Month: June 2024

Expanding Reach and Engagement with College Students Using Influencers

Posted on by Coegi

Challenge

Coegi collaborated with agency partner, True Media, on a key initiative for Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry (ASCO). The client needed to reach current college students (aged 18-24), specifically those in STEM fields who are undecided about their careers. Previous marketing efforts focused on standard website traffic generation and career messaging; however, they were looking to expand into additional tactics that would connect with students in an authentic, trust-inspiring way.

Highlights

Millions
of impressions served to those potentially interested in Optometry field

Thousands
of post engagements driving an authentic connection between ASCO and potential students

31 pieces of content
created and amplified efficiently across channels

Solution

Our teams leveraged the power of social media influencers to provide a new way of engaging with the target audience. Recognizing the influence of peer recommendations on college students, we partnered with a selection of young Optometrists and Optometry students (3 creators in total). These creators produced a mix of 31 pieces of content, including standard branded messages alongside a unique UGC (User-Generated Content) challenge. The UGC challenge encouraged viewers to share their top six “sights to see” and tag others in the Optometry community, aiming to spark a viral trend on Instagram and TikTok. Paid amplification was utilized on both platforms to further extend the reach of the influencer content and build genuine connection with relevant individuals beyond the creators’ core followers.

Results

Organically, we drove nearly 3,000 organic engagements at a 7.9% engagement rate through the 31 pieces of content. 

Through amplification on Instagram, we achieved over 1.2 million impressions at a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) of $7.71, generating over 70,000 post engagements. Similarly on TikTok, boosted content delivered nearly half a million impressions at a CPM of $3.97, with over 2,000 post engagements. Amplification not only allowed the content to reach a broader audience of relevant individuals, but also drove greater attention and consideration as evidenced by the content engagement. 

While the success of the UGC challenge is still to be determined, the initial results from the boosted influencer content are promising. 

Key Takeaways

  • Influencer Selection: Partnering with creators who are both relatable and relevant to the target audience (young Optometrists/students) proved effective.
  • UGC for Engagement: The UGC challenge fostered audience participation and could potentially lead to a viral trend, further amplifying the campaign reach.
  • Paid Amplification Benefits: Utilizing the Paid Partnership tool on Instagram and TikTok allowed for seamless content integration and audience expansion beyond the influencer’s followers.

Overall, this campaign demonstrates the effectiveness of influencer marketing in reaching and engaging with a specific audience of college students. The combination of relatable creators, engaging content formats, and paid amplification strategies hold promise for driving brand awareness and consideration within the Optometry field.

Want to explore ways influencer marketing can boost your strategy? Contact our strategists today!

The Balancing Act: Short-Term Wins and Long-Term Growth in Healthcare Marketing

Posted on by Cameron Reese

Leaders in the healthcare industry understand the unique challenges of marketing to consumers and HCPs in this space. Unlike promoting a new phone or pair of shoes, healthcare decisions are often complex and involve building trust. This blog dives into the crucial balance between achieving short-term wins and fostering long-term growth for your healthcare brand.

Short-Term Gains: Measurable Impact, Immediate Results

Short-term marketing strategies deliver a quick and measurable impact. Think campaigns promoting flu vaccinations or driving traffic to a website for a new medication launch. Here, success is measured by:

  • Media metrics: Engagement rate, site traffic, click-through rate
  • Business metrics: Sales lift, return on investment (ROI)
  • Advanced measurement: Attention unit scores (measures ad effectiveness), vaccine lift studies (tracks vaccination rates post-campaign)

These strategies are ideal for capitalizing on seasonal trends or generating immediate interest in a new product.

Long-Term Vision: Building Trust and Brand Loyalty

Long-term marketing focuses on cultivating trust and brand loyalty. It positions your brand as a reliable resource, a trusted partner on a patient’s healthcare journey. This translates to:

  • Brand metrics: Brand awareness, brand preference, customer satisfaction
  • Sales & Vaccine Lift Studies: Can also be applicable to long-term success such as share of mind and market share.

Educational content, patient testimonials, and community outreach programs all contribute to long-term success. Imagine a healthcare provider consistently offering informative webinars on various health topics. This establishes them as a trusted resource, influencing patients to choose them for future needs.

