Email Communication | Reach The Public

Going All Digital: How to Move Paper-Based Transactional Messages Online

I don’t have to tell you how constrained government budgets are these days. If you work in government, you know the depth of budget cuts and lack of resources – but this doesn’t mean that you stop doing the important work you’ve done before. You still need to communicate with your citizens and stakeholders about your services, from recycling updates to open park times to tax updates.

A recent white paper titled, Cutting the Costs of Paper: Digital Delivery of Government Messages & Statements, may provide another perspective on how to better reach citizens and stakeholders with important, personalized messages while working within constrained budgets. The white paper notes:

Many government agencies are achieving efficiencies through e-government initiatives that move processes and communications online. Yet paper is still an essential part of many communications between agencies and the public. These paper-based processes are often a bottleneck, slowing down essential processes such as payments while increasing costs for handling paper.

Some agencies send high volumes of these transactional messages, which often represent a sizable cost to the agency. The cost of printing and mailing is just the tip of the iceberg. Keeping these business processes on paper creates significant follow-on costs for handling inbound forms or calls. By moving these printed messages to electronic mail, agencies can realize significant cost savings while streamlining business processes and becoming more efficient.

What’s a transactional message? The white paper gives some examples, but it may be easier to start with a private sector example. For instance, if you have a credit card, you can usually set up a recurring email alert to notify you when your balance reaches a certain threshold. I have one of my credit cards set up to send me this kind of email alert; but it doesn’t just tell me that I’ve reached a certain balance, it also tells me exactly what my credit card balance is in the email. And then it gives me the option of clicking on a link to see more information through my credit card portal.

How would this work for government? An easy example would be property tax statements. Usually this information is mailed to the citizen or business, with a paper statement for payment, if that’s required. Because of the very specific information contained in the statement, it’s been easier for organizations to collate this information and print it, then mail it. The other option has usually been to implement or install an enterprise system that’s expensive and large to manage. But with advances in technology, especially with application programming interfaces (APIs), this is no longer the case. Legacy financial or citizen relationship management systems can remain intact while APIs do the work of pulling in personalized information and then sending out these transactional messages to their intended recipients. Transactions with government organizations that were generated from paper-based communications can move to an all-electronic process, saving your organization time, money and resources.

The white paper goes into more depth. But why not hear from an expert? GovDelivery’s Technical Product Manager, Tor Flatebo, is discussing this very topic on a live webinar on March 27. The webinar is free, and you can pick Tor’s brain on all the ways transactional messaging can work for your organization. Register today.

APIs, citizen service, collaboration, communications, community, digital government, e-gov, email, engagement, Gov 2.0, government services, responsiveness, technology, web 2.0

Email: The Major League Player

When you are formulating your digital communication strategy, what tools form the foundation for your execution? Social media is most likely the first thought that comes to mind these days. And understandably so; social media, in its many forms, can be a very effective communications tool. However, email remains a key tool, especially in the evolving communications industry.

Jeremy Greene, VP of Product Management at GovDelivery, recently shared these key success factors in digital communication strategies during his “What’s Next In Digital Communications” presentation at our kick-off event of GovDelivery’s 2013 Communications Tour. To find out where the next tour stop is, click here. Here’s a quick summary of some of his main points:

1. Email remains the foundation of digital communications
Of the over 80% of adults who are online, 94% of those adults are leveraging email. These are numbers that are hard to ignore. To further illustrate just how large the email user base truly is, picture this for a moment: if the following communication platforms were countries, Facebook would have a population of 1 billion; Twitter would have a population of 200 million (the size of Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakstan); and email’s population would be a whopping 3.2 billion.

2. Multichannel communications
The main goal is to create content once, and then push it out through all of your communication channels. Chances are, you and your colleagues don’t have time to create new content for each of these channels on a regular basis. This model is often known as the C.O.P.E method (Create Once, Publish Everywhere).

This can be done from either angle as a starting point. In other words, take content from your blog or email newsletter and use the same content in your Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and any other communication channels. Or pull content from your social media feeds and use it to create email newsletters. This is an efficient and effective way to get information to your audience faster and increases the opportunities for your content to be shared within multiple channels.

