Creative The cliche question asked in around education is “What kind of future are we making for our children?” In this campaign we wanted to buck that cliche and ask instead “Given the resources and environment they need, where will our children take us?” In other words, what kind of future are they making for us? The “us” is our local community—and the province of Ontario—but it also holds in it a promise of a better world for everyone, because we care enough to invest in young minds.
Digital Advertising We created a series of advertisements that were flexible and easily adapted for specific issues, like more supports needed for special needs and smaller classes make a difference. To convert ad impressions to campaign supporters, each ad had its own landing page (setup with UTM and Google Analytics tracking code) integrated with ETFO’s NationBuilder database. Four months later, we could see which ads were most successful (like a digital focus group!) and target new calls-to-action around those successful messages.
Website The original buildingbetterschools.ca website provided resources for parents and teachers related to elementary education. Our task was to move the website from information to action. Using NationBuilder, an all-in-one website, database and community engagement platform, we re-launched buildingbetterschools.ca with a positive, fresh and motivational tone that would inspire parents and caregivers to take action. The site featured clear engagement opportunities—upcoming events, campaign issues, actions, and sign ups—with well styled with custom templates. The site is easy to use, and responds to the needs of the campaign over time.
Toolkits We developed a toolkit for event organizers so they were able to promote and manage town halls using consistent messaging and branding, and generate data that could be used by ETFO’s provincial office for ongoing outreach. The toolkit included custom email templates, event webpages, workback schedules, social media shareables, and the back-end setup needed to efficiently collect RSVPs and people data in NationBuilder.
Data & Acquisition To help build ETFO’s non-member list, we partnered with Care2 to create a series of online petitions. The petitions spoke to parents and caregivers about important issues such as class sizes and individual supports for classrooms. In one month, the petitions generated 4,067 signatures from across Ontario, adding to ETFO’s broader community and voice. Meanwhile, the digital advertising campaign and social media share pieces drove traffic to the website, and generated new prospective supporters in the form of signups and event attendees.
Digital Campaigning Our combined acquisition efforts gave ETFO an impressive prospective supporters list to kick-off their engagement efforts. In June 2017, we broadcast emailed over 4,000 prospective supporters, inviting them to ‘click to send’ a letter to Minister of Education, Mitzie Hunter. Within 48 hours, 37% of contacts opened the email 10% sent the letter.