If you did a survey of young women in any city in the U.S. and asked them, “When you think of women’s reproductive healthcare, what brand names come to mind?,” for most women there would be only one brand name on the list: Planned Parenthood.
I believe this fact, more than any other, explains why Planned Parenthood continues to dominate the abortion industry, having conducted a record 383,460 abortions in 2021.
According to a study published in July 2015 by the Charlotte Lozier Institute called “Turning Hearts Toward Life II: New Market Research for Pregnancy Help Centers,” 93% of American women know the brand name Planned Parenthood.
On the other hand, only 8% of American women knew the brand name “Option Line,” among pro-lifers at least the most well-known national call center hotline for women facing unexpected pregnancies.
As I often say, if young women don’t know about your organization BEFORE they face an unexpected pregnancy, then they will not contact your organization WHEN they face an unexpected pregnancy.
Clearly, if only 8% of American women know about Option Line, then I think it’s fair to say that very few women know about the pro-life pregnancy centers in their local communities.
How do we overcome this problem?
I believe what ThriVe Express Women’s Healthcare achieved in competition against Planned Parenthood in St Louis, whereby ThriVe took so many clients away from Planned Parenthood that Planned Parenthood decided to close its doors there in October 2019, shows that the answer is “pre-suasion.”
Pre-suasion is a term coined by American psychologist Robert Cialdini, and is you probably already guessed means persuading someone beforehand.
In future columns, I will go into more detail about how ThriVe accomplished this in St Louis, but the short answer is that ThriVe used advertising to persuade the majority of young women in St Louis to prefer ThriVe as their women’s healthcare provider over Planned Parenthood, and very importantly, ThriVe achieved this in women’s minds BEFORE they ever faced an unexpected pregnancy.
In other words, ThriVe “pre-suaded” the women to call ThriVe if they ever faced an unexpected pregnancy.
So unlike every other American city, if you did a survey of young women in St. Louis and asked them, “When you think of women’s reproductive healthcare, what brand names come to mind?,” for most women there would be two brand names on the list: ThriVe and Planned Parenthood.
Then if you asked an additional question, “Which of those two brand names do you prefer?,” I think the fact that ThriVe defeated Planned Parenthood in St. Louis tells us that the majority of young women would answer, “ThriVe.”
This article was published in Heroic Media‘s weekly newsletter
Cristina
Hi Brett! I 100% agree with you. I was in a bit of a desperate situation in 2020 when I became pregnant unexpectedly. The father didn’t want to be involved at all, and the pandemic had just happened. I called a pregnancy center that I was a donor to in years previous, and they were closed because of the pandemic and I was being pressured by the father to have an abortion. I had no where to go, I had just lost my job from a Catholic institution for my pregnancy out of wedlock. I was in a super vulnerable situation and so disappointed that the pregnancy center that I thought was doing work to help women like me, wasn’t there to actually help me when I needed them. I worked in prolife prior and even forgot Option line existed. How can we spread the word about these options better?
Brett Attebery
Hi Cristina!! Good to hear from you.
Yes, I remember your situation quite well. I’m so sorry you had to go through that, and thank you for choosing life for your beautiful son. 🙂
It’s a complex topic for sure, but I think the KEY is building a brand centered on a non-abortion-providing women’s healthcare service that thinks of young women as members of their own FAMILY, not just clients that we assist when our doors are open for business.
Imagine if the center you called had been thinking/acting that way. They would have moved heaven and earth to help you, no matter COVID or any other obstacle.
And then they would have been thinking how to empower you for a THRIVING life after the birth of your son, not just helping you with short term needs.
That’s what FAMILY does.
As I said to an interviewer on a recent podcast, I know I too have a lot of growing I need to do in that area – thinking of young abortion-minded women as family members and acting accordingly – but I think to the extent we can all move in that direction, we will win the war against the abortion industry.
God bless you Cristina!
Brett