As pregnancy medical centers, we are almost fully staffed, well-trained and resourced to serve at least twice as many clients as we did last year. Our vision this year is to reach more clients, and to work more with the church to provide our clients with spiritual growth and also give congregations tools to better serve their local members.
So it was no surprise that marketing and communications were the two hot topics addressed at our 2017 Strategic Planning Meeting.
But before I get into goals and strategies, I have some great news to share with you. We are winning the war against abortion. The 2015 statistics are in:
DRUM ROLL PLEASE:
- Yakima County teenage pregnancies: 474 (2014: 499) 5% decrease
- Yakima County teenage abortions: 76 (2014: 88) 13% decrease
- Yakima County age 20-29 abortions: 319 (2014: 346) 8% decrease
- In 2014, Yakima County, as a whole, had 572 abortions. In 2015, there was a 10% decrease to 513.
BUT, we won’t rest until there isn’t one more client who feels that abortion is her only option. This is why we are focused on marketing and communication.
The first main marketing goal concerns reaching our target client in the age group of 20-29. One way to do that is to create a third LO website for the purpose of providing sexual health and relationship education. It will be a secular website and be informative, fun and provide accurate information. We also want to market better to the colleges in our area. Facebook ads and Google AdWords will be key because we all know that our clients live and search on their phones.
The second goal is creating a marketing strategy to reach the community in general. This will help us reach a target audience of potential clients, volunteers and financial partners. There are so many opportunities to get our word out—community and school resource fairs, health fairs, colleges, parades to showcase the mobile—this list is long. The more people who know that we are a choice, actually the premier choice concerning an unexpected pregnancy, the better.
The third marketing opportunity is the church. Since LO is a local mission field, we need to become better not only at giving the church opportunities to be involved, but also finding ways to serve the church as well. Since unexpected pregnancy rates are the same in the church as in the secular world, we want to train the church in how to minister to people in that situation. Some women may be embarrassed to come to LO, but won’t be afraid to talk to a trusted church member. We really appreciate our supporting churches and want to partner better with them.
We wanted you to know about our added focus in 2017 because this is a team effort and you are a very valuable member of our team. We are grateful for you. Together, I believe we can end abortion in our lifetime.