Using Digital Engagement Tactics to Promote Mission Readiness Among Army National Guard Soldiers

Background: Army National Guard (ARNG) Soldiers wear at least two caps: Citizen and Soldier. These dual roles create unique challenges, such as balancing monthly drill weekends with civilian jobs and maintaining their fitness and physical readiness to pass their annual Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) or to be deployed at any time. Like other dispersed target audiences, many Soldiers have difficulty accessing the resources and programs needed to help keep them healthy and mission ready.

Program background: The Army National Guard’s Guard Your Health campaign addresses this access gap by providing actionable information, tools and resources Soldiers and families need to stay healthy and medically ready. The campaign combines innovative communications strategies and multichannel marketing tactics deployed across diverse digital platforms—website, social media, SMS texting, photo campaigns and videos – to help Soldiers and families access health and wellness information anytime, anywhere. In addition, it uses digital mini-campaigns, such as the Small Steps to a Healthier You Challenge, FitText and the #WarriorReady Challenge, to help Soldiers maximize physical training, prepare for the APFT and adopt healthy behaviors. The campaign website was designed with a responsive framework to ensure the information is accessible from all devices. Guard Your Health's digital products keep warriors mission-ready with compelling, edgy content on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, SMS, Pinterest and Instagram.

Evaluation Methods and Results: Using tools such as Google Analytics and Sprout Social, the team creates monthly and quarterly reports to determine impact of its digital platforms and mini-campaigns, and make refinements. Since its launch, Guard Your Health social media channels have garnered 120,000+ interactions and reached 2M+ social media users. In addition, more than 65 percent of Guard Your Health website visits come from mobile devices and tablets, which is why Guard Your Health takes a "mobile first" approach.

Conclusions: Campaign research and data suggest that the target population is interested in receiving health messages digitally to help them stay fit and mission ready. More than half of Facebook users access Facebook only on mobile devices. In addition, SMS text message open rates in general exceeds 90 percent. The campaign’s Web analytics indicate that more than half of the website traffic comes from mobile sources (65 percent), which validates that our mobile-first approach resonates with target audiences.

Implications for research and/or practice:  A multi-channel digital approach, driven by social marketing tactics, can be applied to behavior change campaigns to keep audiences engaged and help them reach their desired end behavior.