Ep 39 - Case Study: Elevating Veteran Engagement in Marketing
This podcast episode speaks to the intricate dynamics of marketing strategies, particularly as they pertain to the Veterans Experience Office (VEO) and its outreach initiatives. Co-hosts Mady Dudley and Larry Aldrich delve into the significance of effective communication in bridging the gap between veterans and the myriad services offered by the VA. We explore the evolution of our collaborative efforts in enhancing public trust and the pivotal role of data visualization in decision-making processes. Through our discussion, we seek to illuminate the importance of scalable creative infrastructure within the context of federal marketing endeavors. Join us as we unpack these profound insights and share actionable strategies aimed at fostering meaningful connections with our audience.
IN THIS EPISODE
Transcript
Welcome to Aqua Talks, where marketing meets bold game changing ideas.
Speaker A:Join your hosts, Larry Aldrich and Maddie Dudley as they explore the art and science of cutting through the noise, capturing attention and fostering meaningful connections with your audience.
Speaker A:Whether you're a destination marketer, government contractor, or simply passionate about the transformative power of marketing, Aqua Talks offers engaging discussions, fresh insights and actionable strategies designed to inspire and inform.
Speaker B:Hi and welcome back to Aqua Talks.
Speaker B:I'm Maddie Dudley.
Speaker B:I'm the public relations director of Aqua Marketing and Communications and this is a podcast for marketers.
Speaker B:Whether you're just getting started out or you're a pro within the industry, this is a podcast that' brought to you by Brensys Technology llc.
Speaker B:And as always, I'm joined by my co host, Larry Aldrich.
Speaker C:Hello, I'm Larry Aldrich, President CEO of Aqua Marketing Communications and Brensys Technology llc.
Speaker C:Today, Mattie and I are just going to have a conversation based off of one of our case studies.
Speaker C:And this time we're going to be talking about design services with the Veteran Experience Office, the VEO Outreach Marketing to veterans.
Speaker B:This is like your bread and butter, Larry.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker B:I'm really excited to dive into this with you.
Speaker C:This is what we do.
Speaker B:Yeah, I love it.
Speaker B:So before we get into conversation, we do discuss trends that are within the industry.
Speaker B:Do you have one top of mind?
Speaker B:I have one in the travel and tourism industry that I would love to talk to you about.
Speaker C:Let's talk about it.
Speaker B:I know you're super into working out and like gym memberships, et cetera.
Speaker B:The most recent travel tourism trend is like sauna tourism.
Speaker B:People are going specific places in the world to go experience different kinds of saunas.
Speaker B:Isn't that interesting?
Speaker B:Are you a sauna guy?
Speaker C:I definitely want to do more of the saunas, especially the like the baths that you have everywhere.
Speaker C:And you.
Speaker B:Is that like the Turkish baths?
Speaker C:The Turkish baths, I guess they're in a lot of different places and they also in the bigger cities, I don't know about the smaller areas, but they're probably there too.
Speaker C:But the saunas.
Speaker C:Yeah, I mean getting that, that feels great on your musc and it's very relaxing, especially when you're used to putting a lot of that stress on your joints.
Speaker C:And you know, L glutamine is only going to help you so much.
Speaker B:What is that word?
Speaker C:L. Glutamine.
Speaker C:It's an amino acid.
Speaker C:It's one of the BCAAs and it helps with recovery and especially joint recovery.
Speaker C:There's L Glutamine and Then there's glucosamine and chondroitin.
Speaker C:Chondroitin is like fish oil, fish scales with the glucosamine.
Speaker C:Glucosamine.
Speaker C:It's not in the main BCAA chain, but it's an amino acid that helps also for working out.
Speaker C:But since we kind of went on to this travel, would you call it the travel and working out in the travel tourism industry?
Speaker C:So traveling.
Speaker C:One of the.
Speaker C:Actually, one of the.
Speaker C:When I do that, when I travel a lot and not everyone wants to do what I do or take my advice, but I have multip gym memberships
Speaker B:and I have, what, no reciprocity.
