Formed in 2011, Navigo is a not-for-profit social enterprise based in North East Lincolnshire, which supports a population of nearly 170,000 people. It serves as both an NHS integrated health and social organisation providing all-age mental health service, but also has a number of trading arms. One of its lovely initiatives is a garden centre with a cafe called the Potting Shed, which serves as a community hub and provides space for training and work opportunities for its community.
As a commissioned partner of the Shout mental health text service, Navigo has seen particular success with its keyword ‘ORANGE’, using digital support to reach new demographics alongside its traditional services and doubling the number of people supported with their mental health after a creative, localised marketing campaign to promote the keyword.
We spoke to Anna Morgan, Director of Corporate Services and Bradley King, Digital Content Co-ordinator at Navigo about why they commissioned our Shout text support service for Navigo and what benefits they’ve seen for their community.
Why did you choose to commission the Shout service from Mental Health Innovations?
Navigo is a membership organisation and we have an active community and staff membership, which shape the services we offer. Our members had identified a gap in the mental health support we offered - some had told us they didn’t want to use the phone to call for support. We wanted to learn from the Covid-19 pandemic and we knew that during that time, alternative platforms such as digital ones were rolled out very quickly. The feedback from our service users was that they welcomed that alternative method of accessing support.
As an organisation, we are committed to supporting the whole person, rather than just looking through a lens of diagnosis, medication and discharge, so we commissioned the Shout service as another way for our local population to access in-the-moment support, utilising a digital platform and whilst also enhancing our capacity.
What was your objective when you commissioned this service?
Our research suggested that the service was an excellent way to target specific audiences, including young people and working-age males, which are an important demographic we needed to make sure we were reaching with mental health support.
Having the keyword partnership with Shout helps us deliver an unmet need, adding an alternative digital method of support amongst our other services, which include in-person, telephone and virtual support.
When and how did you launch your keyword? Can you talk to us about any successful initiatives or campaigns?
Our marketing took off with Grimsby Town Football Club, which sits at the heart of the community in North East Lincolnshire. It’s an incredibly trusted brand and has a lot of opportunity for reach with people coming to matches.
We run mental health match days with the football club, where we have staff on the turnstiles giving out contact cards with the text information on and the team warm up in t-shirts which have ‘Text ORANGE’ written on the back - which is always guaranteed to spark conversation among the fans. We’ve also had positivity walls where people can go up and write a positive message outside the stands onto the wall.
We also feature the keyword in the match programmes and advertising boards around the stadium.
After this launch we saw immediate uplift, including:
- Our number of texts doubled
- 69% of people who used the keyword were new to the service
- The proportion of male texters increased from 11% to 25% in the following quarter
Other campaigns we’ve run include our beer mat keyword campaign, where we hand-delivered beer mats with the keyword support information to pubs, clubs and cafes in the community, targeting some of our younger audiences. It resulted in a 225% increase in texts over the Christmas and new year period compared to the previous year.
We’ve also integrated the keyword information into multiple touchpoints such as GP surgery screens, social media, email signatures and more, so that it constantly serves as a reminder of the service.
