American Red Cross, Northeast Division

Targeting demographic and geographic focus

The Company

The American Red Cross (ARC) has assisted people for 125 years through the help of nearly 1 million volunteers and 35,000 employees. With more than 800 locally supported chapters, the American Red Cross provides training, emergency preparedness and response skills to empower people to reach out to those in need. Almost 4 million people give blood through the 36 Blood Regions of the Red Cross, making it the largest supplier of blood and blood products in the United States.

ARC's Northeast Division includes Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, with a population in excess of nine million residents. The Northeast Division collects more than 500,000 units of blood per year, has over 1,000 employees and supports 200 hospitals. The breakdown of blood collections includes 20 percent from their fixed sites and 80 percent from mobile collection targeting including community, business, schools, colleges and the military markets.

The Challenge

The Northeast Division of ARC wanted to increase its blood donor numbers by defining the community potential for the states in this geographic area. In particular, ARC needed to focus on who the targets were and what they were like, in order to understand their needs for program development, where they were located for site placement and location potential, and overall, how to most effectively reach them. ARC also needed to determine a realistic range for growth using what it called "models of potential."

The Case

With the assistance of Claritas, ARC Northeast Division was able to define custom targets with ConsumerPoint's PRIZM profiles and custom segmentation by state and program type. Its analysis gave way to three target groups:

A Targets - The Cleavers & Green Acres

Highest indices: 167
29 percent of all donors (64,000)
18 percent of division base

B Targets - Executive Families & Suburban Socialites

o Average index of 118
19 percent of all donors (42,000)
16 percent of division base

C Targets - Rural America & Comfort Zone

Average index of 106
18 percent of all donors (38,000)
16 percent of division base

These target groups were evaluated by each state, with attention given to the percentage of targets in the population base and the donor base. From there, ARC could further define what each target was like, including a definition of income, education, willingness to donate and radio preferences. For example:

Green Acres

Affluent professionals with Masters Degrees and white collar couples in towns
More likely to have older children
Distance over 15 miles reduces willingness to donate to "less than average"
Would donate more frequently if there were more convenient donation locations and donation times
Listen to radio 3 PM - 7 PM; alternative and soft rock

Rural America

Families with children located in suburb fringe and rural areas
High school education and incomes of $35,000 - $75,000
Work in Armed Forces, construction/labor or farming/fishing
Younger, tend to lapse but willing to donate 3-4 times a year
Will drive 20 miles or more to give
Would donate more frequently if shorter donation time, more information about the need available, a donor loyalty card were provided
Listen to radio 6 AM - 10 AM; hard rock

ARC then utilized two models of potential to determine the realistic growth for their donation program. This involved refining the target population definition, developing a model to define potential based on penetration by target segment, targeting the largest geographic groups first and optimizing delivery of blood drives to meet donor needs and ARC parameters.

Its targeting analysis led them to focus on the population and household penetration rate for each county in the Northeast Division, looking closely at only those people most likely to be donors. The first model would look at population, targeting those age eligible (17 to 64 years old), medically eligible and with the household demographics that fit the target profile. The second model for household base would evaluate the households that fit the target profile.

By examining each target for each state, ARC was able to determine the penetration of donor households (from the household model) and locate the maximum donor potential with their current program (with the population model).

The Results

Armed with this comprehensive information, ARC presented the information to the Executive Team, with next steps in place to roll-out to state directors for the selection of fixed and mobile locations and to target key communities to increase drives. Further, ARC could set appropriate growth targets for the defined areas and craft an effective marketing strategy based on the Claritas profile information. They were also able to develop an alternate perspective by examining Claritas' Workplace PRIZM to see the daytime population of the Northeast area for additional donor possibilities. Moving forward, ARC will e valuate the estimated county growth rates for the next five years to determine future targeting potential.