For example, we used the notion of establishing a community with a shared interest in HEALTH as a strategy for reaching people with and at risk for diabetes, asthma and other chronic health conditions rather than trying to create a community of sick people with diabetes and asthma. The strategy was highly successful as measured by recruiting, engagement and health outcomes data collection and reported each quarter to the sponsoring federal agency (HRSA/Office for the Advancement of Telehealth).
Borrowing from a previously successful strategy and substituting 'Environment and Economy' we will benefit from a similar phenomenon and will rapidly attract the Community to this initiative.
Of the many ways to develop a community, mobile seems to be an attractive option for reaching the most people and at very low cost. It certainly can play a role in the recruiting process as well as other facets of the Network. However, mobile is only one facet and like everything has its own strengths and limitations.
Understanding these strengths and limitations takes time and experience; something I've been working with since 1997. More recently, I designed a community network with a shared interest in health that recruited nearly 10% of the residents in and around Corpus Christi, Texas.
Here's an idea of how we can go about establishing the initial community leveraging several methods:
- mobile qr codes
- mobile sms
In the Healthy Families community network we were highly successful training community leaders to use mobile SMS registration by word of mouth as an easy way to register large numbers of members (ie up to 500 at a time) at events in the community.
For example, it's easy to ask any large group to take out their phone and text SIERRA to 25827 (for example). This is not active today but could be active in about a day. It's a very easy way to capture interested parties on the fly - much easier than telling a person a website or an email address and hoping that they will remember to sign up later.
- web (standard & mobile optimized)
These were more traditional and yielded far fewer registrations due to the cumbersome nature of the experience.
These were more traditional and yielded far fewer registrations due to the cumbersome nature of the experience.
- Ad words
Utilizing SMS also adds savings to the transaction since most people will read the ad and use SMS to register rather than click on the Ad and incurring a cost per click fee. Therefore, we experienced savings of nearly $0.50 per member via this channel.
- sign up forms + data entry
This is clearly the most costly registration option. However, since there is a form involved and people are comfortable with forms, we experienced 4 times the number of signups via this method vs. the digital alternative. This also gives us the broadest reach since it appeals to everyone. Finally, forms allow for a lot of data collection at one time. The trick is designing the form and the collection process.
