Advertising in a Crowded Market
Our society has always called upon our country’s service members and first responders to overcome adversity and endure traumatic events for the greater good. While these heroes often seem invincible, many times the events they witness leave invisible scars on their hearts and minds. It can be easy to forget the impacts not physically seen, and sometimes the support for an individual’s mental health is forgotten. The Hoplite Resilience Center Inc. aims to help individuals who serve and their families improve their resilience and overall well-being. Hoplite is driven to make a positive impact on the mental and behavioral health of military personnel, veterans, first responders, and first care receivers.
Cause Inspired helped Hoplite Resilience Center to obtain the Google Ad Grant and get started with digital advertising on the major platform in 2021. The nonprofit’s main goal was to increase awareness of their services, but they also wanted to focus on driving people to the app they created for veterans, VetTriage, a proactive, wellness resource for veterans.
When the team of Ad Grant specialists at Cause Inspired first started building the Ad Grant account, they were targeting veterans with PTSD and mental health concerns. At that time, Hoplite Resilience Center’s Google Ad Grant account was only spending from $20-100 every month out of its $10,000 budget provided by the grant. The lack of spending was attributed to the initial strategy implemented based on Hoplite’s goals and audience. The market was incredibly saturated with so many organizations and businesses targeting the same market, that driving traffic to the site was difficult.
While some traction is better than no traction, the specialists at Cause Inspired knew that there is always room for improvement with strategies and that it was their time to implement changes to the strategy for Hoplite. The Cause Inspired team made a number of changes to the keywords, account structure, and ads for those first two months while shifting the budget around. Through their research, the team noticed that ‘resilience’ was a term that was searched often, and so they switched the main focus of the account to focus on resilience keywords. With this new strategy, the team was taking advantage of something unique to the nonprofit to stand out in the market.
Since shifting the focus of the account and making changes to the strategy, there was a 6,400% increase in ad spend, a 1,500% increase in clicks, and a 400% increase in conversions. As of June, Google Ads comprises nearly 90% of all traffic to the website. The unique and specific branding of Hoplite has allowed them to open up a new pathway for marketing and attracting new audiences.
Capitalizing on your nonprofit’s individuality and branding can be very beneficial. If you are looking to advertise your organization with Google Ads or refresh your branding to create a strong message and visual foundation, contact us!
