Ronald McDonald House Charities of Rochester: From Best-Kept Secret to Well-Known Resource

Features they can’t live without: Drag and drop email builder

“The beauty of our marketing using Constant Contact is that it is now automated. It’s not manual any longer. We have a broader reach, a quicker reach, and a more customized reach than we did prior.”

JoAnne Ryan, RMHCR CEO

Nestled within the Rochester community, Ronald McDonald House Charities of Rochester (RMHCR) stands as a beacon of hope and support for families facing the challenges of pediatric illness.

Beyond its crucial role in providing a nurturing and supportive environment for families, RMHCR has slowly worked to harness effective marketing strategies to help rally unwavering support for their cause. With a blend of storytelling, email, and social media marketing, they have implemented a marketing strategy that highlights their mission and fosters connections among their local community.  

“Our core values are all about family. We really want to make sure the house that we provide here is a home for them away from home,” explained JoAnne Ryan, RMHCR CEO. “Typically, when they’re coming to us, their child is critically ill or injured. And the opportunity to be in a place where they can find the support they need to be their best bedside parent or bedside family member is really our goal.”

RMHCR provides lodging, transportation, meals, and companionship so the families they support can focus on their children and their medical needs. RMHCR currently has a 24-bedroom house to support families traveling to the Rochester area for their child’s medical care, seven private rooms at the Golisano Children’s Hospital, two sleep rooms and a family room at Unity Hospital, a family lounge at Rochester General Hospital, and a family room at URMC Mental Health and Wellness.

“Ronald McDonald House is often a best-kept secret … part of my job is to make sure that everyone knows how we’re serving the community,” said JoAnne. 

From mailers to email

Before using Constant Contact, RMHCR used direct mail as their primary method of communication with donors and families. This approach hindered their ability to regularly connect with their audiences due to the high costs and time constraints associated with print mailers. 

“Our marketing has changed a lot since Constant Contact — it makes everything easier,” said Maranda Meisenzahl, RMHCR Development and Communications Coordinator. “We’ve done so many solicitations that we probably wouldn’t have been able to do through the mail. So email has been a great way to stay in touch with our donors and our families.”

Constant Contact allowed them to transition from print to digital communication seamlessly and use email to send newsletters, event invites, donation requests, and more.

“Ever since [we got Constant Contact], it’s just been like a click of a button … all I have to do is put in the information, and it’s been amazing.”

Making the most of their time

RMHCR currently relies on email marketing and social media as its primary online marketing channels to raise awareness about RMHCR’s mission and share the stories of families they have supported. Like many other nonprofits, they encountered difficulties striking a balance between RMHCR’s marketing initiatives and supporting the needs of the families they serve, often stretching themselves too thin. 

This is when Maranda turned to Constant Contact’s social media scheduling tool. With the scheduling tool, they are able to plan and schedule their posts in advance, freeing up time to focus on what matters most – supporting families in need. 

“The scheduling tool is awesome. It makes everything easier… I can schedule them and I don’t have to think about it,” said Maranda.

In addition to scheduling her social posts in advance, Maranda utilizes the email scheduling features as well as the templates provided by Constant Contact to expedite the email creation process. “I mean, [templates are] a huge help with our newsletter. We sent our newsletter out to a lot of people, and it was so easy just to upload our PDF in there and have people click it, and it’s great,” said Maranda. “It saves me time. It saves me the stress of trying to figure out how we’re gonna send something out.”

Getting the right message to the right audience

With the right tools in place to help her easily get the word out about RMHCR, Maranda began to focus on ensuring she was getting the right message to the right people. To do this, she utilizes contact list segmentation within Constant Contact.

“I have different [lists]. I have non-donors, I have donors, and I have a staff list, so we utilize each of them differently and kind of customize each email for each list.”

By maintaining separate lists for each of RMHCR’s audience types, Maranda is able to send content, updates, stories, and donation requests to the right audiences and ensure the content they are receiving is relevant to their unique needs.

Making educated decisions

To ensure their marketing outreach strategies are effective, Maranda relies on the reporting features within Constant Contact to help make educated decisions regarding future campaigns. 

“We look at how many opens, clicks, and do not opens we get based on what we send out,” explained Maranda. “For example, if we see that the majority of people did not click a button we added in, we reevaluate where the positioning of it is. We also adjust our subject line based on opens.”

By evaluating past emails or social posts, they can adjust their future communications to get the best possible results. This has enabled them to grow their open rate by six percent over the last 12 months. 

Best-kept secret no longer

With the help of Constant Contact, RMHCR has not only increased their outreach efforts and streamlined their marketing for greater efficiency, but they have also expanded their reach by growing their email list by eight percent over the last 12 months. 

“The beauty of our marketing using Constant Contact is that it is now automated. It’s not manual any longer. We have a broader reach, a quicker reach, and a more customized reach than we did prior,” said JoAnne.

The RMHCR’s unwavering commitment to serving families in need remains their number one priority, and Constant Contact has empowered them to do just that. They have gone from a best-kept secret to a well-known resource in the Rochester community and continue touching the lives of countless families in need.