CASE STUDY: The Greater Rochester Chapter of the American Red Cross

The Health and Safety Department of the Greater Rochester Chapter of the American Red Cross was facing increasing competition and was about to launch a new device that represented tremendous opportunity for the organization. They needed to make the business case for the importance of health and safety training.

IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY
In developing the appropriate strategy, we realized early on that though the human resource manager bought health and safety services, the CFO, CEO, or president was the real decision maker. We developed a two-pronged approach to get results for the Red Cross.

We developed a series of self-mailing posters that featured valuable health tips (for example, how to avoid back injuries) and specifics about related training courses. They were mailed to human resource managers.

The posters were also mailed to high level executives, CEOs and Presidents of mid-sized companies, with a brochure that made the business case for purchasing health and safety training: mainly saving time and money on workplace injuries, losses, and workers’ compensation.

EVIDENCE OF RESULTS
Immediately the Red Cross received calls for more posters so they could be hung in multiple locations. At the end of the selling cycle, it was determined that sales of health and safety training services increased by 25%. The campaign’s success fueled a recent print and radio campaign that has continued to make the phones ring at the American Red Cross.