I want to strategize and execute a Mental Health Awareness Month campaign for you, and here’s why you should hire me to do it.

I want to strategize and execute a Mental Health Awareness Month campaign for you, and here’s why you should hire me to do it.

Some of the most creative, challenging, rewarding and results-bearing highlights of my public relations career have been the mental health awareness activities I’ve developed and implemented for The Menninger Clinic…year after year.

Since Mental Health Awareness Month comes around every year in May, you can’t just do the same thing over and over again. I’ve worked with this client for over 10 years. Every year was a success, so every year I had to top the pie-in-the-sky idea I came up with the previous year.

 These initiatives were successful because they checked all of the client’s goals:

• Enhanced brand awareness

• Established thought leadership for key clinicians

• Yielded more media and community partnership opportunities

• Increased admissions by 10%

Whether you’re a private practice mental health clinician, a non-profit professional, an entrepreneur or even a non-health-related business executive interested in supporting your employees' mental health, I want to work with you.

Keep reading for 5 of my results-bearing mental health month public relations strategies.

(Click here for My Mental Health Month Mini Portfolio)

 1.     Generated Engagement with Local Journalists (The OG Influencer Campaign)

On-air journalists and media personalities typically welcome the opportunity to highlight awareness initiatives. Think about how often you’ve seen a local or national TV news anchor or reporter don a “Red Nose” to support the campaign to end child poverty. Or, how many times you’ve seen them wear purple to support Epilepsy.

 So I knew it wouldn’t be enough to ask the local media to wear green in May. Here’s the ask that accompanied the media drops:

• Wear green

• Deliver key mental health message

• Mention the client

• Post about it on social media

And oh, the goal was for all the local on-air journalists to complete these tasks on the same day.

Not only did the client typically get media and/or social coverage from everyone engaged, it always spurred interest for future media opportunities.

 2.     Garnered Media Coverage for Annual Mental Health Fundraising Event

It’s tricky to get the media to cover a fundraising event that happens every year, especially in a city that’s known for its philanthropy. You would think it would be easier since the event always featured a celebrity sharing their connection to mental health.

Wrong. Despite all the former professional athletes, actors and actresses, politicians and even famous journalists who spoke at the event, it was always challenging to get media coverage. Even more difficult was ensuring that coverage mentioned the client and the cause.

The most important piece of this strategy is collaborating with a celebrity who is actually passionate about the cause AND the organization’s brand. The second component is conducting targeted media pitching and facilitating message development with the celebrity.

 3.     Inserted Experts into Trending News Topics

One of my strengths as a PR professional is monitoring the news to identify relevant opportunities to insert my clients into headlining news stories. This is a core tenet of public relations and many people now refer to it as “newsjacking." No matter what you call it, it’s only effective when executed appropriately without garnering the perception that you’re a clout chaser or opportunist.

In April 2017, one month before mental health month, the Netflix show “13 Reasons Why” was a hot topic for educators, parents, teenagers, school behavioral health professionals and mental health clinicians. The concern was that the show glamorized suicide and dangerous teenage behaviors while also missing opportunities to educate teens and parents about mental health resources, prevention and treatment.

My timely and relevant pitch on this topic morphed from having my expert interviewed on-air for a single segment to the Great Day Houston producers dedicating an entire show to the topic. Looking back on it, I would like producer credit for helping to pull it all together, recommending specific topics for a deeper dive, identifying some of my client’s community partners as segment guests and helping to fill seats for the live studio audience.

 4.     Positioned Experts for Breaking News Interviews

When breaking news happens, journalists have to fill their entire news hole with related content and will need enough sources to do so. Are you on their shortlist? Are you and/or your experts media trained and ready to be valuable sources?

Unfortunately, in May 2018, the breaking news story that KHOU 11 News called us for was the Santa Fe High School shooting. My media pitching secured my clients a coveted spot on Channel 11's expert source shortlist. And the media training I conducted with my clients, including mock scenarios similar to this real-life breaking news story, ensured they could confidently and empathetically serve as on-air sources with valuable insights. As a result, the news director invited my clients to essentially camp out in KHOU’s newsroom to be a resource for their nonstop reporting on the tragedy. This included:

• In-studio news segments

• Responding live to comments on KHOU’s Facebook Page

• Recorded news segments

• Facebook Live interviews

I was on-site to coordinate messaging, triage experts rotating shifts and identify related topics that we could pitch on the fly to the reporters and producers.

Two and a half weeks later, Kate Spade died by suicide. KHOU 11 News called again.

Three days after that, Andrew Bourdain died by suicide. KHOU 11 News called again.

During this time, I also coordinating requests from other media outlets who kept my clients on their shortlist of prepared mental health experts for breaking news media interviews.

I’ve learned through representing clients in the mental health sector that tragedies, unfortunately, are the most teachable moments to help people understand what causes mental illnesses, how to prevent them and how to treat them.

5.     Support Public Relations Activities with Integrated Marketing

The success of the “13 Reasons Why Segment” in 2017 led to an ongoing relationship with KHOU 11 News that eventually developed into a sponsored, added-value campaign with the station.

Before I dive into the details of my client’s paid sponsorship, I want to be abundantly clear and emphasize that all of the aforementioned activities were 100% earned media. Nothing was pay-to-play. It was the result of developing relationships with the media, pitching timely and newsworthy stories, training and preparing clinicians for media interviews and a lot of behind-the-scenes PR strategy.

That said, in 2018 our agency convinced KHOU 11 News and the client to do a sponsored, branded campaign for Mental Health Awareness Month that would create added value to our earned public relations activities. The client’s paid sponsorship covered public service announcements, commercials, online display advertising and social media ads. The Great Day Houston morning show producers committed to dedicating another show in its entirety to mental health. The news team committed to having a mental health series during May that would clearly inform viewers that the series was sponsored by the client. Even with this commitment, I still had to pitch compelling news story ideas and there was no guarantee of coverage.

The key words here are “added-value.” PR strategy is integral to this type of campaign that reinforces the brand through multiple tactics that complement or add value to the earned media.

Have I convinced you yet that you should hire me for your Mental Health Awareness Month campaign?

Yes, we probably should’ve started planning this in January. But take my word for it, 30+ days is plenty of time to execute public relations activities that will connect you to your target audiences. The best part is that these activities will have a lasting impact long after Mental Health Awareness Month has ended.

No more procrastination. You know this is what your brand needs. Email me to get started at kristin@one9consultingllc.com.