The Project: An Award-Winning Marketing Communications and Business Development Initiative for Bloom Health Partners
This marketing communications initiative was a fast-paced project with tight deadlines, shifting priorities and unexpected curveballs. Bloom Health Partners raced against many well-known major brands to win K-12 COVID testing contracts in the U.S. after new federal funding became available.
Thrive won the top 2023 PRSA Worthy Award in the Marketing Communications category and the Special Public Relations Program category for this multi-pronged project for Bloom.
The Challenge:
Bloom Health Partners, a Canadian publicly-held COVID-19 testing company originally founded in Texas at the start of the pandemic, had been doing testing for Fortune 500 corporations such as PepsiCo and daily testing for Hollywood productions, including the popular Netflix series Ozark.
As schools struggled to stay open due to surging COVID rates and testing funds became available, Bloom wanted to break into the school testing market – to help keep schools safe, healthy and open.
Bloom chose Thrive as its strategic partner to strategize, create and project manage all supporting marketing communications needs.
The Solution:
We partnered with Bloom for over 18 months during this multi-phased, fast-paced project, which included 4 key components:
1) Strategic message development, branding, marketing communications and business development support to promote and gain traction for Bloom’s services in this brand new market.
2) Writing and designing a new website section about Bloom Health Partners’ K-12 on-site school testing services.
3) Strategic planning and communications for key audiences (parents, administrators, teachers and the community at large) to support testing education and participation after Bloom was chosen as the vendor for all of southern Alabama by “The COVID Testing in Alabama K-12 Schools Program” (a coalition with the UAB School of Public Health, the Alabama Department of Public Health and the Alabama State Department of Education).
4) Marketing and communications materials for Bloom’s selection as one of the 6 vendors any school throughout Texas could select for rapid result testing material purchases and/or in-school testing services.
1) Marketing Communications and Business Development Support
The first phase of this project focused on strategic message development and business development support materials, to help Bloom’s executives as they forged relationships and sought to be a vendor of choice for K-12 COVID testing in targeted states for the 2021-2022 school year.
Key work included:
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- Developed materials to help educate on how weekly testing by Bloom will help keep schools open without disrupting them
- Created template marketing materials we then customized, allowing us to be proactive and respond quickly to opportunities
- Bloom added communications services as part of its testing offering, so it was particularly important that all marketing communications materials were designed and written well
2) Website Strategy, Content and Design
As we quickly developed strategic messaging and materials to support the K-12 health testing vertical, the website needed to include this offering. Thrive spearheaded this website project, developing the content and designing the site, working with the Bloom’s web developers to get it built.
3) Alabama – Communications Materials to Educate, Dispel Fears and Increase Participation
With no vaccine for children yet, the UAB School of Public Health, in collaboration with the Alabama Department of Public Health and the Alabama State Department of Education, created “The COVID Testing in Alabama K-12 Schools Program” (supported by federal funds).
Bloom Health Partners was ultimately selected by this coalition as the vendor to serve the southern half of Alabama through its on-site end-to-end PCR testing services, aimed at keeping kids healthy and schools open for in-person learning in the 2021-2022 school year.
A major challenge for the AL testing project was the decision made by AL to require a weekly opt-in by parents, rather than an opt-out approach.
Because student testing was voluntary and required weekly permission from parents, communications was critical to the testing program’s success. Additionally, we had to overcome myths, stigmas, fears, objections and more.
Thrive partnered with Bloom and the Alabama coalition to strategize, develop and deliver communications to help educate and influence teachers, staff and parents in southern Alabama to consent to their K-12 children participating in weekly, voluntary, asymptomatic COVID-19 testing at schools,
4) Texas School Market – Marketing Communications, TEA Webinar Presentation and Testing Support Materials
Texas Business Development Support
- Created clear, professional and compelling marketing materials for target audience(s) to support the executives and business development team
- Created Bloom’s TEA webinar materials for 2021-2022 school year to set Bloom apart from the other 5 vendors (some with really well-known names); positioned Bloom as easy to work with and made it clear the company was founded in Texas; updated for 2022-2023 after re-selected as TEA vendor
- Created a short video for TEA webinar to set Bloom apart, highlighting Super Bowl testing, Hollywood testing and Texas roots
Texas Communication Materials
- Developed print materials for parents, teachers and nursing staff in Texas schools, focused more on reactive testing than AL materials
- Developed education and ordering materials, making it simple and easy for nurses to choose to order from and work with Bloom
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The Result:
We’re proud of this project and the results for our client, which included:
- Bloom was selected by Alabama as the K-12 COVID-19 testing vendor for all of southern AL by Oct. 1, 2021 for 2021-2022.
- We developed and finalized Alabama parent and staff communication materials within 3 weeks of being selected as an approved vendor!
- Bloom was selected in TX as a vendor in Jan. 2022 for the second semester, and 200 school districts worked with Bloom by 9/1/22. Bloom met its revenue goals for the school sector by June 30, 2022 and Texas renewed for the 2022-2023 school year.
- Thrive won 2 top PRSA Worthy Awards in 2 categories for this project!
BONUS: The Alabama coalition said that one of the reasons Bloom Health Partners was selected is because Bloom offered communications as part of its package, and “Bloom’s communication materials were exceptional.”
Client Feedback:
“The Thrive agency is unique in that its both strategic and tactical. We could always count on them to deliver.”
– Cole Lysaught, Co-Founder, Bloom Health Partners
“We were very fortunate to work with Kelly and the dedicated and smart team at Thrive PR + Marketing!”
– Abbas Khan, Co-Founder and CMO, Bloom Health Partners