The Art of Balance: Aligning Strategies for Sustainable Growth

Focusing solely on short-term gains can negatively impact long-term brand building. While short-term metrics can provide valuable insights and some immediate sense of satisfaction, over-reliance on them can lead to overlooking the bigger business  picture. Here’s how to strike the perfect balance:

  • Identify short-term metrics that predict long-term success. High engagement with educational content could indicate potential brand preference.
  • Maintain a cohesive brand voice across all marketing efforts. This ensures a consistent patient experience, regardless of the short-term or long-term marketing touchpoint.
  • Embrace innovation in activation and measurement. Utilize advanced tools like attention unit metrics and influencer marketing to gain deeper insights and reach your target audience with authenticity.

Conclusion: A Winning Formula for Healthcare Marketing Success

By understanding the nuances of both short-term and long-term growth in healthcare marketing, brands can achieve sustainable growth. Healthcare is a personal journey for everyone, and it can not be a one size fits all approach. In order to deploy an effective long term marketing strategy, brands need to be in tune with who their target audience is, and how they like to be spoken to. By implementing a balanced approach that prioritizes immediate results while fostering long-term trust, healthcare CMOs can build brands that resonate with patients HCPs alike and position themselves for lasting success.

Building Trust and Awareness for Medicaid Options within Multicultural Communities

Posted on by Coegi

Challenge

Coegi’s client, a government health plan provider, needed to raise awareness of their Medicaid options among Hispanic and African American communities. These communities often face historical distrust of the medical care system, further compounded by rising healthcare costs.

Highlights

5%
higher recall among Hispanic/Latino demographics

9%
higher recall among Black/African American demographics

27%
increase in the perception that our brand supports member health goals, care about the community, and offer relevant services

10%
lift in aided brand awareness compared to 2% healthcare benchmark

Solution

We developed an omni-channel pilot campaign to break through the noise and resonate with these core audiences. The strategy focused on three key goals:

  • Increase Awareness: Reach qualified Latino and African American audiences.
  • Build Trust: Position the client as a trustworthy partner who understands their needs.
  • Drive Engagement: Encourage interaction with the brand through the website.

Reaching Key Segments: Identify core audiences by utilizing precision targeting parameters such as first-party data, zip codes, eligibility criteria, racial and ethnic demographics.

  • Moms (Parents): Targeted adults with children, emphasizing importance of childhood and postpartum health.
  • Functionally Disabled Members: Targeted audiences concerned with health issues like mental health and disabilities.
  • New to Medicaid: Targeted audiences interested in health management and wellness, active on digital platforms.

Media Strategy: Maximize impact with Medicaid-eligible audiences by placing personalized messages across an omnichannel digital media plan.

  • Diversity in Digital Media: Moving beyond competitor channels, we explored diverse digital platforms and implemented programmatic buying to find audiences efficiently.
  • Right Audience, Right Message: Layered niche cultural targeting with culturally appropriate messaging for deeper resonance.
  • Upfront Digital Footprint: Prioritized a strong digital presence (70% audience reach) for speed to market, hyper-targeting, and competitive differentiation.
  • Expanding into Traditional Media: Layered in localized print publications, billboards & Radio for increased community relevance.
  • Test and Learn: Established a foundation for future campaigns by measuring engagement and optimizing messaging for better personalization.

Results

The campaign delivered significant positive lifts across various metrics:

  • Unaided & Aided Awareness: Increased brand recognition.
  • Brand Perception: Improved perceptions of the brand as supportive, community-focused, informative, and meeting health needs.
  • Decision Maker Impact: Positively influenced decision-making within both Hispanic/Latino and Black/African American audiences.

Channel Performance: The campaign delivered a significant lift in aided awareness across all forms of media, with a notable lift in awareness among consumers exposed to the banner and 30-second video ad. Brand recall was higher when 4+ channels were utilized, signaling the power of an omnichannel approach.

  • Social and Print: Top performers, particularly in combination.
  • CTV & Display Banners: Effective in raising awareness and brand opinion.
  • Streaming Audio: Moderately positive impact.
  • Online Video & OOH: Provided strong campaign reinforcement, but had less direct campaign impact.

Key Takeaways

  • Go Where the Performance Is: Target audiences where engagement is strong and build scale through an omni-channel approach.
  • Brevity & Emotional Connection: Clear, concise messaging with emotional appeal leads to stronger creative performance.
  • Smaller Audience, Bigger Impact: Smaller audience segments can deliver strong engagement and results when targeted effectively.

This case study demonstrates that building trust within multicultural audiences requires a tailored approach that considers cultural values and prioritizes the right channels and messaging for maximum impact.

