Michelle Brown was watching her New York center numbers decline, and she knew something had to be done. Little did she know that attending a Vitae workshop on SEO at a Care Net Conference in would lead her to a whole new understanding of how to reach abortion-minded women.
In addition to what she learned at the session on SEO, Brown was directed to sign up for the Judy Borst Digital Information Console. That changed everything.
“I went on and read the Right Brain research, and it was spot on in what I sensed in understanding the consumer process of women who were abortion-minded. I’m post-abortive, so I can totally relate to all of it. It made sense,” the Director of Life Choices Center in Binghamton, N.Y. stated. In working with their local advertising company, Life Choices changed their graphic to show a young person looking very confident and empowered.
“We wanted the graphic to be what that young person imagined or hoped their life to be. That’s what we’ve been working with, and we’ve had tremendous results,” Brown noted.
“Over the course of a three-year period, we were seeing a decline in the number of pregnancy tests and ultrasounds given. Not only have we stopped the decline, but we’ve seen an increase over the last year. It’s been tremendous! The information, the graphics, the whole different focus on the woman and what her hopes and dreams are—these are so valuable,” Brown stated.
About 23 new connections are made each month; women are coming through the door. Last year there were only 16 coming in each month. That’s a 44 percent increase! Brown’s center has also seen a 66 percent increase in the number of ultrasounds they’ve done compared to 2017.
Brown said they have connections with other PHCs in the vicinity, and the director of one that’s about forty-five minutes away came to visit Life Choices to see what they were doing right.
“They were struggling because their pregnancy tests were going down, where we had been the year and a half before. I said to her, ‘This is what we’ve found, and this is what we’ve seen.’ There was no doubt what I learned from Vitae had to be the (cause), because nothing else had changed,” Brown explained.
Life Choices is like many other life-saving pregnancy centers across this country. They address the needs of each woman who comes through their doors. Unlike Planned Parenthood, which is focused on selling abortion, Brown said they work to create an environment where women feel safe to open up to them.
They had a situation where a parenting class client asked if she could get a pregnancy test. She tested positive. During the ensuing conversation, something made the teacher ask questions, and sure enough, the woman was in an abusive relationship. The husband was going to be extremely upset that she was pregnant. Sure enough, he behaved horribly.
“He told her she’d never see her children again if she were to leave. They called the local domestic violence shelter, and they came to pick her up. They went to pick up the kids at school, and they took care of her and her kids. It was incredible,” Brown explained.
Looking back at that encounter with Vitae, Brown believes “it was a divine appointment that I got the opportunity to speak to one of your representatives at the Care Net Conference. We were able to focus on our specific needs and initiatives that were happening at the time and take that wisdom and implement much of it. We saw dramatic, positive results within a short amount of time. It’s super effective and powerful, and obviously very cost-efficient for us.”