Henriette has been interning in our Digital Engagement team and has been a huge help over the past three months. In her blog, she talks about her experience of working at Anthony Nolan, what her role in the team involved and what it's been like working in the charity sector. She also tells us about the Halloween social media campaign she worked on, which aimed to show that donating stem cells isn't scary, bust myths around the donation process, and recruit more lifesaving donors to the register.
Three months have passed and my internship in the Digital Engagement Team at Anthony Nolan has come to an end. It’s been a great few months with a lot of valuable experience in an organisation that works to save people’s lives from blood cancer and blood disorders.
Why did I want to work for Anthony Nolan? I particularly wanted to work for Anthony Nolan because of all the great work the organisation does for people affected by blood cancer. I was at home in Norway when I was offered the position, and remember I was really excited about moving to London and contributing to the lifesaving work that Anthony Nolan does.
What did the role involve? Over the past three months I have got to learn a lot about Anthony Nolan and the important work they do for people with blood cancer. Not only do they recruit people to the stem cell register, they also carry out research in the field of stem cell transplantation, and provide vital support to patients and families.
I have been able to get involved in lots of different areas of work, such as updating the website, learning to create and send e-mails to supporters, creating Facebook Ads, developing landing pages, learning to use Google Analytics, and developing my social media skills. The list is long, and this has really enabled me to improve my overall digital marketing skills.
What have been your key achievements? Over the past three months I have been involved with several exciting projects. But my main achievement has been managing a campaign for Halloween 2017. This was a campaign aiming to bust myths about stem cell donation: particularly myths about stem cell donation being painful or something to be scared of. The goal was to get more young men to sign up to the register and to improve retention of donors who have already signed up.
We decided to create a humorous and light-hearted campaign to tap into the way that Halloween is seen as a fun and youth focused day. I worked with the graphic designers and copy-writers in Anthony Nolan’s Creative Studio to create engaging content that we could use to target young men via Facebook Ads.
One of the most exciting aspects of the project was filming a donor while he was donating his stem cells in hospital. We then edited the footage and created a selection of short videos that were published on social media as part of the campaign. This was a really interesting project and I got to learn a lot about stem cell donation, as well as getting more experience in filming interviews.
Ultimately, the campaign recruited lots of people to the stem cell register, going beyond the initial targets.
How have you benefited from this role? Being able to manage a campaign, as well as learning about all the areas of work of the Digital team has given me new digital skills and experience that I will be able to use in future roles, and will be a great boost to my CV.
Lastly, I would really like to take this opportunity to give a big thank you to everyone at Anthony Nolan. You really are a group of inspiring individuals that are making a huge difference everyday!
All the best,
Henriette