Is your foster carer recruitment strategy serving its purpose?

Your fostering service’s branding carries a lot more weight than you might think. There’s a common myth that a brand is essentially just a logo and some pretty accompanying colours and fonts, but in truth it’s a whole lot more than that. It represents who you are and gives your fostering service an identity. And most importantly, it gives you personality and shows how you differ from your competitors.

People are exposed to more brands than ever before in today’s digital climate. So it’s not just a good idea to have a strong brand identity for your fostering service – it’s vital to survive in a competitive marketplace.

We’ve worked with a number of fostering services to create distinctive and memorable brand identities. Take a look at some of the work we’ve delivered for Wigan Council, Dorset Council and Wiltshire Council below.

Digital marketing is evolving at serious pace. It’s brilliant for measuring and evidencing results and, in our experience, it really does work in recruiting foster carers. An estimated 24% of UK adults would consider fostering, and targeted digital campaigns, using channels like Google Ads and Facebook Lead Ads, are a great way to find them. 

However, a great digital advertising campaign all starts with having great content. A well-optimised landing page and a piece of high-quality downloadable content that can be used in exchange for lead data are absolute must-haves. This is exactly what we delivered for both Dorset and Wiltshire Councils, resulting in numerous genuine enquiries from potential foster carers. You can check out our case study for Wiltshire here and our work with Dorset here.

There’s nothing quite like video content or animation in helping to bring your fostering service’s message to life. It currently dominates the social landscape due to its highly engaging and immersive nature. So, if video doesn’t currently form a part of your fostering service's content marketing strategy, you’re likely falling behind the competition.

We did just this for Wiltshire Council by creating this engaging Sky AdSmart TV advert, as part of an ongoing brand awareness campaign for their fostering service. The simple illustrative style was a great way of telling an emotional story and was also a subtle way of bringing the fostering service's brand identity and message to life. You can watch the animation below.

We know that recruiting and retaining foster carers is an ongoing challenge for all fostering services. So if you're looking for support with planning or enhancing your foster carer recruitment activity for the new year, get in touch.