Podcast Episode - Digital Marketing

By David Ramm
Senior Consultant, Grays Peak Strategies

The author [imagined] as a dignified question answerer

Being part of a consulting company is kind of like being a student in a very competitive classroom. You want to put your hand up and be recognized, but you can only do it when you actually have the answer down pat. And even then, you have to play it cool because all the other students are so smart. They probably know the answer even better than you. It’s important to preserve your dignity.

Well, folks, sometimes you just have to stick that hand up in the air, hop up and down in the chair, and shout out, “Ooh ooh ooh! Pick me! Pick me!” Dignity be darned.*

Archival footage of the author hearing about the federal Digital Marketing grant

This was more or less my response when I heard I might be able to help with the development, implementation, and evaluation Virginia’s Division of Child Support Enforcement (DCSE) part in the Digital Marketing grant from the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement. I had already read the initial announcement and was excited about both the focus on electronic outreach (from search ads to social media to chat and many other possibilities) and the grant’s use of the Learn, Innovate, Improve paradigm.

Required ironic photo using scrabble tiles to promote digital content

What I didn’t know was that I’d be working with such a great team within DCSE—creative, exacting, and fully committed to finding new ways to improve program outcomes for the hundreds of thousands of mothers, fathers, guardians, and children in Virginia connected to their program.

Mariellen Keely is one of those fabulous DCSE folks. As a Policy Program Consultant, Mariellen has provided the steady hands that have steered the grant along for much of this last year and a half, as we have worked through the first two of the grant’s three cycles. As a team, we’ve done an amazing amount of work, putting out high-performing search and display ads, starting child support-focused social media accounts, bringing child support into the hitherto uncharted waters of Snapchat advertising, and even hosting a webinar for family law attorneys in Virginia. She even serves as the voice of a pretty wonderful child support podcast of her own.

On the latest episode of our News from the Peak podcast, Mariellen talks with us about the kinds of digital marketing approaches seem to be working for the Virginia child support program, how programs can get past their fears of social media (and especially the negative comments that seem to come with the territory), and what the next wave in digital marketing for child support might be.

This episode is available now. You can find the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Breaker, Anchor and more.

* Grays Peak runs a family-friendly blog.