What is included in the campaign?
Everything you need to fully engage and inform the residents of your county about your upcoming foster parent training classes (and why they should consider becoming a foster parent), including:
> A complete, comprehensive creative recruitment campaign:
—Twenty professionally produced print and digital ads (customized to the optimum size/configuration for use in your county’s papers and appropriate online sites)
—Ten produced cable TV spots
—Three produced radio spots
—Four live read radio spots
> Your own Foster-Focused Microsite containing enlightening information and videos about the challenges and rewards of fostering:
—Acknowledging a person’s unique life experience offers the best chance of really connecting with them, so this site segregates and speaks one-on-one with experienced parents, and with people having no parenting experience.
—Educational elements include what to expect with training classes (customized according to your needs), a ‘stage of life’ developmental overview, and links to actual foster parents discussing their experiences … the goal is to get the prospective foster parent as prepared as possible to take the next step and contact you.
—A Greeting Portal further emboldens and encourages them to take acton! Along with an encouraging message, it features the start date of your classes and contains your logo, contact information, and any pertinent downloads (such as a ‘pre-qualify’ sheet) you would like added.
> Strategic media planning, purchasing and placement by a skilled media professional:
—Analyzing data and accessing impact and suitability of media opportunities in your county
—Interacting with the creative team to discuss media options and which opportunities can be best leveraged
—Negotiating with media to assure maximum reach, frequency and effectiveness for the media dollars allocated
—Handling contracts and payment, and the trafficking of creative elements to proper media outlets
—Monitoring the campaign
How soon do I need to contact you to be sure my campaign is ready to support our next training class period?
To properly plan the media buy and prepare all your creative elements, we must have your deposit at least
10 weeks prior to the start date of your classes. If you believe you may wish to use this recruitment campaign sometime within the next year, we suggest you contact us
now. It will give you more time to learn more about the recruitment program and—just as importantly—allow us to learn a little more about your county’s specific needs (which will aid in our ‘kick-off’ meeting when you choose to utilize this campaign and our services).
What will the steps be?
1. It will begin with a ‘kick-off’ meeting via Zoom, where you will fill us in about your past recruitment efforts (Was there a particular media you felt ‘worked’ better than others? Do your staff members help support your recruitment efforts by posting messages on their social media?) and discuss your hopes for this recruitment class (How many seats will be available? Is there a special need for experienced parents? Is there a particular ethnic representation the campaign images should include?)
2. After our meeting, you’ll email us your agency logo, training class start date, and the phone number interested foster-parents-to-be should call to qualify/register.
3. We will dig in and begin developing your media plan, contacting media outlets, choosing which creative pieces to use and how much weight should be put behind each, customizing the creative with your county’s name and class start date.
4. Three weeks after our kick-off meeting we’ll all gather together again on Zoom, when we’ll take you through all the suggested creative executions and present the media plan, and discuss the rationale behind everything. Sometimes, there may be a couple options to choose from (“Go with full sized print, or maybe cut to half page and put more media dollars behind radio?") that we will all consider and reach an answer together.
5. With your approval of the campaign plan, our media expert will finalize negotiations with the media companies, pursue any extra value-adds, then secure and purchase the placements. The creative team will finalize all artwork and TV/radio production, then—at the direction of our media teammate—traffic all the creative elements to the proper media outlets.
6. Once the campaign begins, we’ll be tracking activity and keep you updated as to how many of your county’s residents are engaging with your microsite.
Do I get to change/alter the creative work?
No… at least not the ‘idea’ or essence of the creative (it’s proven to be very engaging and effective as is). But, based on the make-up of your county, if you feel a particular age or ethnicity of child should be represented, many of our print and digital ads offer alternative images.
May I continue to use the creative work once the recruitment period for our upcoming training classes is over?
No. We retain all rights to all work.
If you wish to maintain momentum and continue building awareness and intrigue about being a foster parent in those periods between your training sessions, we offer a couple of effective ways of doing so ...
Billboards
A billboard is an excellent way to help keep fostering on the back of people’s minds, ready to be activated when your next recruitment campaign for your next round of training classes starts. We offer several different billboard options:
A billboard is $1000 for 6 months usage or $1500 for a full 12 months usage, and includes continued usage of your Microsite. (Billboard planning & placement costs not included).
Car Stickers
A simple way to remind people about fostering everywhere you or any of your team goes:
$800 for four (4) 12”x24” magnets for side of car and four (4) 6”x24” magnets for back of car. Yours to use forever.
Will this campaign attract would-be adoptive parents?
To maximize the effectiveness of this campaign and help fill your foster training classes, this campaign has
foster-only focused messages. But, as a good number of foster parents
do end up adopting, it ultimately does help attract would-be adoptive parents.
Who created this proven foster parent recruitment campaign?
Dan Fauver is an award winning art director.
Randy DeMuesy is an award winning copywriter. Together, this creative team makes up Fauver DeMuesy Communications, LLC.
For over 30 years, they have developed creative communications to promote local, national and international companies. Now Dan and Randy are bringing their marketing skills to the aid of county foster agencies like
yours to help secure the foster parents you need to help more children find a forever family.
Fauver DeMuesy Communications.
The power of advertising.
Put to good use.
How it helped Ashtabula County Children Services
• With one month left until their foster parent pre-service classes were set to begin, only
two people were registered.
• That’s when a foster parent recruitment campaign for Ashtabula County Children
Services kicked into action.
• This intense and engaging three week recruitment campaign was seen and heard in
newspapers, cable TV, radio, and online. And caused over 400 different Ashtabula
residents to visit a special site where they learned a little more about how to become
a foster parent … and why it was so worth it.
>>> By that first day of classes, all 20 available seats were filled.
“I reviewed the campaign elements and media plan with my co-workers. They were excited about having a coordinated campaign working on our behalf. We didn’t have to do anything except wait for the calls.”
—Tania Burnett, Director, Ashtabula Children Services
What is the cost of the campaign?
As this proven campaign utilizes a strong rotation of print, cable TV, radio and digital elements, and the media cost of placing each of these varies from county to county, we developed a simple 9-tiered pricing system:
Tier 1: $76,000
Tier 2: $65, 000
Tier 3: $54,000
Tier 4: $43,500
Tier 5: $37,500
Tier 6: $31,250
Tier 7: $25,000
Tier 8: $20,000
Tier 9: Custom pricing (counties with population >230,000)
Which tier your county falls in depends on such factors as geography, population, number and circulation of newspapers, whether you’re served by major-metro or non-metro radio stations, and availability of targeted cable options.
Learn the pricing tier of your county by calling Randy at 440-227-5059.
Or request a download of
Foster Parent Recruitment Pricing Tiers - Ohio Counties
What is the value of one Ashtabula foster family?
Aside from the obvious benefits and better outcomes for the child (being with a family setting in his/her hometown -vs- a group home or residential center, possibly in another county) there are the practical savings in placement costs.
For Ashtabula, the average rate they were paying to place their children in each type of setting was as follows:
Foster Family: $46/day $1380/month
$16,790/year
Group Home: $185/day $5550/month
$67,525/year
Residential Center: $297/day $8910/month
$108,405/year
So having just one more foster family available would mean another, better option for a child, and
savings of $50,000 (more than the campaign cost)
to $91,000 for Ashtabula when placing that child for one year.
