Her Journey: Building Trust From First Mobile Search to the Decision for Life

Marketing your center is essential to drawing in women who desperately need to hear from a life-affirming voice about their pregnancy. And, regarding the services you provide, successful marketing is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.

As such, it’s tempting to take a practical approach to your marketing efforts and do whatever it takes to bring in new, abortion-determined clients. This, however, is a mistake because dishonest but effective marketing efforts are more likely to dissuade a woman from choosing life than limited but honest efforts to affirm her preborn child's life.

If you're looking for a marketing company that uses best practices but also has an honest approach to reaching abortion-minded women, contact us to find a vendor today.

FIND A VENDOR

Gabriella’s Journey: From Missed Period to New Life in Christ

Last week, Gabriella missed her period. While this wouldn’t ordinarily be cause for concern, she is sexually active with her boyfriend and has been, admittedly, a little inconsistent with her birth control.

“What if I’m pregnant?” Gabriella wonders. “Who can I trust to provide me with answers about my body and my future?”

With so much differing information available to her, it’s hard to know who to trust. Ever aware of being manipulated, Gabriella values the truth, however inconvenient that might be.

Searching the Internet for Answers

At this moment, Gabriella’s mind is flooded with a flurry of questions that she doesn’t feel confident or comfortable asking her friends and family about. Instead, she’s on her phone, searching for answers on the Internet:

“When’s the earliest I can test for pregnancy?”

“Where can I get an abortion pill?”

“Can my boyfriend force me to get an abortion?”

“Is abortion even legal in my state anymore?”

The questions Gabriella is searching for are the first step on what we call “Her Journey.” These are the stages a young woman experiencing an unexpected pregnancy goes through, beginning with the discovery she’s pregnant and continuing to the decision to commit to life or terminate the pregnancy.

Gabriella entered these questions into an online search on her phone and encountered answers from various websites, each offering competing messages – who could she trust?

For example, one of her searches was, “Where can I find a free pregnancy test?” In response to her keyword input, Google pulled up websites such as CVS Pharmacy, the World Health Organization, Planned Parenthood, and even a local crisis pregnancy center. Like most people, Gabriella went to the first search result on the page.

The sad truth is that too many life-affirming pregnancy center sites fail to reach women like Gabriella at this stage. Without a website that effectively attracts women searching on their cell phones, getting your message through to them at the start of their journey will be nearly impossible.

Finding a Pro-Life Pregnancy Center

Eventually, Gabriella found a website for “Abundant Life Pregnancy Resource Center.” While the website offered free pregnancy tests, the shame Gabriella was feeling made her feel less inclined to give up her personal information. Fortunately, a live nurses' chat line was available on the website. Gabriella texted the line and started chatting with a nurse.

This is the second step in her journey—making human contact. By offering multiple opportunities to connect, Abundant Life gave Gabriella a life-affirming voice, even scheduling an appointment to get her a free pregnancy test. Abundant Life built trust with Gabriella by allowing her to talk with a real person on her terms.

But, as all CPC directors know, it's one thing for Gabriella to schedule her appointment and another for her to show up. These are the Third and Fourth steps in her journey: scheduling an appointment and showing up for it.

The fourth step, attending her appointment, was the hardest for Gabriella. She had to meet new people, learn to trust them and share her innermost fears and doubts.

Gabriella knew that Abundant Life did not provide abortion services; the center was quite clear about that with their marketing. Despite this, she chose to connect with them because they were upfront and forthcoming with answers to her questions, not trying to sugarcoat or trick her into making a decision one way or the other.

Had Abundant Life pretended to be an abortion clinic and advertised itself as such, they may have more easily gotten in contact with Gabriella. Upon discovering that they didn’t provide abortions, her trust would’ve been betrayed, and she would’ve continued Her Journey with help from another place that would’ve encouraged her to get an abortion.

Choosing Life

Gabriella arrived for her appointment and tested positive on her free pregnancy test. The Fifth step in Her Journey was to get an ultrasound to confirm her pregnancy and determine when she conceived. 

When Gabriella arrived at Abundant Life, the warm and friendly staff answered her questions, including those she had searched on her cell phone. Her pregnancy advocate also provided her with various literature and offered resources to ease some of her financial concerns.

Since the Abundant Life staff was so supportive and honest with Gabriella, they earned her trust, leading to long conversations about her options and future.

Gabriella was encouraged by her advocates and committed to carrying her baby to term – the Sixth step in Her Journey was this life-changing decision. Despite her uncertainties, Gabriella had the confidence to choose life. 

Choosing Christ

The pregnancy advocates at Abundant Life offer empathetic care and services to all women experiencing an unexpected pregnancy, regardless of their religious or political views or even if they choose to abort or not. But they’re also very transparent in their own beliefs. Abundant Life is staffed by Christians and has a Christian mission at its heart.

Gabriella’s pregnancy advocate never tried to force a religious conviction on her, nor did she make proselytization a priority. What came first and foremost was unconditional care and respect for Gabriella.

But that doesn’t mean conversations about Jesus Christ didn’t come up. Gabriella’s pregnancy advocate assured her that regardless of her decision to carry or abort, God’s love towards her was unconditional.

These conversations went further, and Gabriella wanted to learn more. Along with her decision to carry to term, she also committed her life to Christ and decided to raise her expecting child with the same faith demonstrated to her by the ladies who worked at Abundant Life.

This is the final stage in Her Journey – a commitment to Christ.

Your Impact on Her Journey

If you would like to see more stories similar to Gabriella’s, it's important to understand each stage in her journey and ethically reach her at each stage with effective yet honest marketing efforts.

This blog was written by 828Collective – a digital marketing agency for pregnancy centers. We provide pregnancy centers with industry-leading websites and marketing services at a price that is affordable for even the smallest centers. We devote ourselves to understanding Her Journey so you can more effectively reach her at every stage of it.