Florida Prepaid During COVID-19
Challenge
The Why As the largest, longest-running and most successful prepaid tuition program in the nation, Moore works with Florida Prepaid to reach parents with young children across the state of Florida encouraging them to save for college early. COVID-19’s impact on the economy and the livelihoods of Floridians triggered Florida Prepaid to identify a solution to ease the immediate financial burden for families wanting to invest in their children’s futures. Moore led the public relations strategy for extending Open Enrollment by four weeks and deferring all plan payments for current customers until July to ensure the announcement effectively reached customers and the general public statewide. This was all in effort to give families the flexibility they need during this time to make a college savings decision
Solution
The How Moore quickly activated a public relations strategy to spread the word to current customers and build goodwill with all Florida families. The strategy consisted of: Developing brand messaging positioning the extended Open Enrollment and payment deferral in an easy to understand way in English and Spanish. Leveraging media relationships to immediately secure statewide coverage from major dailies, TV and radio outlets. Developing social media, email and newsletter content to share with strategic partners to extend the reach through their communications channels. Key partners included LEGOLAND, Orlando Science Center, education foundations and superintendents statewide, the Florida Department of Education and the Florida Chamber of Commerce. Creating a new partnership with Scholastic.com to provide resources to partners and working to reimagine event and foot traffic-based partnerships to virtual engagements. Activating a network of successful influencers across the state of Florida to produce sponsored content about this news on blogs, social media platforms and through e-newsletters to their engaged followers.
Results
Moore has operated as Florida Prepaid’s rapid response team, proactively making recommendations about brand initiatives and reacting to brand decisions by producing messaging, strategic plans and promotional materials in just a few hours. For this effort, Moore secured over 60 media hits in just two (2) days across online, TV and radio outlets, reaching an estimated 2 million people for the announcement of the payment deferral. Since January 2020, Moore has secured 509 media hits with an ad value of $1.2 million. These media relations efforts combined with a network of influencers and strategic partners contributed to a 27% increase in plan sales from the previous year.
Want fresh marketing stories in your inbox?
Get the weekly email that makes you a marketing genius.
Stay informed and inspired, for free.