WAQRR — Marketing & Engagement

As Marketing and Engagement Coordinator for WAQRR (Washington Alliance for Quality Recovery Residences), I manage the marketing and communications infrastructure that keeps a statewide network of recovery housing operators informed, connected, and engaged. This is a full communications role — I own the strategy, execute the design, and manage the brand across every digital touchpoint. What I do: — Lead planning and promotion for the annual WAQRR Leadership Summit — Manage WAQRR's website and all digital content updates — Run WAQRR's social media presence — Design promotional graphics, flyers, and event materials — Support outreach for trainings, webinars, and sector-facing communications — Develop clear, branded communications for operators, partners, and stakeholders across Washington State

About the Client

The Washington Alliance for Quality Recovery Residences (WAQRR), is a non-profit organization that partners with the Washington State Health Care Authority to oversee a registry of recovery residences throughout the state. Established in 2017 by a group of recovery residence operators and other stakeholders, WAQRR is committed to supporting safe and healthy residential communities for individuals in recovery from substance use disorders. The organization serves as a platform for mutual support, accountability, and resources for recovery residence operators who seek to establish and maintain high-quality recovery residences. WAQRR's primary mission is to promote the successful management and growth of community-based recovery residences throughout Washington State, creating a network of safe, effective, and high-quality recovery providers that provide essential environments for recovery from all types of substance use disorders.

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Responsibilities

As the Marketing and Engagement Coordinator for WAQRR, I leveraged my diverse skill set to support the organization's mission of promoting high-quality community-based recovery residences in Washington State. My responsibilities included the following:

Creating and implementing marketing plan: I created and implemented a marketing plan for 2022, where I performed a SWOT Analysis to identify the company's internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as outside opportunities and threats. From there, I was able to identify objectives and tactics to achieve the company's goals, which included expanding WAQRR's network and improving relationships with stakeholders. While I cannot share the entire document due to confidentiality, I can provide select pages that showcase my ability to develop strategic plans and analyze data to achieve specific outcomes.

Managing and producing content for multiple channels: I maintained, wrote, and designed content for WAQRR's monthly newsletter, Facebook page, and website, ensuring that all messaging was consistent with the organization's brand guidelines.

Creating engaging designs for various events: I designed eye-catching flyers, banners, and other materials for conferences and table events, ensuring that all designs effectively communicated WAQRR's mission and values.

Streamlining processes with automation: I automated the resident funding application process, reducing administrative overhead and improving the user experience for residents seeking financial assistance.

Developing comprehensive toolkits: I wrote and designed two separate toolkits to support WAQRR's partnerships with the Washington State Health Care Authority. I also presented both toolkits in WAQRR's Webinar Series: Navigating the World of CBHA's and A Guide to Successful Partnerships with Landlords.

CBHA Toolkit

Did you know that Washington State has over 100 CBHAs that provide critical behavioral health services to individuals and families in need? This toolkit aims to provide information and resources to recovery residence operators seeking to partner with community behavioral health agencies that offer Medicaid reimbursable services in accordance with Service Encounter Reporting Instructions Guide.

Private Landlord Toolkit

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, individuals who live in recovery residences have a higher likelihood of achieving and maintaining sobriety. However, there is a shortage of these residences in Washington State. That's where our Private Landlord Toolkit comes in. This toolkit assists those in the process of reaching out to and cultivating relationships with landlords about recovery residences.

Overall, my contributions helped to amplify WAQRR's message and enabled the organization to more effectively achieve its goals.

Website Redesign

Before and After

As the lead designer and developer for WAQRR's website, I took on the challenge of enhancing the platform's visual identity and functionality. This involved redesigning the logo, color scheme, and graphics, as well as introducing several new features to improve user experience. Notable additions included an interactive events page, a provider network forum, contact and grievances forms, a resident funding application, and a "meet the team" page. To facilitate the new resident funding program in collaboration with the Washington State Health Care Authority, I created a custom application form that automatically transferred applicant information to a designated spreadsheet. The result was a streamlined process that enabled us to disburse over $300,000 in rent assistance to at-risk residents across more than 580 accredited recovery residences.

Website Traffic

Over the past year, I have been dedicated to increasing the traffic to waqrr.org, and I'm thrilled to share the results. With a split bar chart detailing the data from January 24, 2021, to February 5, 2023, I can proudly say that there has been a significant increase in both new and returning visitors to the website. Site sessions have increased by 302%, reaching a total of 7,492, and unique visitors have grown by 212%, with 3,701 visitors coming to the website.

What makes this growth particularly impressive is that all of it was achieved organically, without any paid advertising. The effectiveness of the website updates and other efforts we implemented to improve the user experience played a crucial role in achieving this growth.

One factor that could have contributed to this increase in traffic is the implementation of new features on the website, such as the addition of an events page, provider network forum, contact form, and other helpful tools. These updates made it easier for users to find and interact with the content they were interested in, which likely encouraged them to stay on the site longer and explore more pages.

Furthermore, the overall user experience was improved by updating the website's visual design, enhancing navigation, and making other improvements. These changes helped to create a more professional and user-friendly website that provided visitors with the information and resources they needed to make informed decisions about their recovery journey.

The increase in website traffic was significant, with a 6,122% increase in direct traffic, a 24,067% increase in sessions from Google, and a staggering 57,300% increase in traffic from recoveryhousingwa.org. These results are a testament to the hard work and effort that has gone into making waqrr.org more accessible and appealing to its audience.

Overall, it's clear that these efforts to improve the website user experience and provide valuable resources to users have been successful in driving significant organic growth in website traffic. It has been a pleasure to take the steps needed to increase traffic, and I'm proud of the results we've achieved.

Growth and Insights

Over the past year, we've seen remarkable growth in our Facebook presence at WAQRR. From January 2022 to January 2023, our Facebook page, located at saw a 1.9K% increase in organic reach, without any paid advertising. This growth resulted in a total of 5,360 organic reach, indicating that our organic marketing strategies are highly effective.

We also experienced a significant increase in page likes, with a 1.4K% increase and the addition of 118 new likes. These results reflect the high level of engagement our audience has with our content on Facebook.

This success is due in part to our approach of posting high-quality, relevant content and utilizing visuals to encourage sharing. By creating a community around our page, we encouraged followers to share their own content, ask for their opinions and feedback, and respond to comments. This approach has helped us to build a loyal and engaged audience on Facebook, resulting in significant growth in reach and likes over the past year.