Internet Marketing: The Children's Health Fund

Top Line Result: Two-day Google ad campaign raised $60K and leveraged offline public relations.

The Children’s Health Fund was launched in 1987 by singer/songwriter Paul Simon and pediatrician & child advocate Dr. Irwin Redlener to address the healthcare needs of under-served children.

CHF offers primary medical care via mobile medical units that operate in 13 states in urban and rural areas, provides health education resources and curriculum through the website, and advocates on a national level for pro-child health care policies.

OHO developed the current web site for CHF with a focus on extending the brand, visualizing the mission, and integrating Convio fundraising tools and Capital Advantage advocacy tools.

Situational Analysis

Children’s Health Fund was selected by the producers of the hit-television show American Idol as one of eight flagship charity recipients in the “Idol Gives Back” campaign. Over two-weeks, these charities were promoted on-air during American Idol and viewers were able to donate via the American Idol website or toll-free phone lines.

Strategy

With 36 hours until air time, OHO approached CHF with the idea of creating a Google advertising campaign that would drive interested viewers to the CHF site for additional donations and, even-more valuable, e-newsletter sign-ups. CHF immediately embraced the idea. With simple copywriting and aggressive, innovative keyword list development, we targeted viewers for 6 hours each night of the show. All of the advertising would send visitors to a targeted landing page or updated homepage.

Implementation & Results

Over two nights, over 1.1 million ad impressions were served resulting in over 3,300 visitors to the Children’s Health Fund site. More significantly:

• Over $60,000 in donations were collected in 2 days
• Over 850 e-newsletter sign-ups were added providing valuable down-stream revenue opportunities
• For every dollar spent, CHF raised $5 dollars

CHF significantly raised its profile on the national scale. Compared to the other charities, they were second in e-mail acquisition and tied for the second highest number of website visits.

“We raised 92 times the normal revenue during Idol Gives Back air dates, compared to the two to three times revenue increase that the other benefitting charities raised,” commented Gabrielle Schang, Vice President of External Affairs.

On-Going Success

Following the success of this campaign, the Children’s Health Fund has turned to OHO to help develop online strategies for the use of YouTube and social networking channels FaceBook and MySpace. In 2008, CHF was selected by FoxSports as a charity recipient for the football season. OHO crafted an online strategy to capitalize on this effort through a customized landing page with video, message development, and fundraising tool integration.