How is your center doing reaching abortion minded women? Are you making sure you are present in their digital space? Gen Z lives on their phones – they have never known life without smartphone technology. It’s where they go for everything – music, information, services and help. Often we are asked what is the most important marketing tactic we should be using. This guide addresses that question. Your best strategy will use a combination of tactics working together to make the greatest impact for your pregnancy center.
Website
Your website truly is the foundation of all your marketing efforts. If you’re investing in other marketing strategies, they likely all point back to your website either directly or indirectly. This is where people will go to find out who you really are, what you do, and if your pregnancy center can solve their problem. It is their first impression of you.
Perform a quick inventory for your website to assess how well it’s serving your mission:
- Do the pages load quickly?
- Is it easy to find the services you offer?
- Is it easy to navigate to the contact page or set up an appointment?
- Do the images all load fully?
- Have you updated your website in the last three to five years?
If you answered no to any of those questions, it’s likely time to update your website. It can feel like a huge undertaking, especially if your website feels sufficient now. But know that your center will only ever be as successful as your website. If visitors bounce out because it’s too slow, or it’s hard to find information about what you do, or the site takes forever to load, you won’t reach the women who need you the most.
The part people often forget about but that’s equally important to your site’s success is the backend of your site. This is the part people can’t see but it’s what captures a person’s attention online as they’re searching for pregnancy-related searches. Are you keeping up with your search engine optimization (SEO)? Do people find you when they search terms like “abortion”, “abortion pill,” and “free pregnancy test”? Choose Life Marketing offers free SEO audits of your website if you want to see how your site is performing.
We recommend starting with your website before you invest in any other marketing strategies. If you’d like more information about what a website redesign or build would entail, please reach out to us today! Our passion is helping you reach abortion-minded women and empowering them to choose life. A fresh, fast, relevant site is a key piece to your marketing efforts.
Paid Search
The second important strategy to invest in as you head into a new season is paid search. Offered through Google, it’s a targeted way to spread the word about your services to abortion-minded women near you. As they search for abortion, the abortion pill, and other queries related to an unplanned pregnancy, information about your center displays at the top of search results.
Plan C has grown in popularity during the pandemic, and especially since a federal judge in Maryland ruled women don’t need to meet with a doctor prior to taking the pill. This is the new normal and paid search is how we will combat Plan C and reach women first.
If you worry that paid search is outside your budget, our question to you would be: How much are you willing to invest in reaching the women near your center considering abortion right now? It’s become easier than ever for them to find the abortion pill online; how easy are you to find? If you aren’t front and center in an online space, women won’t reach out for your services.
We recommend having paid search links send people to a landing page dedicated to the search term they put into Google. This simplifies the information they are looking for and offers you the opportunity to connect with them more directly. Strategically pick the keywords that best represent your services and the support you provide to drive the correct traffic to your landing pages to see women come through your doors looking for hope and help.
Paid search is a fantastic strategy as you consider how you will combat Plan C and the devastation the abortion pill wreaks on women.
Social Ads
The final strategy we recommend as you head into the fall months is social advertising. Much like paid search, these ads help reach women in your target demographic with messages about your pregnancy services. For women considering abortion, these are critical to provide her with information about the life-affirming alternatives you offer.
You should focus your advertising on three key platforms: Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat.
Facebook will capture people in rural areas and in your older demographic. You can choose to run ads through Messenger as well which will reach younger clients who have and use the messaging app on their phone. Facebook is still the most popular social media platform even if every age group isn’t actively engaged on it. They’re still scrolling and looking at the content posted.
Instagram ads will capture a large portion of your Millennial and Gen Z audiences. They report paying attention to these ads, especially if they are informative and eye-catching. Not only will they pay attention, they’ll engage as well. Instagram ads will help you see a raised awareness for your center as well as conversions in the form of calls and appointments.
Finally, advertising on Snapchat can also increase awareness as well as conversions for your pregnancy center. Gen Z is the most active generation on Snapchat, and also makes up the largest portion of your target demographic. Overlooking this platform means you’re overlooking those who most need your services. You can utilize ads that are still images or graphics or that utilize video. They don’t have to be professional but they do need to be engaging and eye-catching with a compelling message. The most important part is that it should look similar to other things they’re seeing from their peers and advertisers on Snapchat.
Getting Started
We recommend these three strategies as a strong foundation to your marketing plan for your center. To be effective, you need a solid plan and budget to sustain the plan. You also will need someone to “own” your marketing. We know you wear a lot of hats as a busy director, so take some time to identify someone on your staff who can own this and be responsible for the research, strategy, and implementation of your marketing plan with your support. Or, reach out to Choose Life Marketing for more information about how we can partner with you to help create and manage your marketing strategy.
If you don’t have the budget now or new marketing initiatives, put together a proposal and submit it to your board and some high-capacity donors. Let them know the urgency and importance of getting started with these strategies to stay true to your mission of reaching and serving those in your community facing the crisis of an unplanned pregnancy.
Our team is passionate about your success. We would love to partner with you to reach, change and save lives. Please reach out today to find out how we can support your work and help you reach the abortion-minded women near you!
