Background/Purpose: Learn More. Feel Better. (LMFB) is a multi-modal marketing campaign to promote self-management education (SME) as a chronic disease management strategy. The campaign targets adults ages 45-75 with chronic conditions including arthritis. Campaign strategies include paid and earned media, and local partner activity; all promote the same call-to-action to visit www.cdc.gov/LearnMoreFeelBetter to learn more about SME.

CDC pilot-tested the LMFB campaign in January-August, 2017, in one designated market area (DMA) (a midwestern five county area including a midsize urban area). Implementation included paid ads (print, radio, billboard, digital, and physician waiting/exam rooms), earned media (news stories/blog posts resulting from media outreach), and local partner promotion (in-person events, web and social media). Two campaign tactics (digital advertising via Google ads, and physician waiting/exam rooms ads) ran continuously. The remaining strategies and tactics were conducted intermittently (e.g., the magazine ad ran in February, June, and July; billboards ran 4 weeks in March-April).

The purposes of this observational study are to assess: 1) effectiveness of LMFB in motivating people to visit the LMFB website, 2) effectiveness of the website in retaining visitors’ interest, and 3) lessons learned to guide future campaign implementation.

Methods: Campaign effectiveness was defined as the number of visits to the LMFB website homepage, as calculated by Site Catalyst, a web analytics software program. To put this into perspective, this number was compared to number of visits to select CDC webpages from the target DMA for the same time period.

Effectiveness of the website in retaining interest was assessed by examining the number of people who left the homepage without visiting additional pages, also calculated by Site Catalyst. Patterns of impressions and website visits were examined to identify lessons learned.

Results: The 7 month LMFB pilot-test resulted in more than 31 million impressions; with approximately 80% from paid media, 11% from earned media, and 9% from partners’ promotion.

The pilot-test generated 26,851 visits to the LMFB homepage; 58% from the targeted DMA, a total of 85% from the state. Other CDC websites had less then 1% of their visits from the target DMA during the pilot-test period. Visits to the homepage peaked in periods where ads were running in multiple channels; the impact of digital ads is easiest to track, but ads in traditional media (print, radio, billboard) contribute to impressions and message repetition that leads to action.

Only 17% of homepage visits resulted in visitors viewing another page on the website.

Conclusion: LMFB pilot-test was successful in driving traffic to the LMFB website; nearly 60% came from the targeted DMA. The additional visits from the state are likely due to spread of LMFB materials since the only 15% of visits were from outside the state. Paid media was an essential part of this pilot-test and use of multiple channels increased effectiveness. However, the LMFB homepage was less successful in enticing visitors to visit additional pages on the site, suggesting further improvements to the homepage are necessary.

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ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/reach-and-effectiveness-of-a-health-communications-campaign-promoting-self-management-education-results-of-a-pilot-test-of-the-learn-more-feel-better-campaign/