Two men in hoodies at bowling alley, one holding pink bowling ball and looking at phone together

Targeted care recruitment campaign

Addressing workforce shortages through targeted recruitment campaign

Bexley Wellbeing Partnership (BWP), who represent 17 local partner organisations, faced significant carer workforce shortages and needed to run a recruitment campaign targeting underrepresented groups within the caring workforce. They wanted to showcase a distinct local identity while positively positioning careers in care, attracting new people to the profession, encouraging applications, and signposting to Care Jobs Open Week.

Approach

At Blue Lozenge we designed a five-week campaign targeting three core demographic groups with tailored messaging:

  • Mums with school-age children (emphasising flexibility)
  • School leavers (highlighting career prospects without tertiary education requirements)
  • Men aged 20-39 (challenging gender stereotypes in care)

We developed a core narrative and messaging framework, creating benefit-led key messages for each demographic, and selecting diverse visual content to reflect Bexley’s community. We deployed multi-channel delivery through paid search targeting job-related keywords, paid socials via Meta platforms with audience segmentation, outdoor advertising with QR codes in high-footfall areas, and partner toolkits for stakeholder amplification.

Impact

The campaign successfully used data and insight to determine where the limited budget should be spent to maximise value for money. This informed strategy was successful and led to ad engagement that surpassed expectations. The toolkits that were developed for this campaign meant that the BWP had legacy material that could be used after the campaign was finished to ensure ongoing engagement.

“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 strategic 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 helped us to engage with colleagues after lockdown came to an end by facilitating constructive and well received away days. I cannot recommend Rachel and her team enough.”

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