Speaker C:I have multiple gym memberships.
Speaker C:I have a lot of the bigger chains where there's usually a gym everywhere in the country.
Speaker C:I have a few of those, so I have options.
Speaker C:And then I have a couple private memberships depending on the places I go to most.
Speaker C:So pretty much there's a gym everywhere I go.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Want to shout out any specifics you love?
Speaker C:Definitely an LA fitness fan membership.
Speaker C:I've had them a long time.
Speaker B:Do you like the one here?
Speaker C:The one here, yes.
Speaker C:But I don't go to it as much because I joined Crunch.
Speaker C:Oh, yes, and Crunch.
Speaker C:I like Crunch because it's a good combination of a meathead gym and a big corporate gym.
Speaker C:I like that mix, so that's good.
Speaker C:And I also have the gym, actually, they were out of the state of California and Fitness or 24 Hour Fitness, they're a big brand out of the state of California.
Speaker C:Then they started migrating to the East.
Speaker C:There were quite a few of them in D.C. maryland.
Speaker C:Some of those gyms during COVID really hurt them.
Speaker C:So they went into bankruptcy.
Speaker C:They scaled back a little bit, but it's still a really good gym.
Speaker C:Then I have a couple private gyms that I'm a part of.
Speaker B:Nice to be here in Pennsylvania.
Speaker C:I hear Amped is really good gym.
Speaker C:I've only seen those in Florida, but I hear that there's a really good vibe in the Amp gyms also.
Speaker C:So I'm looking forward to trying one of those out.
Speaker B:Yeah, I used to be a member at Amped.
Speaker B:I think it was like 10 bucks a month or something.
Speaker B:Something crazy.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But yeah.
Speaker B:So I don't know.
Speaker B:I'm just seeing this rise in wellness trends overall in travel and tourism.
Speaker B:So something as minimal as the detail of your sauna could become the, like, centerpiece of somebody's reason for traveling.
Speaker B:I went to Iceland once and did this, like, springs ritual situation.
Speaker B:And you like, get in the cold water Then you get in the hot water, and then you go in the sauna, and then you go in the steam room.
Speaker B:It was so, so fun and so beautiful.
Speaker B:Their sauna looked out across the water and had this beautiful wood inside.
Speaker B:And I just remember, like, that was the highlight of my experience there.
Speaker B:And now a couple years later, I'm like, okay, it makes sense that people are enjoying saunas as the pinnacle of their trip because it's just amenities.
Speaker B:Who doesn't love spa amenities?
Speaker B:I'm a huge proponent of spa amenities.
Speaker C:I definitely think I'm a huge proponent.
Speaker C:Also.
Speaker C:I think it's good recovery and relaxation, especially after workout and when you travel, I think being able to work out is paramount.
Speaker C:To travel and finding a good place to be able to work out and a good spa to be able to recover, I think is really helps.
Speaker C:Really puts the icing on the cake when you're traveling.
Speaker B:I have to agree, because you want to be in the right mindset.
Speaker B:I mean, of course, everybody wants to look good on vacation.
Speaker B:So you're going into the gym, you're getting a workout in.
Speaker B:But also it really helps for me to go and relax my mind, go on a run, do some yoga, whatever.
Speaker C:Yeah, good workout, a good spa treatment,
Speaker B:and the beach, perfect vacation.
Speaker B:There it is.
Speaker B:That's all you need.
Speaker B:Okay, let's get into our Q and A for our case study.
Speaker B:How does that sound?
Speaker C:It sounds good.
Speaker C:I'm pretty interested, pretty excited to talk about.
Speaker C:I love talking about the veterans.
Speaker C:I love helping the veterans.
Speaker C:I'm a veteran myself, as we know, and veteran outreach is important.
Speaker B:Well, thank you again, again, again for your service.
Speaker B:We're extremely grateful to you.
Speaker B:So very appreciative.
Speaker B:Curious about shift from deliverables to value.
