Government Program Marketing Strategy Case Study — CalABLE
We Are CalABLE: Building a Statewide Marketing Strategy for California’s Disability Savings Program
How it started
CalABLE is California’s tax-advantaged savings program for people with disabilities. Its Board needed a marketing plan for education and outreach across California and nationally. The plan had to reach people with disabilities, the parents and caregivers who often open accounts for them, and the professionals who serve them.
It also had to meet California accessibility requirements (Government Code 7405 and 11135, and WCAG), use people-first language, and reach non-English-speaking communities. We worked with the Board, the Executive Director, the Program Manager, the State Treasurer’s communications office, and the Board’s other contractors.
What we did
We ran audience journey workshops with the CalABLE team, people living with disabilities, and the National Disability Institute to build a profile and journey for each audience: what they believe about saving, who they trust, what triggers them to act, and what gets in their way.
We found that each audience needed a different message. Many people with disabilities had been told for years they couldn’t save more than $2,000, so the work pointed to hope and concrete goals like a home, a car, or education. Parents needed urgency, safety, and an easy way for family to contribute. Advocates needed toolkits that made the message easy to pass along, and recognition for their time.
We mapped content and channels to every stage, from first awareness through opening an account and telling others about it. We delivered the annual marketing plan in three drafts over about six weeks. Every campaign in it had a work plan, methodology, timeline, budget, and a reporting step so the Board could see what worked.
How it’s going
We designed three campaigns for CalABLE, one to inform, one to instruct, and one to inspire, and we wrote the tagline that carries them: “We are CalABLE.” The explainer videos, infographics, and toolkits from those campaigns are still in use today.
For how we redesigned the enrollment experience itself, see our research case study.
