saving measures will be shared, such as use of the CDC Media Campaign Resource Center (MCRC) to save on production costs while maximizing market impressions and reach, leveraging community partnerships, and utilizing local sponsorship opportunities to maximize reach to vulnerable populations. Sufficient time will be given to discuss ad selection and messaging to amplify advertising impact on targeted, high priority vulnerable audiences, as well as the importance of timing, ad assortment, rotation, and placement. A special emphasis will be placed on the power of secondary messengers who may serve to amplify messaging at little to no extra costs, as well as understanding and exploring the behaviors, habits, health challenges, and other interests of target audiences so that ads may “meet people where they’re at” on the continuum of behavior change.

Evaluation Methods and Results:

Performance measures derived from website traffic, multi-media impressions data, and ad campaign performance analytics, as well as “quitline” traffic volume, will show how investments, even with a reduced budget, can continue to drive engagement while reinforcing sustainability and need for continued advertising and marketing investments in promoting public health services and resources.

Conclusions:

Cost-efficient strategies for highly targeting vulnerable and under-served populations can continue to yield high performance analytics to meet or exceed industry averages—on any budget.

Implications for research and/or practice:

Rapidly evolving multi-media and social media technologies often present numerous competitively-priced, innovative, and low-cost advertising and marketing opportunities for reaching target populations beyond traditional broadcast, print, and out-of-home media buys. Further research, cost analysis, and periodic annual reviews of the latest media strategies and maximal audience reach could greatly help guide public health professionals in creating social marketing campaigns for any budget.