Communications Plan for Nebraska Community Blood Bank RESEARCH: The Nebraska Community Blood Bank (NCBB), with help from the American Red Cross (ARC), is partnering with the Scarlet Guard and the Nebraska Alumni Association to host a blood drive on February 28, 2017. This drive will be held at the Wick Alumni Center from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. The NCBB’s main duty it to recruit and publicize for the drive, then schedule donors for appointments. The ARC does the rest: from help with planning and organization, to determining the number of donors and different ways to recruit. They also supply the equipment, set up and take down, and control the donating process throughout. The whole process of donating blood takes about an hour, with the actual blood draw only lasting under ten minutes. The NCBB is currently in urgent need of Type O-, B+, and B- blood donors. Donors must be at least 17 years of age and weigh at least 118 lbs. 2013: 79 units / 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. 2014: 48 units / 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. 2016: 23 units / 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. 2017: x units / 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. From the given research provided, I also researched many news articles about millennials and their tendencies with donating blood. Teenagers make up only 15 percent of the amount of blood donated to the Red Cross each year. Donations are also dropping at least 10 percent among people aged 25 to 49. I also considered social media tendencies for my target audiences and found some interesting facts: 41% of millennials still use Facebook every day, however, Facebook was found to be more popular with nonmillennials; 25% of millennials ages 25-34 are on Instagram every day while 34% of younger millennials 18-24 are using the platform daily; 30% of millennials 18-24 are on Snapchat every day. These insights tell me that the sponsoring companies for this event should engage in a more whole social media feed. PROBLEM: The problem being addressed in this situation is the fact that the number of units donated for the February NCBB drive has been decreasing over the past four years. The total donated units have dropped from 79 units in 2013 to just 23 units in 2016. Attracting donors and obtaining units of blood is the biggest need for this situation. TARGET: The primary target audience for this plan are young adults, both male and female, aged 17-24. This audience will be mostly college students at UNL, since that is where the blood bank is happening. Per NBC News, millennials are less likely to donate blood. Because of this fact, this target will more than likely be donating blood for the first time. Teenagers make up only 15% of the blood collected by the Red Cross each year. But their perception of the process may be a little skewed, so making sure they understand what is happening is the most important thing to remember here. The secondary target audience are men and women, aged 34-45, who are employed by UNL. These people will be on campus and available to donate blood over their lunch hour. This target also has been donating blood for some time now and knows the importance of it, being more willing to undergo the process. OBJECTIVES: • Informational: To generate awareness to 40% of the NCBB/Scarlet Guard blood drive by conducting post-blood drive surveys and focus groups. • Motivational: To increase 50% of units collected from last year’s drive of 23 units. STRATEGY: Informational Objective • Use print and social media to develop various communication tools to increase awareness of blood drive. With almost 30,000 people on our campus, promoting with posters, flyer, and social media can go a long way. Motivational Objective • Form a recruitment team that will recruit donors for the drive. This will increase awareness and at the same time be encouraging people to sign up and eventually donate.
TACTICS: • Informational Objective 1. Social Media: use already existing social platforms (Facebook, Twitter) to promote the drive weeks in advance, following up to the day of the drive. Create new social platforms (Instagram, Snapchat) to reach a larger, more engaging audience. From research above, we know millennials are using all types of social media, so the more frequent we can hit them with an ad would up our chances of getting them to donate. Create partnerships with various organizations to help promote the event. ▪ Ask UNL to post about the drive ▪ Use both Scarlet Guard and NCBB accounts to promote ▪ Ask people signing up to post about it and encourage friends to also sign up 2. Print Materials: produce informational flyers and posters and post them around campus ins various buildings and places outside. Also, having people handing out flyers would help get the word out and have people verbally describe the event to potential donors. Having people hand these flyers out in/near the union the day before and day of in anticipation of the event. 3. Information Booth: host an information booth in the union the week of the blood drive. People in the booth will persuade people to sign up and show up on donation day. Potential donors are also able to receive more information, sign up and schedule appointments, and further understand the experience of giving blood.
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Motivational Objective 1. Phone calls ▪ Call the list of previous donors and ask if they would like to donate at this blood drive. 2. Email blasts: Send campus wide emails. ▪ This will hit the target audience of UNL staff and faculty. ▪ Students will also receive email, but more than likely not read it. 3. Tell already scheduled donors to bring a friend ▪ Have donors share this on their preferred social media, getting the word out a very organic way 4. Educate interested people ▪ The patients need the blood. ▪ Every two seconds, someone in America gets a blood transfusion. ▪ Five million people will need blood this year.