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NurseWise Behavioral Health and Crisis Line Awareness Campaign

Gold Stevie Award Winner 2012, Click to Enter The 2014 American Business Awards

Company:NurseWise
Company Description:NurseWise is a national leader of nurse triage, medication adherence, health education and outreach services that delivers positive, measurable results and improved health outcomes through quality care, award-winning services and customized solutions.
Nomination Category:Communications & Marketing Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category:Communications or PR Campaign of the Year - Low Budget (Under $10,000 / €7000)

Nomination Title:NurseWise Behavioral Health and Crisis Line Awareness Campaign

In up to 525 words, tell the judges about the nominated campaign: its genesis, development, planning, commission, and performance to date:

Overview
NurseWise provides behavioral health support and a crisis telephone line for numerous Southern Arizona counties. Although NurseWise had minimal brand recognition in the market, it needed to be heightened to ensure community care partners were aware of how NurseWise could help and also that individuals knew about the crisis line in times of need.

Approach
To ensure the continuum of crisis services and collaboration with care partners, an extensive low-budget marketing plan was created to ensure all voices were heard and relationships were enhanced with all stakeholders. The idea and execution were produced by NurseWise’s internal Marketing team for NurseWise.

• To begin, we surveyed our Crisis Community Partners to gather their thoughts about our service and how we could improve.
• Considering their input, we started with the basics of creating a message map, ensuring that all audiences involved were represented in our communications executions.
• We created collateral materials addressing the various business stakeholders we serve including: health care providers, hospital ERs, schools, law enforcement, courts, Social Services and fire departments. The materials demonstrated that we understood and could meet their requirements, as well as provide exceptional care to individuals in crisis.
• We then designed, wrote, produced and launched an Arizona, behavioral health-focused, consumer-facing website (www.callnursewise.com) that lists the types of services we provide and other available community resources.
• In addition to expanding our digital presence, we created printed collaterals (pocket cards and fliers) for the crisis line for use in community events and outreach opportunities.
• Using a grassroots approach, we created a community events schedule and designed ad specialty items promoting the crisis line phone number and website for use at events throughout the year.
• During our research, we found that we needed to specifically target the Native American population in the areas we served, so we created a special page on the website, a video and radio PSA ad campaign about our Tribal Warm Line, in addition to tailored ad specialty items for distribution at community events.

Results
In less than a year, the campaign is already achieving remarkable results:

• All creative was produced by the all-female, in-house marketing team because of limited budget.
• Our crisis line inbound call volume is on track to more than double compared to the previous year.
• Our abandonment rate (when people do not stay on the line) has decreased more than 10%.
• Our billable service encounters have increased approximately 18% over the past year.
• Due to projected increases in call volume, we will open another Clinical Care Center in the fall of 2015 to increase the staff we have helping community members and growing community care partner relationships.
• Using tribal members to answer calls through the Tribal Warm Line, as well as the voices on our radio spots and video, helped us to connect with this hard-to-reach audience. With no paid promotion and just a link on the new website, the tribal video had nearly 100 clicks from those we are trying to reach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBmrd8A8Hfg.
• Employee morale and engagement increased through opportunities to interact within the communities they serve at community events.
• Self-reported satisfaction of community care partners increased.

Provide a brief biography of the person or persons who lead the team that created and carried out the nominated communications campaign (up to 125 words):

As part of NurseWise’s senior leadership, Bonham manages the company’s reputation and brand through the development of integrated marketing and communications strategies. A hands-on creative director, Bonham leads the PR, creative, web and social media functions in marketing innovative health care programs that contribute to increased compliance, market penetration and customer satisfaction. Bonham also leads the internal communications and leadership communications efforts, as well as proposal development.

Prior to joining NurseWise, Bonham served as the Creative Services and Communications Director for the nation’s sixth largest Catholic health system. For the past 17 years, Bonham has held progressively responsible roles in marketing, creative and communications. She holds a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree from Webster University, where she serves as a mentor.