Last month we discussed the importance of coaching and community building in the retention efforts for your brands. Your target audiences need help staying focused and on track towards their life goals. There’s a big benefit if you can become a trusted source that offers education and support that contributes to achievement.
As discussed in our previous post, not only is it hard to establish habits, but it happens while juggling competing life demands. One of these demands – and a leading topic in prevention efforts today – is self-care. A recent survey of 1,000 U.S. adults by Persuadable Research investigated what self-care in America looks like today.
In the study, three areas topped the list in terms of self-care awareness and engagement: physical, mental and emotional. 57% of Americans said they are actively engaged in all three. Women participate in an average of 15.6 self-care activities ranging from getting better sleep to taking supplements and exercise. There’s that juggling we talked about! Layer on that 51% of adults struggle to find a routine, and it becomes evident quickly that self-care and prevention can become daunting. What does this mean to you? The insight is that this logic doesn’t only apply to self-care.
So, what can your brand do? How do you help audiences set and keep a routine?
We’ll bring back the idea of community. Communities can help you help them help each other. For example, there’s a lot of mental work required to maintain ongoing communications among a group of people aiming to support one another in establishing and maintaining habits. Perhaps you can provide relief by reducing the resources needed to do so.
Providing a “place” for community and/or participating in coaching also allow you to uncover editorial content topics. Your brand can play a role in solving for the common issues that occur. You can support as they are tackling their self-care regimen and find and define the role of your brand in the effort. Of course, all that is easier said than done. So, think about this: What is your system? Or what is a repeatable and scalable program to offer your audience tips and advice that are designed to help them achieve a specific goal and establish new habits?
You don’t have to look far to find examples. For instance, the Catholic app Hallow offers a program leading up to Lent with 40 days of prayer and reflection. Post-Lent, 40 days of Easter. Spirituality is number four on consumers’ areas of focus according to Persuadable Research. Need to keep active and flexible? Calm offers The Daily Move with host Mel Mah, A 5–7-minute guided exercise program designed to stretch and work out the daily kinks. Calm also offers tools to help you sleep better and of course, decrease anxiety through mediation. Check out the Daily Trip, Daily Jay or Daily Calm.
At CCF, we employ community and coaching strategies consistently. We’ve helped smokers and our client QUITPLAN Services increase quit attempts (an important marker in quitting success) with Mini Quit Mondays – a monthly challenge to practice quitting behaviors. For Minnesota Department of Health, we joined with partners to implement a contest-based vaping prevention program called Escape the Vape. The youth video contest inspired young people tell each other why vaping was in fact dangerous, not healthy, and not the thing to do.
Top-of-mind awareness is just the beginning in today’s marketing communications world. You also need engagement strategies and tactics to help consumers build routines that include your product or service. And you need to make it easy for them. They’re busy, if not buried. So, lend them a hand. And if you need help creating engagement programs or promotions, just give us a shout.
A big thanks to Charles Miller and his team at Persuadable Research for sharing their recent study with us as well as allowing us to use it as a source. You’re the best!
