The Development of an Effective and Successful Marketing Strategy – from the NP SAN Program Experience

Background:  Using social media platforms are helpful to reach target populations and impact their awareness, knowledge, attitudes and much more. It provides various opportunities such as sharing information, promoting public health programs, and creating support structures. To reach key audience and improve their participation effectively, it is critical to develop, implement and evaluate a marketing approach based on sound theories. 

Program background:  The Nurse Practitioner Support and Alignment Network (NP SAN) is a program formed by the American Association of Nurse Practitioners and the National Nurse-Led Care Consortium to promote nurse practitioner participation in Practice Transformation Networks (PTNs). As a part of the Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative (TCPi), launched by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the NP SAN recruited nurse practitioners and their affiliated practices into the TCPi.  The Year 1 outcome goal was to recruit 4,000 providers into PTNs, and the Year 2 goal was to recruit 1,000 providers. 

Evaluation Methods and Results:  The first step of NP SAN social media intervention was to review available resources and possible issues in implementing the intervention. Based on review results, we developed the conceptual framework of NP SAN program theory by adopting the key concepts from the theory of reasoned action and social ecological model. Then, we developed the logic model and evaluation plan to achieve the recruitment goal. Next, we defined marketing metrics as unique opens, clicks, views, likes, reach, and other measurements. In Year 1, the AANP email blasts reached 14,880 AANP members and the AANP E-Bulletin reached 15,631 AANP members. The AANP SmartBriefs reached 17,026 AANP members. In Year 2, the NP SAN was able to reach 11,993 AANP and non-AANP members in a Facebook advertisement. Through a coordinated media approach, the NP SAN was able to recruit 5,210 clinicians by the end of Year 1, which exceeded the recruitment goal of 4,000 clinicians for Year 1, and 1,900 clinicians were recruited in less than 6 months in Year 2.

Conclusions:  The most effective platforms in Year 1 were AANP email blasts, AANP E-Bulletin posts, and AANP SmartBriefs. These platforms and the Facebook ad were effective in Year 2. The NP SAN successfully recruited 5,900 clinicians into a federal initiative even before reaching the end of Year 2 by adopting various social media approaches and coordinating them effectively based on periodic assessment results.

Implications for research and/or practice:  To make a social media intervention successful, it is critical to understand the target population, explore effective approaches to reach them and continue to assess the progress to identify the areas that need to be improved. Although these findings are limited to AANP members and their colleagues, researchers and programs seeking to specifically target nurse practitioners can use this information to develop and implement effective marketing strategies. Most nurse practitioners serve Medicare beneficiaries and provide care for the most vulnerable patient populations. Interventions or research focusing on reducing health disparities could use this strategy to reach nurse practitioners who are often the providers of at-risk patients.