Targeting Audiences: How to Create a Successful Promotion

Background: According to IBM, there is 2.5 quintillion bytes of information created daily. There is more information available today than ever before. Every one of the 2.5 billion active Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts in the world is vying for an audience’s attention. How can we provide all the helpful information to people who have less time to consume it?

Program background:Through our private/public partnership amongst FDA OWH, USA.gov and text4baby we created, managed and distributed online and print information to audiences interested in pregnancy-related information. Key components of our program included: text4baby’s actively engaged audience, FDA’s health and safety publications, and USA.gov web and print distribution management. We utilized a three-pronged strategy to connect pregnant women with information from FDA and text4baby: 1) We expanded our information.  2)We targeted a particular audience 3) We utilized new communication channels to successfully drive engaged audiences to a one stop shop for pregnancy information.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  The number of publications ordered doubled. To date, more than 500,000 pregnancy publications  have been distributed. More people read our information and thought it important to share.

Conclusions: Leveraging new communication tools and the audience that come with can significantly increase interest in your information. To maximize engagement and impact, set one target location for all traffic.

Implications for research and/or practice: We must strategically use communication technologies and target partnerships to ensure engagement with content. Maximize impact by channeling audiences to one aggregated place that provides the best customer experience.