Marketing and Communication Strategist.
New York Communities for Health (NYCC4H) is a non-profit organization housed within NYU Silver School of Social Work.
They provide prevention education and harm reduction resources, while also connecting youth to health and social services in New York City.
NYCC4H has three main initiatives:
- Opioid Overdose Prevention.
- Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT)
- Parent Workshops
They were seeking a professional to help address their communication challenges and enhance their ability to reach target audiences.
I was responsible for developing the strategy and executing it.
Case Study | Brand Development
By working together, we were able to uncover and leverage NYCC4H’s untapped potential. This included generating guidelines, implementing organizational processes, and developing marketing strategies.
The Need for Graphic Guidelines to Communicate Messages
Establishing brand guidelines was the first step in ensuring consistency in the development of future messages across different channels, with the aim of increasing the credibility of the brand and building trust. The purpose of this document is to evolve with the brand, allowing for strategic growth and adaptation.
Text layout was a crucial part of the brand’s communication elements. Understanding how content fits into the design process was essential for ensuring the process ran smoothly and efficiently.
Defining The Target Audience
The construction of buyer persona profiles provided an understanding of each segment the organization aimed to communicate with. Messages were tailored to specific audiences at different times, using various platforms to guide the tone and style of communication.
Developing Brand Territories to Guide Specific Marketing Strategies
Included as a core element of the brand communication strategy, defining territories helps establish clear positioning, unify messages, guide creative direction in content development, and maintain a consistent brand voice and style.
Case Study | Opioid Overdose Prevention Program
Summary
The Harm Reduction initiative consists of in-person and remote training sessions specifically targeted at New Yorkers. The goal is to raise awareness and equip the community with the knowledge and resources needed to reduce accidental overdose deaths deriving from the opioid epidemic.
Promoting and communicating this initiative helped us reach the distribution quota for naloxone, fentanyl test strips, and xylazine test strips.
Promoting Harm Reduction Trainings
Representing the elements of the training with illustrations helped develop the graphic language for the initiative, Naloxone nasal spray, fentanyl and xylazine test strips were included in the whole experience.
Promotional Material
These materials served multiple purposes: they functioned as a tangible marketing tool for in-person training sessions, helping attract attention at community resource fairs. The marketing tool featured a QR code that initiated a digital experience for community members interested in taking the training at a later time.
Additionally, a short proprietary URL was included below the QR code, providing information about the dates and times of upcoming events, further building trust among community members interested in the initiative.
Web Experiences
This top-of-the-funnel conversion strategy was designed to establish a bridge between physical and digital experiences, allowing community members to engage with the brand beyond the initial in-person approach.Through this cross-channel integration, we were able to increase trust among remote participants by creating sign-up pages using the same domain name as the organization’s website.
Strategy
Key points to consider for this strategy: The target audience needed to trust the organization before they were willing to engage in training.
Differentiated communications were required by the stakeholders, including email campaigns, social media posts, flyers, and didactical materials.
Seamless experiences across the key points of the conversion phase were achieved through the use of branded elements and a cohesive graphic language developed for the Harm Reduction initiative.
Case Study | NYCC4H Health Fairs
Summary
These events were hosted by the organization to promote their initiatives within the Bronx community. The main objective was to engage with community members and provide prevention education to address underage drinking, substance use, and STIs. This included offering youth and families education and referrals for HIV/STI testing and social services.
Promotional Materials
MTA Campaign
Reach was the main objective of this campaign. The strategic placement of this urban panel ensured it was seen by a large and diverse audience, including community members who might not be reached through other channels.
Health Fairs Materials
These materials were used to enhance marketing efforts, promote the event locally, and motivate Bronx youth to participate in the Health and Wellness initiative, ensuring that the visual language used in the communication was reflected across multiple platforms.
Walking banners were utilized to promote the event within the community, with balloons used to attract attention and guide people to the event location.
Flyers were distributed in advance to local community organizations and displayed at the event entrance, along with future dates of upcoming events. Additionally, incentives were offered to community members who brought friends interested in participating in the initiatives.
Case Study | Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT)
The Health and Wellness Survey or SBIRT is an evidence-based intervention (EBI) used to identify risky behavior such as excessive drinking or drug use and unsafe sex practices. The target population is Bronx adolescents and young adults (AYA) ages 13-24.
This initiative was regulated by the Institutional Review Board (IRB), so the strategy to promote it was integrated into the services of other initiatives, such as health fairs and community outreach events. The social media campaign was also adapted into different formats to motivate youth to participate in the initiative.
Promoting the Health and Wellness Survey
Case Study | Parent Workshops
Summary
NYCC4H needed to promote their Harm Reduction Trainings to meet the distribution quotas set by their sponsors. The first step was to create a visual language that aligned with the brand while also identifying the initiative. Using these new guidelines, we developed flyers, promotional materials, and content tailored to different awareness stages across digital platforms.
Promoting Parent Workshops
The communication style for this initiative included photographs to convey trust and clearly represent the target audience for the workshops. A more formal graphic style was developed to reinforce this trust.
Clear instructions on what to do and where to register were included on the flyer to ensure the target audience had a smooth experience during the conversion process.
Designed to make the experience as transparent and smooth as possible, allowing community members to engage with the brand beyond the initial in-person interaction. Through this cross-channel integration, we were able to increase trust among participants by creating a sign-up page using the same domain name as the organization’s website.
Custom Mailing Campaigns
These mailing campaigns were custom-coded to include personalized formats due to the length of the content. The layout was designed to be easy to understand and included specific resources as part of the follow-up intervention process.
Digital Comunication
Communication for this initiative includes social media posts, email inserts, and email marketing campaigns. This was part of the digital strategy, which involved community-based organizations, stakeholders, and a database collected from previous events featuring community members.
