Seamless Communication Defines Successful White Label Partnership

Craig Group finds a digital niche in marketing communications

CHALLENGE

When Rice McVaney Communications out of Boston was looking for a digital media company to partner with them on one of their clients – Steward Health Care – Craig Group was able to meet the need at a critical time.

“Rice McVaney was handling all aspects of Steward’s account, including seamless account management, creative execution and client service, but needed a partner for digital marketing strategy in January of 2020,” said Craig Group President , Summer Craig. “While COVID initially put a pause on Steward’s go-to-market plans, it became apparent that there was a need to ramp up quickly soon after the pandemic hit.”

There was a marked decline in non-COVID patients in emergency rooms leading to significant negative health outcomes for those who did not receive early emergency care. Patients were also skipping their regularly scheduled doctor’s visits. According to a June 2020 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 41% of U.S. adults had delayed or avoided medical care including urgent or emergency care (12%) and routine care (32%) because of concerns about COVID-19.

To combat this emerging health care crisis, Steward wanted to launch one of their biggest media efforts to date in order to draw patients back to their doctors. The ‘Safe & Ready’ campaign was intended to reassure patients that their local hospital had reopened and was safe to visit for any reason.

SOLUTION

“As Rice McVaney’s white-label partner, we designed and implemented a major media campaign for Steward in a very short time,” Craig said. “We were able to build something with national impact from nothing.”

The media mix for the campaign included paid search, paid social, display, billboards, as well as terrestrial and streaming radio.

Craig Group seamlessly integrated with Rice McVaney as their exclusive media partner for Steward. The brand new campaign orchestrated by Craig Group was tailored for 31 different markets and included a 5 tier segmentation strategy to customize media by market characteristics, using a variety of available and emerging technology for maximum impact.

Onboarding the media platform Bionic enabled Craig Group to integrate and manage media planning, accounts receivable and accounts payable. Craig Group also onboarded the real-time reporting dashboard NinjaCat to track results, enabling white-label efficiency for Rice McVaney.

In short, it was the operational strength of Craig Group that allowed for the production of a streamlined go-to-market campaign from scratch.

Through the white label relationship, Craig Group bought, invoiced, and cleared more than 2,000 vendor invoices and managed multi-location billing with separate client billing codes for 38 different locations.

RESULT

Craig Group proved to be a successful white label partner working in tandem with Rice McVaney and Steward.

The communication and easy collaboration among the eight-person person team resulted in a campaign that more than met its mark.

After 30 days, 2.8 million people in the targeted hospital communities saw or heard the Steward ‘Safe & Ready’ message as a result of Craig’s efforts.

That number represented 38 percent of people who live within 20 miles of targeted hospitals, exceeding the target goal of 30 percent.

And more than 2,076 calls were made to Steward Health Care in response to the paid search advertising.

“Our partnership was a good fit,” Craig said. “It’s a niche in which we really had an opportunity to excel.”