 

Celebrating Progress: A Look at Coegi’s 2024 Achievements

Posted on by Coegi

As a strategic digital media partner, Coegi continually advances the frontiers of programmatic buying, authentic social media campaigns, and comprehensive digital channel optimization. We invest in creating thought leadership and maintaining strong ties with technology partners to stay at the cutting edge of digital trends and innovations. This commitment fosters a culture that celebrates client achievements and nurtures enduring relationships. 

A Whirlwind Start to 2024

The past six months at Coegi have been marked by a series of exciting accolades and strategic partnerships that have significantly enhanced our industry standing while serving as a testament to the strength of our team’s work ethic and expertise.

Achievements and Awards

We kicked off our streak of triumphs by securing a spot in AdExchanger’s Top 50 Programmatic Power Players for the third consecutive year, affirming our leadership in programmatic advertising. Adding to our celebration, Savannah Westbrock, Coegi’s Director of Innovation and Development, was honored as one of the Top Women in Media and Ad Tech in the “Up and Comers” category by AdExchanger and AdMonsters, highlighting our commitment to fostering talent within our ranks.

The spotlight continued with our groundbreaking collaboration with Moderna on the #SpikevaxPartner Community influencer marketing campaign. This groundbreaking campaign launched 550 posts, generating over 503 million impressions and a 484% increase in engagement rates, significantly boosting Spikevax’s market share from 37% to 48% and influencing 24% of all US vaccine conversions in fall 2023.

This campaign not only became a finalist in two categories at the Shorty Awards but also clinched a prestigious win for the 2024 Grand Indie awards, celebrating the most creative and effective independent agency campaigns globally. Furthermore, it triumphed at the 2023 MediaPost Planning & Buying Awards, winning in the Influencer Marketing Category. 

Lastly, we were proud to be honored by the St. Louis Business Journal as one of the “Fast 50,” highlighting the fastest growing companies in the region, as well as being included on the list of the largest marketing and advertising agencies for St. Louis.

Client and Company Partnerships

On the client partnership front, we proudly announced our collaboration with The Humane Society of the United States, aiming to amplify their animal welfare initiatives. We also deepened our relationship with Moderna by becoming their paid media partner for the Canadian market. This partnership is built on a solid two-year foundation with Moderna’s global commercial team and encompasses a comprehensive media strategy.

Our strategic alliances have also expanded to include joining forces with Meet The People. This new alliance with a network of innovative independent agencies promises to foster collaborative growth and bring fresh perspectives and resources to our clients, further enhancing our capabilities and impact in the digital marketing sphere.

The Transformative Impact of Recognition

The accolades Coegi has garnered have significantly bolstered our agency’s profile and enhanced our strategic positioning to the benefit of our clients. These awards attest to our ability to deliver cutting-edge solutions and results-driven campaigns that significantly impact our clients’ market presence and consumer engagement. This recognition not only confirms our effectiveness in current markets but also aligns with the broader industry analysis provided by key insights from industry experts.

According to Forrester’s ‘The Media Management Services Landscape, Q2 2024‘ report, Coegi is included among notable vendors and has an industry focus on retail, financial services, and pharmaceuticals and medical equipment. Coegi self-reported the extended use cases of communications strategy, media and ad operations, and martech and adtech implementation as the top use cases for which clients select us.

This recognition from Forrester cements for us our reputation as a versatile and strategic partner capable of navigating the complexities of the global media management market.

Looking Forward: Coegi’s Vision for the Future

As Coegi strides confidently into the future, our roadmap is clear and ambitious. Fueled by the success and recognition of the past six months, we are set to achieve even more as we continue to innovate and expand our impact within the digital marketing world.

Innovations and Collaborative Growth

  • Technological Advancements: Coegi is broadening its technological and engagement strategies to enhance overall performance and client relationships. We continue to harness AI and machine learning to transform content creation, streamline workflows, and optimize ad delivery. Additionally, we’re implementing universal ID solutions and enhancing our ecosystem with advanced cross-channel measurement and audience strategies through strategic technology partnerships.
  • Meet The People and Worldwide Partners Collaborations: These collaborations allow us to stay independent and maintain the unique culture of Coegi while amplifying our impact through access to a broader network of resources and expertise. By aligning with a network that shares our core values, we place people at the heart of every strategy, enhancing our client-centric approach and empowering our community-focused initiatives.
  • Award Submissions: We’re building on recent successes with several award submissions planned this year to highlight our ongoing excellence and innovation in digital marketing.

Coegi is not just adapting to changes but actively shaping the future of digital marketing. By balancing innovation with our commitment to clients and community, we are poised for a dynamic future. Thanks to our team for all their work in making the start of this year a success!

 

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