Speaker B:So how dashboard and reports support decision making, how visual consistency strengthens public trust and the importance of CX focused communications.
Speaker B:We'd love to know what we're most proud of there.
Speaker C:Okay, to break that down a little bit when it comes to the dashboards.
Speaker C:So the VA use a lot of dashboards to communicate all of the services that the VA is providing to the veterans.
Speaker C:The main mission for the VA is taking care of the veterans.
Speaker C:So we have to communicate that back to Congress.
Speaker C:We have to communicate that back to the stakeholders, and we actually communicate that also to the veterans.
Speaker C:The public trust is the trust percentage, the growth that veterans have in the VA in their health care, in how the VA services the veteran.
Speaker C:And we want the veterans to come to the va. We want the veterans to work with the VA and We manage and watch the trust scores with the veterans and the stakeholders in the VA because we don't want to keep any kind of negative perception about the VA with the veterans and the stakeholders because we want them to trust and believe in the VA to come and get their services.
Speaker C:The service is there.
Speaker C:The VA will do, has a lot of services to help the veteran, to work with the veterans, to take care of the veterans, especially after everything they did to the service of the country.
Speaker C:So one of the biggest obstacles, I guess you would say, that the VA has, is getting the veteran to come to the va, whether it's for mental health, as we all know, physical health, housing, clothing, I mean, education, everything there.
Speaker C:The VA offers tons of services for the veteran.
Speaker C:We need the veteran to show up and we communicate.
Speaker C:The CX is the communication to the veteran.
Speaker C:The veo, the Veterans Experience Office, is the communication arm of the va, and they work directly under the sec, VA Secretary of the va.
Speaker B:Okay, so where have we seen the most measurable improvement with that on the dashboards?
Speaker C:There's a lot of different metrics that we use a lot of times on those dashboards.
Speaker C:I can't name any of the dashboards because a lot of that information stays there.
Speaker C:But I can say we do measure on a weekly basis a plus or minus percentage of growth or decline.
Speaker C:And that could include hospitals, clinics, beds, unfortunately, veteran suicides.
Speaker C:And it's all broken down by male, female, age, plus or minus, who's showing up, what veterans out there are using the benefits, what veterans out there may have just separated from the military within in x many years.
Speaker C:And are those veterans part of the va?
Speaker C:Are they registered?
Speaker C:So all of those metrics are calculated and monitored through dashboards, monitored through a lot of different services out there, different offices in the va, and we want to make sure that we're reaching as many veterans as we can and servicing the veterans the best we can and in a timely manner.
Speaker B:So what has evolved from the first year of working to now, year three,
Speaker C:that contract that we have with the va, it was a really robust contract.
Speaker C:We have quite a few designers on there, program analysts, a program manager.
Speaker C:We've seen how we help the va, the veo, communicate to their veterans, to their leadership, to their stakeholders, and what they ask from us.
Speaker C:And to help with that visual communication, we have seen a lot of growth in there.
Speaker C:They've liked our products, they've liked what we help, how we help, what we offer them, and we've built trust.
Speaker C:Again, it's about trust.
Speaker C:So we built trust with them showing that we're 100% in with them as a partner.
Speaker B:Amazing.
Speaker B:Okay, so lessons for agencies and government marketers would love to talk about broader takeaways.
Speaker B:The importance of scalable creative infrastructure.
Speaker B:Why?
Speaker B:Reoccurring design contracts require process discipline.
Speaker B:If you're navigating complex communications in a regulated environment.
Speaker B:Lots of red tape with government clients, scalable creative systems matter more than ever.
Speaker B:So can you just get into that a little bit more?
Speaker C:So when we're working again in federal procurement, we have to make sure we're always following the far, the Federal Acquisition Regulation.
Speaker C:It's the law, so we follow that.
Speaker C:We also know that the agencies in particular, let's just say the va, because that's who we're talking about.
Speaker C:They have a mission and they want to on their mission.
Speaker C:They want to be successful.
