CASE STUDY: Boosting Sunshine Nonprofit Solutions’ Online Visibility Through Effective Digital and Traditional Marketing Strategies
CASE STUDY: Boosting Sunshine Nonprofit Solutions’ Visibility Through Effective Digital and Traditional Marketing Strategies
BACKGROUND:
Head Start and Early Head Start programs are federally-funded initiatives that provide early childhood education, healthcare, and social services to children from low-income families. These programs aim to promote school readiness and healthy development for children 0 to 5 years old. The Head Start program focuses on children 3 to 5 years old, while the Early Head Start program serves infants and toddlers from birth up to 3 years old.
Sunshine Nonprofit Solutions, owned by Dr. Cathleen Armstead, offers grant writing and consulting services to Early Head Start and Head Start programs which provide early childhood education, healthcare, and social services to historically disadvantaged populations. Despite the organization’s good intentions and expertise, Sunshine Nonprofit Solutions was struggling with visibility on search engines, so they reached out to us for help.
CHALLENGE:
After conducting an in-depth analysis of Sunshine Nonprofit Solutions, we found several factors that were impeding the organization’s progress. These challenges spanned across various domains including:
1. Marketing ‘education’: Despite being a crucial pillar of society, education remains incredibly difficult to promote, especially considering its foundational role in fostering knowledge and growth.
2. Audience Constraints: The target audience that required grant writing and consulting services unfortunately lacked the financial resources and capacities to pay for these services.
3. Generational cycle: It was noted that key decision-makers and program officers within the Early Head Start or Head Start domain were often leading figures within the community or family it catered to, making them resistant to accepting external help.
4. Education barriers: Early Head Start and Head Start program officers who were not family or community members demonstrated a high level of education and knowledge, thereby rendering traditional marketing tactics ineffective.
Due to these factors, it was clear that a marketing approach targeting these two groups was challenging. Moreover, among the approximately 930 million LinkedIn users, only 110 belonged to the Early Head Start and Head Start sector. Economically disadvantaged individuals typically lacked access to social media and the internet. Additionally, those with higher education were rarely engaged with online platforms. Consequently, it was vital to devise innovative ways to market Sunshine Nonprofit Solutions that included both digital and traditional marketing strategies.
PROCESS:
To successfully market to the Early Head Start and Head Start industries, an exceptional understanding of the unique regulations, demands and clientele of these sectors was required. These industries primarily serve low-income families with children aged 0-5, and hence, a different kind of marketing approach was necessary. Recognizing the demographics’ limited use of social media, offline strategies were included as a crucial part of our approach. This decision was rooted in understanding the human aspects involved, recognizing the closeness and familial relations among the service providers and recipients.
The messaging within the campaigns had to resonate with not only the young children but also unborn children, their parents and families. Furthermore, our proposals had to adhere strictly to the extensive regulations enforced by the federal government.
Breaking into this market was thus an immense challenge requiring diligent research, careful analysis, and meticulous planning. Ultimately, marketing to this sector meant navigating a unique set of regulations, familial relations, and understanding a diverse and low-income clientele, which demanded an entirely differentiated marketing approach.
RESULTS:
Grozina’s expertise in working with multiple governmental organizations was instrumental in creating a potent and tailored marketing strategy for Sunshine Nonprofit Solutions. By implementing an extensive, multifaceted approach, we successfully engaged with our distinct target demographic on a deeper level.
We initiated our process by focusing more on local grassroots strategies like community outreach initiatives and collaboration with local governance to increase public awareness about Sunshine Nonprofit Solutions’ offerings.
On the digital front, we also incorporated visually engaging content specifically catered for the LinkedIn audience, allowing us to secure an overwhelming 80 percent of the Early Head Start and Head Start LinkedIn community. The campaign maintained an impressive average engagement rate of 63.11%.
We utilized various tactics, such as writing thought-leadership content that was strategically embedded with keywords linked to grant writing services. The keywords soared to the top ten Google search rankings within 3 months, which subsequently led to the website appearing on Google’s first page after six months for certain keywords.
Further, we launched newsletter campaigns aimed at both our existing customers and retargeting active users on our website, which achieved an average open rate of 27%, thus showcasing our prowess in audience retention.
IMPACT:
The effort translated into more inquiries about the services offered by Sunshine Nonprofit Solutions, demonstrating a higher level of awareness among the target audience. Though initially, the return was modest, it has provided an excellent platform for further penetration into the Early Head Start and Head Start market and has allowed the organization to tweak and adapt their approach in real-time to deliver better and more sustainable results over the long run. The recognition among local communities has significantly improved, building trust and creating a reputation that aids in attracting potential clients.
