Recruitment campaign support for a healthcare partnership

Background and Objectives 

Bexley Wellbeing Partnership (BWP) brings together 17 local partner organisations with a shared goal of supporting and improving the health, care and wellbeing of local people and communities. BWP had a high number of care vacancies and wanted to run a recruitment campaign targeting underrepresented groups while showcasing a distinct local identity. 

The campaign’s four objectives were: 

• Positively position a career in care highlighting the benefits of being part of the profession.  
• Attract new people to the caring profession.  
• Encourage people to find out more and apply for a role.  
• Signpost people to Care Jobs Open Week. 

Approach 

Running for five weeks, the recruitment campaign targeted three core groups, as well as the general working-age population, with tailored messaging. These were: 

• Mums with school age children 
• School leavers 
• Men aged 20-39 

Messaging, visual identity and channel delivery were all oriented towards having the greatest impact on these three groups. 

For messaging, we created a core narrative and messaging deck, which we deployed on the campaign webpage. The deck ensured a consistent narrative across key themes and addressed frequently asked questions. 

We developed benefit-led key messages for use on physical, search and social adverts that would appeal to our target demographics. We emphasised to mums that care work offers a great deal of flexibility, allowing them to fit work around their home life. For school leavers, our messaging highlighted that a career in care doesn’t require tertiary education while offering good career prospects. And for men 20-39, the messaging offered a reminder that men can be carers too. 

Visually, the adverts reflected the diversity of Bexley. The photography selected from DHSC’s ‘Made with Care’ campaign made it easier for our target groups to picture themselves in a career in care. 

In terms of channel, we aimed to reach our audience mainly through digitally delivered adverts. As we were targeting mainly younger people, who typically spent a lot of time online, we were confident that digital adverts were a viable option. 

For paid search, we ran copy-only adverts targeting people searching for jobs locally, jobs in care, or flexible/part-time work, for example. Our approach was to continually refine the campaign, including placing maximum bids on words with high levels of competition and focusing on geography-specific search terms. 

On paid social, via the Meta group of platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Audience Network), we used Meta’s audience targeting to reach people in Bexley with audience-segmented adverts.  

Alongside digital we also ran adverts in the community, using space on JCDecaux outdoor advertising boards in high-footfall areas of Bexley. We included tracked QR codes that linked to the campaign website to make it easy to take the first step in the user journey. The physical adverts reinforced the idea of local care and acted as an additional reminder or call to action. 

Lastly, we provided to BWP stakeholders a partner toolkit with social media copy, graphics and screensavers to amplify messages and increase reach. The support from local government and care providers boosted BWP’s reputation and trust within their community. 

Outcome 

The campaign performed very well against industry benchmarks and our own forecasting. 

Paid searched delivered strong results:  

• 4,331 total clicks to the campaign website   
• 8.54% click through rate (vs. industry average 6.67%1)  
• £0.60 cost per click (CPC) (vs. industry average £2.891) 

Based on our pre-campaign analysis, paid search received more than double the number of clicks expected (1,744) for the total campaign period.  

We were also happy to see, over the course of the campaign, cost per click dramatically reduce, from £1.77 in the first week to £0.55 in the last week. 

Paid social yielded 1,400 clicks at the lowest CPC across all channels until Meta requested a change to our audience targeting. We continued to serve adverts to a general audience for the remainder of the campaign. In total, our paid social campaign generated: 

• 3,341 total clicks to the campaign website (1,477 in phase one, and 1,864 in phase two)  
• 0.54% click through rate (vs. industry average 0.47%1)  

• £0.42 cost per click (vs. industry average £2.081) 

Nearly half of all clicks in phase one were from men, which was a very satisfactory result given the traditional skew in gender towards women among carers. 

In phase two, which was not targeted by age or gender, clicks were much higher among the women 45+. This reflects the existing social care workforce, a tendency among older women to see flexible work and to give back to the community. 

In total, our Bexley Care Careers Campaign ran for 5 weeks and generated 7,672 clicks towards the campaign website in this time while building a strong, trusted brand for Bexley Wellbeing Partnership in the community. 

Testimonial 

“Blue Lozenge are experts in the field of NHS communications and have a wealth of knowledge across the sector. Their fantastic team of communications experts have helped us with planning constructive and well-received away days with internal colleagues as well as large-scale recruitment campaigns. They are professional, beyond helpful and have worked with us to successfully land key messaging with underserved communities and the public thanks to their expertise in the field of communications. I highly recommend their services.”

Aysha Awan, Head of Communications and Engagement – Bexley, NHS South East London Integrated Care Board 

Contact 

If you need communication advice and support to improve the impact you would like to make in the health and care sector, please contact us at hello@bluelozenge.co.uk