November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month.
Our objective for November was to mobilize a community to Demand Better for a disease that has an only 9% five-year survival rate, a cancer that is the 3rd leading cause of cancer-related deaths, and ultimately, the world's toughest cancer.
Our ultimate goals were to:
• Raise awareness of pancreatic cancer symptoms and risks
• There are currently no early detection methods for pancreatic cancer. However, the chances of survival increase tenfold if a patient is diagnosed in time for surgery, making it vital for people to know the symptoms and risks of the disease, in order to be diagnosed early enough to potentially have lifesaving surgery.
• Attract new constituents to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN)
• PanCAN offers free support and resources through Patient Central, our team of Associates who are on call to give one-on-one support to patients and caregivers. Patient Central is able to search for relevant clinical trials, provide a list of pancreatic cancer specialists, give information on diet and nutrition and more, which ultimately leads to improved patient outcomes.
• Deepen relationships with existing constituents
• Our constituents connect with us through a number of different avenues -- we want to make sure our existing constituents know about all the ways to get involved, whether it be registering for our 5K, fundraising through our DIY platform, donating, contacting Patient Central or more.
We implemented a multi-pronged approach to engaging our constituents and the general public with broad-based digital outreach as well as mobilizing our grassroots community to engage local businesses and organizations.
Our strategy included the following:
Microsite
Our microsite was the central force behind all our digital activities and included different ways to get the public to Demand Better, including:
• Shareable infographics, gifs and images on the signs & risk factors, disease stats and more
• Creating a Risk Assessment Test that allowed people to assess their risk of getting pancreatic cancer through a short, informative test
• Providing an Action Alert which allowed public to send a message to their members of Congress, asking them to wear purple on World Pancreatic Cancer Day (WPCD) and support federal cancer research funding.
• Over 11,000 messages sent to Congress with 56 members of Congress wearing purple and sharing on social media
• Asking for donations and encouraging fundraising through PurpleStride (5K event) and Wage Hope My Way (DIY fundraising platform)
• Asking people to sign a pledge to Demand Better
Social Media
We amplified our message through an aggressive social media campaign (paid and organic) that encourage the public to raise awareness.
Tactics included:
• Video series featuring people sharing their personal stories of why they Demand Better, resulting in a total of 485k video views.
• Social media contest encouraging people to wear purple and show how they Demand Better. Winners (1, 2, 3, 4) were picked weekly and featured on PanCAN social media, helping garner more UGC.
• Paid social ads
◦ Audiences included retargeting, custom lists of our past advocates, donors, look-a-like audiences, those who had engaged with our Facebook and Instagram and more
◦ Ads included messaging directing people to microsite, as well as to specific calls-to-action, optimized for those custom conversions
◦ Utilized Facebook Lead Gen ads to augment existing pledge, by allowing people to "sign the pledge" without leaving Facebook, resulting in 1.2k leads.
Digital Advertising
• Ran search and display ads on Google and Bing, directing the public to microsite, as well as to specific calls to action.
• Integrated existing paid search ads with November messaging
Email Marketing
• Created a robust email marketing campaign, with a hierarchical audience segmentation strategy that would allow us to message target audiences with the most applicable calls to action.
• Intentionally reduced the amount of emails sent and streamlined messaging to improve open rate and click-through rate
Press/Media
• Engaged national and local media through press releases and direct asks, including through our volunteers, who made in-person media kit drops and asks to local media to wear purple on WPCD and promote pancreatic cancer awareness on-broadcast
Grassroots Reach
• Engaged our volunteer network to mobilize local organizations, businesses and more to act as "Champions" during November
• Provided toolkit, including guides, presentation, and suggestions for a concentrated week of activities with different localized options
• Provided 1-1 guidance to encourage personalization of awareness tactics, by hosting fundraisers, internal competitions and more.
We have deployed a pancreatic cancer awareness campaign in November for over 10 years, and this was the most successful year yet, with record fundraising and new constituent acquisition.
Notable results include:
Microsite
• 93k Unique Pageviews to November microsite
• 3,332 new constituents vs 1,863 previous year
• 21,148 Risk Assessment Test completions, with 2,285 of those deemed "Elevated Risk" providing their email addresses for more information
• Over 11,000 messages sent to Congress
Social Media
• 56 members of Congress wearing purple and sharing on social media on WPCD
• 82% increase in Facebook Video Views over previous year
• 124% increase in Twitter Engagement over previous year
• 165% increase in Instagram Engagement over previous year
• Over 1.2k leads from Facebook Lead Gen Ads
Digital Advertising
• Over 784K impressions from YouTube pre-roll video ads
• Over 1M impressions from search and display ads
Email Marketing
• 38% fewer emails sent over previous year, but with:
◦ 11% increase in average open rate
◦ 29.6% increase in average click-through rate
◦ 166% increase in conversions (donations, event registrations, advocacy actions, etc.)
Press/Media
• 486,898,436 online and print Impressions
• 472,480 TV Impressions
• 1,263 hits on press releases
• 200+ mentions on social media from media/news stations and celebrity/influencers
◦ Various national and local news hits, including:
◦ CBS on World Pancreatic Cancer Day
◦ CBS News on David Roberston, Yankees Pitcher, and why he Demands Better
