Highlighting the unique experiences of cancer survivors

The United States is home to more than 18 million cancer survivors. The National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Office of Cancer Survivorship (OCS) serves as a vital resource for survivors, caregivers, healthcare professionals, and researchers. June is National Cancer Survivors Month (NCSM)—a time to highlight the research that is helping survivors live longer, fuller lives and raise awareness of the issues they and their caregivers face.

Challenge

OCS seeks to communicate important, accurate, and relevant health information on cancer survivorship to researchers and the public.

OCS saw an opportunity to leverage NCSM to advance those goals, and the office’s efforts to observe the month have steadily grown over the past several years. In 2022, OCS partnered with ICF Next on two videos that went on to win three Telly Awards. On the heels of that success, OCS asked us to develop an expanded communications strategy and create new original content for the 2023 NCSM campaign.

Solution

We produced a comprehensive strategy that focused on multiple channels: driving traffic to the OCS website, driving attendance for a recurring webinar series, and increasing social media engagement. Key aspects of the strategy included:

• A comprehensive editorial and content calendar for social media, leveraging existing and new content.
• Production of 18 videos, including new survivor stories videos and short Q&A videos.
• Creation of an email template to leverage OCS’ growing email list.
• A kickoff email to publicize OCS’ resources and events coming up in June.
• An installment of the OCS Director's Series webinar dedicated to survivorship.

Some of the strategies and content created for the 2023 NCSM campaign were designed with future use in mind. The new Q&A videos and survivor stories videos weren’t just used for the campaign; they’re now permanent parts of the OCS website.

Results

The 2023 NCSM campaign was an enormous success by just about every measure. June 2023 was OCS’ most successful month, with 59,400 social media impressions—representing 17% of the total impressions for the year. The NCSM campaign also registered the account’s most engagements, video views, and link views. The NCSM kickoff email on June 1 had a 30% open rate and 5% click-through rate—greater than the industry benchmarks for government emails. The June OCS Director's Series webinar attracted 460 registrants (4th most for the series) and 218 attendees (5th most for the series). Most impressively, overall traffic to the OCS website for the month of June increased by 80% year over year.

Praise for the NCSM campaign came from OCS leaders and staff, researchers, and survivors featured in the new videos—as well as from leaders in other NCI departments.