Pre-campaign Work - Building Great Foundations

Launching Small Steps required a decent amount of time and effort. To make it happen we collaborated with a wide range of stakeholders, including:

• Mental health professionals to enrich our clinical knowledge.

• Cultural consultants, who helped us to reflect and embrace te ao Māori (the Māori worldview) into our strategy.
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In our collaborative strategy workshop, we shared our qualitative and quantitative research and ideas. We worked with Te Hiringa Hauora (THH) and Clearhead to achieve positive impacts. In the process, we developed:

 • Great unity with our stakeholders.

 • Deeper understanding of the audience. 

 • Further knowledge of mental health.

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Our strategy workshops focus on four key components:
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1. Audience: Who are we making the campaign for?
2. Approach: What are our ideas and concepts?
3. Ads: How do we creatively execute our approaches?
4. Conversions: What impact and progress did we achieve?

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1. How to reach a priority audience 

Aro Digital, THH and Clearhead took a deep dive together. We started by identifying the people most at risk. We aimed to reach tāngata (people) more likely to benefit from free mental health resources.  
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After our research, we wanted to reach young Māori and Pasifika. To be as intentional as possible with our budget, we used census data. We geotargeted areas with denser Māori and Pasifika populations. By focusing our efforts based on region, we were able to get Small Steps in front of the right people.
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Above: Small Steps Google Display Ad for Deep Breathing

What was the optimal way to communicate with our priority audience? We discovered the answer to this question, by testing out different ratios of te reo Māori to English. Google and Meta are yet to recognise te reo as an official language, which caused a speed bump for ads purely in te reo. Google and Meta would not be able to read and verify the ads. Our solution was to weave te reo into the copy instead, which proved successful!

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2. Figuring out the best ad approach

An approach is the idea, theme or concept of the advertising. It is the specific way we communicate the core message.

To warm up, Aro presented a range of four high-performing tactics to THH and Clearhead:

• Video interviews: Relatable personal stories of community leaders and representatives.

• Puzzle ads: Interesting games that inspire viewers to pause and think.

• Hashtag activism: Memorable hashtags people can use, contributing to social media user-generated content.

• Hot statistics: Compelling facts and figures that resonate with the audience.
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Tone of Voice

‍We ran a vote between five Google Search ads. The tone of voice ranged from casual to clinical. The elected choice was a healthy middle ground, which best suits our Kiwi target audience.
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Then we explored a range of approaches:
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• Approach One: What is Small Steps? Introducing people to the platform.

‍ • Approach Two: Feeling All Good? Encouraging people to learn how to manage their emotional wellbeing.

‍ • Approach Three: How to Chill Out. Helping people by providing specific wellbeing tools.

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3. Creative Ads That Resonate

‍Aro’s advertising reflected the creative and interactive nature of Small Steps’ website. Here’s how we:

‍ • Tested the waters, then transformed conceptual approaches into creative advertising.

‍ • Shared insights on how to make the website a great user experience.

‍ • Gave Small Steps more SEO juice, so that it could go the distance on Google search.

‍ • Advised on Google search advertising best practices.

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The initial gauge of interest

On social media, we used poll ads to generate curiosity and engagement. We used data from the polls to get a feel for who was keen on the content. From there, we could see which mental health tools people preferred. This created the foundation for an optimal retargeting strategy!
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Approach One: What is Small Steps?

We raised awareness that Small Steps exists to help ease distress.
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Approach Two: Feeling All Good?

We engaged people with content that encouraged a better understanding of wellbeing.
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Approach Three: How to Chill Out.

We motivated tāngata to use tangible tools for staying resilient.
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Small Steps’ User Experience

For the website, the team at Aro Digital advised on an intuitive UX design strategy. We assessed the number of people searching for problems versus solutions. We discovered more people search for solutions and tools. Prioritising our users' search intent, we ensured the information architecture featured useful tools. Here you can see the key issues addressed at the forefront of the homepage.
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Small Steps’ Search Engine Optimisation

We made it easy for people to find Small Steps, so that anyone searching for mental health tools can access them. Our process? SEO keyword research. We expanded our understanding of people’s mindsets based on their search actions. And we discovered many people search for topics on “anxiety”, “depression”, and “stress”. So in the content, we spoke the language of our intended audience, to help them find Small Steps. 

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Google Advertising Advice

We provided strategic and tactical advice on display and paid search advertising.

The biggest mistake many businesses make is targeting both search and display networks… with identical ads. The audience intent and mindset are very different between the two experiences.

‍ • Display ads appear on the websites people visit, like a newspaper ad next to the columns. This is better for generating interest.
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‍ • Search ads reach people who are actively Googling an answer or solution. This satisfies existing demand.
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‍Aro Digital also advised on keyword phrase match vs. exact match. Phrase match means serving ads to users anytime the target keywords are present. Exact match means only serving ads to users when they search for the exact target keyword or keywords. Here are a couple of examples with the target keyword “stress”. 

Phrase match: “how do I de-stress”

Exact match: “stress”

Keyword matching options can be adjusted to cater to different audience targeting. This improves ad relevance for the audience, and advertising cost efficiency.

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4. Inspiring User Conversions

Search Insight: In this campaign, search ads converted an older audience. Display ads converted more Gen Z and Millennials.

Social Insight: For the second phase of the campaign, we tested the tool demo video. These were some of the most successful ads for achieving exercise-starts.

‍Overall Insight: Top 3 Small Steps tools used? Deep Breathing, Reframing Thoughts and Improving Sleep. 

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We activated these insights to achieve traction and conversions for Small Steps:

‍ • 24.1k social ad conversions, including active engagement with tools, techniques and exercises.

‍ • Excellent exercise completion rate of 63%, with social ads. 

• 36.5k conversions, including exercise completions, in search & display ads.

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‍UX Dashboards & Reporting

We visualised real-time data with a UX dashboard. This gave the teams at THH and Clearhead clarity of user interactions on the Small Steps website.
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It's been worthwhile working with the teams at Te Hiringa Hauora and Clearhead. Together we’ve made positive impacts with Small Steps.

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Our Impact

The Small Steps campaign reached many people, via search and social digital marketing. We had a strong foundation of subject matter experts. The mahi between clinicians, cultural consultants and our digital specialists made great waves.

This campaign ran from 19 April 2021 to 28 February 2022, and in that time we achieved:

‍ • 24 million impressions with Meta & Google marketing. 

‍ • Google Search & Display CPC is $0.60, 69.5% lower than the national average cost per click. 

‍ • 36.5k Google marketing conversions, including starting and finishing mental health exercises.

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We’re glad our mahi with Small Steps made a real difference for tāngata.