The Vascular Access Certification Corporation (VACC) is an independent non-profit organization dedicated to the validation, through certification, of a specialized body of knowledge for all professionals working in the field of vascular access, such as RNs, MDs, physician assistants, EMS professionals, educators and other professionals. Certification offers potential benefits for the professional, employer and public and creates a standard for professionals in vascular access, increasing professional credibility, furthering knowledge and assuring the public that the certificant has met rigorous requirements in areas of practice.
Client Objective
VACC desired to raise the awareness of this important certification and increase first-time certification applications.
Solution
The Meeting Expectations team introduced the concept of content marketing and worked with VACC leadership to create a “How to Study” guidebook and new practice exam. To drive adoption of the new study materials, we rolled out an integrated promotional campaign that included social media, targeted email marketing and a multi-faceted engagement at an affiliated industry conference.
Meeting Expectations’ marketing efforts grew the VACC followers across all social channels and increased website traffic. In 2018, Facebook followers increased by 25% and LinkedIn grew by 49%. ME promoted the VACC website and the importance of certification to the newly expanded audience, increasing of total users of the website by 38% increasing total sessions by 36% in 2018 vs 2017. From March 2018-February 2019 versus the same timeframe the previous year, the VACC website witnessed a staggering 198% increase of new visitors referred to the site from social media.
In September of 2018, ME implemented a micro-marketing campaign to promote VACC’s presence at the 2018 Association for Vascular Access (AVA) Scientific Meeting. Over 1,000 vascular clinicians attended the conference, 60% of whom had expertise in vascular access. The campaign promoted the VACC booth with on-site social media to drive traffic, increase engagement and generate new prospect lists to encourage new certifications.
The four-part marketing campaign included the conceptualization of the VACC booth, on-site social media copy to drive traffic to the booth and promotion of VACC’s educational session at AVA. During the session, attendees were directed to visit the VACC website, where they could provide their contact information to “unlock” a new VACC study toolkit. ME developed this seven-page toolkit as a study guide/checklist and made it exclusively available by download for those at the AVA Scientific Meeting.
VACC used the data collected from attendees and created its first-ever nurture list that received specific messaging throughout a two-month time frame. This messaging encouraged new prospects to sign up and study for the December exam. Thanks to this micro-campaign at AVA, VACC witnessed a 320% increase of website visitors strictly from social media and a 62% increase of new users from direct referrals to the website in the month of September 2018.
Results
Overall, through the campaign implemented in 2017 and the micro-campaign at AVA in 2018, ME brought VACC to a 5% increase in first-time test takers in 2017 and a 16% increase in first-time testers in 2018. Also, from 2017 to 2018, VACC witnessed a 28% increase in the annual total of certification applications.
