Supporting Peterborough Women’s Aid

Peterborough Women’s Aid (PWA), provides a specialist response to violence against women and girls in their community. Recognising the need for effective marketing and PR, they came to us for help, with the support of Lloyd’s Bank Foundation Enhance funding.

We were tasked with identifying current communication strengths and weaknesses, defining target audiences, aligning the messaging with the organisation’s mission and values, and proposing a 12-month action plan. 
The task was completed in six days spread over three months, and we left the team with:
– a comms plan and outline 12-month plan
– social media recommendations
– how-to guides for Instagram and Facebook
– a draft social media policy
– content principles
-a logo and imagery review document

Social Media Success with Loomly

Following virtual sessions identifying existing challenges with social media, we recommended:

– reducing the number of accounts they were running
– using ambassadors (members of their local community who are well-placed to share key PWA messages) to leverage audiences across the platforms they dropped
– implementing a new scheduling approach using Loomly for social media management

CEO Amanda Geraghty and her team were able to quickly put our recommendations into action. Amanda reports some great early successes, which have made us do a happy dance. A strategically timed post garnered a reach of 189,000, resulting in 1500 new followers and interview requests from local media outlets. This success underscores the importance of a well-executed social media strategy in expanding PWA’s reach and influence.

Unified Branding Approach

Writing advice to guide the CEO and trustees, we advised a positive-only image commitment and continued use of a widely recognised logo. This cohesive branding approach not only fosters a strong visual identity but also contributes to increased trust and recognition among service users and stakeholders.

Comprehensive Communication Strategy

The newly developed communication strategy:

– outlined PWA’s aims
– identified target audiences
– specified desired outcomes with these audiences
– defined the organisation’s positioning as the city’s only specialist domestic violence against women and girls organisation

The accompanying 12-month action plan detailed the best methods for implementation given the size of the team, their capacity, and the pressure of competing demands on time.

Marketing Core Work and Specialised Projects

An interesting challenge for us within the brief was how best to manage the marketing of both PWA’s core work with women alongside a project for male victims of domestic abuse. We recommended creating a stand-alone website and branding for the male project, which would engage a male audience while protecting the safe, women- and girls-only space that the charity has worked incredibly hard to establish in the community.

Find out more about the charity’s brilliant work: Peterborough Women’s Aid