Speaker C:And as a partner, we have to make sure that we are making them successful.
Speaker C:It's our job to make them look good.
Speaker C:It's our job to execute at 99 percent efficiency.
Speaker C:So when they have certain tasks that they need us to do, we make sure we perform those tasks.
Speaker C:We make sure that once performing those tasks, we perform those tasks efficiently without having to do too many redos or makeovers.
Speaker C:For example, we'll have a lot of different designs can come out from multiple offices.
Speaker C:So at times we may be doing 30, 40 designs within a week and more coming out.
Speaker C:And then they may have revisions.
Speaker C:So we make sure we're doing the revisions in a timely manner.
Speaker C:Then we make sure we're 508 ing them.
Speaker C:508 is kind of like an ADA certificate, making sure it passes these requirements.
Speaker C:Because one, when you're working with the VA, everything has a 508 requirement.
Speaker C:Getting these products so the VA can communicate to the veteran and because they have time limits.
Speaker C:So for example, 4th of July, we have the 250th anniversary coming up, Veterans Day.
Speaker C:Times like that, we see a lot more tasks come out for us.
Speaker C:The stress that the VA staff is going through to make sure that they meet the requirements and the tasks that they're being asked from their, their higher ups, their leadership.
Speaker C:We're there right by their side in this contract, working with them as a partner, making sure that they meet the standard that they're compelled to by their
Speaker B:leadership from our side.
Speaker B:What internal systems are required to handle this volume of these large number of projects and that they have to get done by a specific time.
Speaker C:We use quite a few different tools again for 508 compliance.
Speaker C:508C.
Speaker C:We use CommonLook or Alliant, now commonly known as CommonLook.
Speaker C:That's a 508C tool that's recognized by the VA and all of their standards meet what the VA asked for and a lot of other agencies.
Speaker C:We use Illustrator.
Speaker C:We have professional and educated designers that we're working with on our team.
Speaker C:We have program analysts when to it comes, when they need research, when they need outreach.
Speaker C:There's a lot of different events.
Speaker C:Whether it's DAV has an event, whether Wounded warriors has an event.
Speaker C:The VA has a lot of partners to put on a lot of events.
Speaker C:We're making sure that we're getting those events on the event calendar.
Speaker C:We're making sure those events are scheduled.
Speaker C:We're working with them using a lot of different tools, a lot of proprietary tools that the VA handles, that the VA manages, that you can't name, really can't name them, but we are working with them on those tools.
Speaker C:It's all about outreach to the veteran and making sure that when the veteran newsletters go out every month, we're working with the different partners that manage those newsletters.
Speaker C:Everything has a timeline, everything has a schedule.
Speaker C:We have to meet those schedules, we have to meet those timelines.
Speaker C:We have to give them top notch tools for them to communicate to the veteran, to their leadership.
Speaker B:So how do you protect quality with this recurring production?
Speaker C:Well, with quality, again, we provide the products that they're asking us to provide.
Speaker C:There's multiple reviews, there's multiple edits.
Speaker C:Again, it goes through different tests and it goes to leadership, leadership reviews.
Speaker C:It, leadership does tests.
Speaker C:So there's a lot of levels of, of scanning, a lot of levels of reviews that it goes for before anything goes out to the veteran, before anything goes out that they're communicating, whether it's to the Hill, to the White House, making sure quality, quality assurance is number one.
Speaker B:You're entering these contracts that are pretty long term with the clients.
Speaker B:What does client trust or building that trust look like in a long term contract?
Speaker B:Contract execution, of course.
Speaker C:That's it.
Speaker C:Quality execution, quality execution on time, giving them what they asked for.
Speaker C:Even if you're going not even actually going above the standard that they're asking for and making them look good by doing, making sure that they can do their job at or above standards.
Speaker C:And it's about trust and it's about being able to, knowing who you're working with, trusting who you're working with, knowing when the VA staff that we're working with has a requirement or has a task that they have to get out, that we're there, we're efficient, we give them what they ask for when they ask for it, and we make sure it's quality product.
