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Question: Good afternoon!

My name is Steven Charles and I work for the New York State Independent Living Council in Albany, NY. We are launching a new program that will be heavily reliant on social marketing and wondered if you could help us answer some questions based on your past experiences with social marketing campaigns.

Our program’s goal is to reach out to the 1,600,000 adults with disabilities in the State of New York. We are aiming to engage roughly 1% of this target population each year over a ten-year period to form a solid membership base of individuals who will be committed to advocacy efforts for the disabled community. Based on the figure stated above, we hope to engage 1,600 new members each year, and after ten years, a cumulative membership of 16,000.

We were just curious to know, based on your past experience with social marketing campaigns and advocacy efforts, if this seems like a reasonable goal, both for the first year and over the ten-year period. What sorts of change might we expect to see in our numbers from year to year?

Answer:

Good afternoon, Steven, and thanks for contacting CTB.

I regret that you have asked for opinions that we are not equipped to provide because we are not familiar with development and operating costs in your goegraphic area. You might consider contacting a local advertising agency and asking them for a bit of pro bono consultattion regarding your questions.

Within CTB, you might consider entering "social marketing" in the search box at the top of the page. That will generate a number of "hits" but probably not specifically relevant to your question.

You might also click on our "Help Taking Action" graphic and then on "Database of Best Practices." You may find organizations listed there that can assist you.

Question Date: Tue, 09/09/2014