YMCA Team Lean

The Client

Valdosta Lowndes County YMCA

The Challenge

Promote Team Lean Wellness Challenge to the community and increase the number of participants that complete the 10-week program.

The Solution

The YMCA in partnership with Anderson created an integrated marketing communications plan that was two-fold. The first part was to promote Team Lean to the community. Messaging was updated to emphasize that it was more than a weight loss program but a wellness challenge and that it was open to the whole community. The campaign encompassed OOH (billboards, yard signs, banners), print ads in newspapers and local magazines, email marketing, and article creation. In 2016, the YMCA launched their Facebook page which was used heavily to promote joining the challenge as well as to motivate participants during the challenge.

The second part was to maintain momentum during the 10-week program. Based on data from the past three years’, participation seemed to fall at the six week mark and there was anecdotal research that showed lack of availability of multiple classes, teams splitting up, and what to do at home. To combat this drop, we encourage participants to like the YMCA Facebook page; we utilized Facebook to provide weekly health and fitness tips and weekly fitness videos to show participants what they could do at home if they couldn’t make it to the gym; added weekly fitness challenges to gain extra points that could be done on your own time; and radio shout outs on progress and top teams to keep YMCA and Team Lean top of mind with participants and the community.