Speaker B:So for all of the potential clients out there who are maybe listening or watching, would love for you to just summarize what we talked through and just give your high points of Brensys.
Speaker C:We are a full service marketing agency.
Speaker C:We work with multiple federal agencies, private sector corporations, companies, organizations, whether you're, whatever the industry that you're in.
Speaker C:We work for a high standard for the federal government and they have requirements, they have far regulations that have to be met.
Speaker C:They have a lot of different regulations that have to be kept up with.
Speaker C:So they don't want to see anything below a 99.6% quality measurement.
Speaker C:So we have to be able to perform for them, be able to execute at a very high standard and do it in sometimes very short timelines.
Speaker C:So being able to work with the federal government.
Speaker C:I said we're working.
Speaker C:And the state governments, we're working with very strict parameters and we're meeting those parameters and we're proud of it.
Speaker C:We get a lot of good quality feedback from the agencies and the staff that we're working with.
Speaker C:So I like to say that our team, to include you working on the EAC contract is doing an excellent job.
Speaker C:And I thank you and I thank the rest of the Brensis team.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:It's been fun.
Speaker B:My first.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's fun, it's energetic, it's exciting, it's challenging.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, just also from a PR perspective, like working with something that has such an impact on the daily news, daily national news that we have is really, really cool.
Speaker B:Like the whole infrastructure of what's top of mind and prioritized by these massive news outlets all the time.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And some of the.
Speaker C:As a PR direct public relations director working federal projects task orders sometimes and I know I never asked you, but I've spoken to a few other people that were working on some of those projects.
Speaker C:How does it feel when you look at the end product of something that people all around the world are saying or a part of or touching?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, it gives more purpose to your work.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:And I feel that way with all of our clients.
Speaker B:I think we do have a pretty big touch because we're marketing, even if it's travel and tourism, we're marketing to consumers whether they're in another state or sometimes in another country.
Speaker B:So you never know what message or where your work will touch people.
Speaker B:And I think that's really valuable is just having that impact and having my 2 cents kind of included within all of that production.
Speaker C:It feels really good to know that something you worked on probably got this veteran to show up to the nearest VA clinic.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's beautiful.
Speaker B:That's wonderful.
Speaker B:Well, anything else you want to cover?
Speaker C:Well, we are working on multiple projects with the va. We're working on projects with the sba, working on projects with eac.
Speaker C:When it comes to federal agencies and quite a few others out there.
Speaker C:Definitely, as we spoke one time before, we were working with the ncptsd, the national center for ptsd, on the About Face contract.
Speaker C:We're doing a lot of interviews and outreach with veterans with ptsd.
Speaker C:So a lot of the work that we're doing, a lot of the outreach that we're doing with veterans with federal agencies is very touching.
Speaker C:And it's work that we.
Speaker C:It's challenging, you know, the timelines, but it pays off.
Speaker C:And the more veterans we can help reach, the more veterans that we can help, the more that we can help the VA achieve, successfully achieve their mission.
Speaker C:That in itself is pays us a lot because we know that what we're doing to be able to help veterans.
Speaker B:I love that.
Speaker B:I think that's a great note to end on.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Well, thank you for tuning in to this episode of Aqua Talks, which was kind of a Brensis talks too.
Speaker B:Thank you, Larry for being my interviewee today.
Speaker B:And if you want to learn more about Larry Brensis or Aqua, please go to aquatalks.com you can learn more about this episode within there.
Speaker B:There's some links and details and things as well as our social media.
Speaker B:So tune in next time and looking forward to seeing you soon.
Speaker C:Thank you.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker A:You've been listening to aquatalks where marketing innovation takes center stage with bold ideas and actionable insights.
Speaker A:Ready to take your strategies to the next level.
Speaker A:Visit aquatacts.com to book your free consultation and explore resources that empower you to thrive in today's fast paced marketing world.
Speaker A:Until next time, stay bold, stay inspired, stay imaginative.