Jeremy suggests adding an icon option on your website that allows for people to sign up for a weekly digest of all tweets that come out of your organization. He says this “tends to gain a lot of traction” and that “many clients have more recipients on their Twitter email list than they actually have of Twitter followers.” Find out where your target audience is hanging out — which social media channels they are already using — and hone your focus to those.

3. Messaging optimized for mobile
How do your current communication efforts look on a mobile phone? More people are using their phones to check email and surf the web, and this continues to grow as “78% of US email users will also access their emails via mobile by 2017” (Forrester Research, 2012). In fact, “43% of email is now opened on a mobile device” (Litmus, Email Analytics, 2012).

Jeremy emphasizes the importance of “taking the time and due diligence to make sure that the content that you’re creating looks good on a mobile device.” If you aren’t, less than half of your intended audience will see the message on a device that isn’t optimized for mobile use. The take-away here? Take the extra time and really focus on making your digital communications optimized for mobile.

4. Capturing subscribers during key contacts
Jeremy recommends taking an audit of all the customer touch points that you have with your citizens, and try to turn unhappy moments into a positive experience. For example, if someone is unhappy about missing a town meeting, instead of just giving them the next date, ask if they would like to get signed up for email alerts for all future meetings. Use various opportunities to capture subscribers.

Do you know the answer to this question? (Knowing the answer can be a powerful way to find out where you should be focusing your communication strategy.)

“What percentage of my audience within the last 90 days has seen any of my content?”

To find out how you can get this information, if you don’t have it, attend one of our stops on our 2013 Digital Communications Tour. We’re traveling to different cities nationwide to get the word out on best practices & trends in digital communication. Hear from public sector experts, providing insightful perspectives and strategies on government communications, and from your peers in government on their successful tactics and projects. Register today. Space is limited!

Citizen Engagement, communication, community, content, digital government, e-gov, email, engagement, innovation, local government, outreach, social media, technology, Twitter, web 2.0

Is There a Best Time to Send an Email?

By Anna Stroncek, Marketing & Communications Intern, GovDelivery

With an average of 144.8 billion e-mails sent worldwide on a daily basis, a continually daunting question weighs on the minds of almost all those involved in digital communications: “When is the best time to send an e-mail?”

A typical corporate user receives approximately 110 e-mails per day. That’s a lot of emails to handle in a world where recipients have increasingly less time to read them. So how can you ensure your message will be read, or even opened?

It Depends.

While no two organizations are the same, the most successful time for any organization to send an e-mail will depend on its audience. While the answer “it depends” may seem just as daunting as the question itself, there is a way to uncover the most successful time for your organization to send out its e-mails.

As the world of digital communications continues to grow, more research is conducted in an attempt to answer this loaded question. After pouring through various blogs, studies and statistics in hopes of providing you the absolute perfect time to send emails, I have found one unanimous conclusion – the way to find the most success in your e-mail efforts is to TEST. Test sending your content on varying days and times, examine the results, and then test some more before drawing any conclusions. Alan Ferguson, Web Manager for Central Bedfordshire Council (CBC), looks at this testing method as “letting the customers direct how you do communications.” CBC provides a great example of how taking the time to test can change the way in which an organization communicates entirely.

As Web Manager, Ferguson played a key role in directing Central Bedfordshire Council’s transition to digital communications. A major part of this transition consisted of identifying which tactics would provide Central Bedfordshire with their desired results: high response rates.

So what was learned?

As CBC sent e-mails, they tested response rates continuously, making adjustments along the way and collecting the information for analysis. Upon completing their analysis, the following trends were identified:

Monday and Friday provided the worst results in terms of click-through and open rates.
Both Tuesday through Thursday and Saturday yielded the best results.
Overall, Wednesday provided the highest response rate for their e-mail bulletins.
Longer news bulletins resulted in the higher response rates when sent on the weekends.

CBC used this data as a tool to align their communications strategy with its customers’ behaviors. Today, specific bulletins are sent out just after midnight on Saturday or Sunday. These bulletins provide content aimed at highlighting what is open on the weekend and when, rather than promoting services that wouldn’t be available to customers during that time. Longer news bulletins are also sent out on the weekend when people have more time to digest the information and visit the website if additional information is desired or required. Other newsletters, information and alerts are sent out midweek in an effort to avoid being left unread on Monday and Fridays.

