Why would a Pregnancy Help Center (PHC), established to serve women facing unexpected pregnancies, use words in their organization’s name that focus not on the woman’s needs, but instead on the needs of the preborn baby?
Admittedly, for marketers and sales professionals who don’t have much knowledge of the pro-life industry, it appears to be a amateurish error.
But it’s not quite so simple.
Serving Two Masters
I’m not going to let such PHCs off the hook, but I do understand why so many made, and continue to make, this fundamental marketing error.
You have to remember that a PHC actually serves two different clients: 1) women facing unexpected pregnancies, and 2) benefactors whose philanthropic donations support the operating expenses of the PHC.
The problem is that many PHCs create their name based on motivating the benefactors whose primary interest is saving babies from abortion.
The solution for those PHCs who have already made this strategic error is simple: keep the “baby-centric” name for benefactor-facing marketing, but create a different “woman-centric” name for marketing to prospective clients.
For example, for benefactors your PHC name could be “We Love Babies,” and for serving women facing unexpected pregnancies your PHC name could be “Women’s Center.”
OK. Not great names, I know.
But I think you get the picture.
Both/And Instead of Either/Or
A PHC can distribute all of its marketing communications toward benefactors as “We Love Babies Inc.,” and all of its marketing communications towards women facing unexpected pregnancies as “Women’s Center.”
Sounds easy enough, but for those PHCs that already have the benefactor-centric name, and now want to add a “woman-centric” name, don’t be surprised if the leaders of the organization, especially the board members, put up roadblocks to implementing the idea.
The reason they will do that, from the Executive Director to the Board of Directors, is because they are overly-focused on the moral issue of the wrongness of killing a preborn human in its mother’s womb, instead of focusing on the decision-maker, the woman, who will make the choice between abortion services, or choose life services.
We will return to this question next week.
Regards,
Brett