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Using social marketing to boost recruitment to smoking cessation groups
Steve Wisher, Information by Design, Hull
Abstract
In June 2006 Medway & Swale Stop Smoking Service (SSS) worked in partnership with a commercial organisation Information by Design (IbyD) to trial a new ‘social marketing approach’ to client recruitment in an effort to increase uptake and resultant quit rates. For this initial pilot, IbyD and the Public Health team at Medway used various data sources to identify clusters of smoking prevalence in deprived wards of the locality. IbyD then sourced commercial data sets of named smokers in the target areas. Each of the 3,200 smokers selected received multiple communications – direct mail using appropriate messages and then follow-up outbound telephone calls from IbyD telephone centre staff who had been trained by the SSS team.
The key aims of the project were to determine the efficacy of recruiting smokers using a social marketing approach, to test various incentives and to establish whether this method would be effective in targeting smokers in areas of high deprivation.
The results of this pilot project were very encouraging. A total of 198 smokers (6.2%) were booked onto group courses. 9 group courses were set up in the targeted areas running on different days, times and at different locations, ensuring greater choice and flexibility to potential clients. The recruitment rate from this pilot is some 5 times that of traditional mail shot recruitment, and higher than anticipated in areas of high deprivation. Although DNA rates were relatively high, 65% of those attending groups were quit at 4 weeks.
The success of this initial project has resulted in this social marketing approach being extended to other deprived areas in Medway. A recent campaign has included low-cost door-to-door distributions rather than direct mail and also used a variety of different test creatives. This presentation will summarise the approaches used and findings from the social marketing activity to-date.
Biography
Dr Steve Wisher is a Director of Information by Design a company specialising in social marketing, research and evaluation.
Julia Thomas is Manager of the Medway and Swale Stop Smoking Service.
Dr Anita Sims was until recently Director of Public Health (DPH) at Medway. She has recently been appointed DPH of Bradford PCT.
Kate Marshall is a Director of Information by Design with a lead role in social marketing and research.
Steve Wisher
Information by Design
Newlands Science Park, Inglemire Lane
Hull
HU6 7TQ
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