Targeted marketing drives college students to seek mental health services and resources.
“Kane brings expertise that we don’t have. Their messaging and creative abilities went above and beyond our expectations because of the results that we saw within the campaign. ”
One in four college students have a diagnosable mental illness, yet 40 percent do not seek help. It’s no wonder that the behavioral health services offered by Wraparound Milwaukee were being underutilized. Kane developed a strategic communications campaign aimed to increase the number of college students in Milwaukee County accessing Wraparound’s services and resources.
Milwaukee County’s Behavioral Health Division is home to Wraparound Milwaukee, a unique system of care for children with serious emotional, behavioral, and mental health needs, and their families.
As of 2017, there were an estimated 11.2 million adults aged 18 or older in the United States with a serious mental illness (SMI). Of those, young adults aged 18-25 years had the highest prevalence of SMI (7.5%) compared to adults aged 26-49 years (5.6%) and aged 50 and older (2.7%). As a national best practice leader in the Wraparound Philosophy, Wraparound Milwaukee’s goal was to impact these numbers by increasing the number of 18-22-year-old individuals served and by making their resources known to college students across Milwaukee County.
Wraparound Milwaukee had the capacity to serve more individuals but outside of the Behavioral Health Division, there was little awareness of the services and resources available. Wraparound Milwaukee needed to find a way to reach a young audience while simultaneously developing relationships with local colleges and universities and affiliated organizations to help spread the word of their services to the youth and their families. They needed a partner who could help foster relationships and shine a light on SMI. Wraparound partnered with Kane to successfully achieve this goal.
This campaign won honorable mention in the 2020 MarCom Awards competition, one of the oldest, largest, most-respected creative competitions in the world.
SOLUTION
Kane developed an integrated campaign that combined digital marketing, public relations and grassroots community engagement strategies to target 18-22 year-olds and their parents by sharing information across multiple touchpoints. The campaign included the following elements:
Creative Development - Cognizant of the sensitivity surrounding the topic of SMI and the stigma often associated with it, the campaign’s creative was designed to present non-threatening approaches to discussions about mental illness.
Digital Ads - Aware that the best way to engage individuals ages 18-22 is through their mobile devices, Kane’s campaign included a strong mobile component focused on raising awareness among college-aged students and their parents of the resources and services made available by Wraparound Milwaukee. Kane created highly-targeted and measurable digital ads and implemented geo-fencing and geo-retargeting around eight local universities to engage with other audiences that were physically on campus such as parents, educators, counselors, etc.
Community Relations - Kane performed outreach to eight local universities enlisting them to share messages about the services of Wraparound Milwaukee. By liaising with on-campus organizations, Kane armed them with campaign materials to distribute about Wraparound’s services to students, parents, counselors and other campus resources.
RESULTS
Kane’s integrated approach got immediate results, and Wraparound Milwaukee achieved:
Increased visits to the Wraparound Milwaukee location. Just one month after geo-targeted ads and grassroots community relations began, 52 verified individuals visited the Wraparound Milwaukee location at the BHD, with the actual number possibly closer to 208 visits.
Increased engagement with Wraparound Milwaukee’s messaging and content among individuals 18-22 and their parents. In the first two weeks of Kane’s digital campaign, Wraparound Milwaukee was able to generate 119,003 digital impressions, 926 clicks, and a 78% click-through rate which is more than 11 times the national average for click-through rates.
Increased traffic to the Wraparound Milwaukee website. In a span of a month and a half, Kane drove a significant amount of traffic to the Wraparound webpage which resulted in 2,763 new visits to the site.
Increased in time-on-site specifically around the services provided by Wraparound Milwaukee. With an average time on page of three minutes and 22 seconds, visitors learned more about SMI and the services offered by Wraparound Milwaukee.
Developed three sustainable relationships with local universities to help position Wraparound Milwaukee as a local resource for college-aged students in Milwaukee County. Kane built connections with Cardinal Stritch University, Alverno College and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and secured three opportunities to speak to Greek life chapters at Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Kane secured three more connections to student organizations at Alverno and Marquette while securing five media placements to highlight the campaign’s message with Bridge the City, the Marquette Wire, The Concordian, WISN12, and WUWM Radio.