What Can You Take Away from Central Bedfordshire Council’s Success?

While CBC’s results may not provide the complete solution for you, their success does illustrate a few key points to remember when searching for the best time to send an e-mail.

Any organization’s best time will be unique to them. There is no “one size fits all” solution to digital communications. Each organization’s information and customer base is different. What works well for one organization may not be what works for yours.
Different types of content may have different best times. Just as Central Bedfordshire found the weekends to be successful for sending out longer news bulletins and Wednesday’s to work well for more overview information, your organization’s various forms of content may find higher response rates on differing days of the week.
Remember to test, test and test some more before making conclusions. High response rates may not be found on your first try. Conducting several tests provides more data, ultimately allowing for better conclusions to be made. Don’t be afraid to try sending your Monday newsletter on Sunday afternoon, you never know what may happen.
Let the customer direct your communications. Increased testing and results allow trends in your customer’s behavior to be more easily spotted. Customer’s engagement rates are sending you a message, but it’s up to you to receive and respond to it.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, just think of it this way; you’re already sending e-mails, thus the testing process has already begun! Take the time to look at your response, click-through and open rates. Don’t be afraid to switch things up and find the directions your customers are giving you.

In the meantime, if you are looking for a jump-start on your testing process be sure to check out Alan Ferguson’s full presentation at the GovDelivery UK Event or watch his presentation online.

communication, data, e-gov, email, engagement, GovDelivery, government, innovation, outreach, UK Government

Becoming a Hero to Returning Veterans and Families

By Lance Horne, General Manager, GovDelivery Federal Team

Last year, Forbes magazine published an article written by a United States Marine Corp sergeant about what it’s like to return from combat. While warfighters are thrilled to be back, many face the surreal task of returning to the life they knew before combat. They come from an environment of unquestioningly taking orders, living in close quarters with their fellow soldiers, and under the constant stress of combat that few of us can easily relate to. Yet they are expected to come back and instantly integrate.

A number of federal agencies face a daily challenge of re-integrating the military when they do return from combat, and making sure returning warfighters are receiving the benefits they are entitled to. Federal agencies have quickly realized that they need to take their communications game up a notch or two to give these veterans and their families the information they need and deserve post-deployment. This has proved to be a perplexing problem, but there are things that can be done to improve.

Federal agencies feel compelled to deliver communications to warfighters and their families – especially when they come home – in a friendly and reliable manner. However, having the expertise to communicate in such a way is a special skill. And if we look back at what I talked about in my “Reach out …” posting a couple of weeks ago, more effective government-to-citizen (G2C) communications can boost an agency’s image and position it as an essential part of citizens’ lives. So where do agencies turn for help? Well, for starters, they could rely on technology partners to help them set up the means and the recommended communication channels to make talking with returning military and their families much more effective.

In the long run, finding the right technology partner is more cost-effective than trying to develop the systems on your own. For federal agencies, it has become essential to not only clearly and empathically communicate with returning military and their families, but to be able to gather feedback and open a two-way dialogue with them as well. Having an ability to communicate in such ways heightens the overall effectiveness of communications and makes the warfighter and his or her family feel more like they are participating in the process of reacclimating to civilian life and playing a strong role in the process of getting the information they need.

One such example of how effective communications can benefit warfighters comes from Washington state, where some war veterans were enrolled in Medicaid but not taking advantage of federal benefits. The state informed them of this discrepancy, and the vets were moved off Medicaid and onto federal programs, saving the state $30 million since 2004.

Once you have a steady stream of feedback from the audience you’re communicating with, what do you do with all of that data? As described in my last blog, “Taking an Entrepreneurial Jump on the Cloud“, agencies are starting to move to cloud computing to access and store data. Using traditional technology to wrestle meaning out of the information at your disposal is challenging.

New technology that you can coordinate through cloud computing will allow you to query gigantic data sets so you could find out where subscriber growth is, and when people are most interested in specific information.

If your agency is responsible for communicating with returning warfighters and their families, what has your experience been like? What success have you had? What could you have done better?

citizen service, cloud, collaboration, communications, community, digital government, engagement, GovDelivery, outreach, responsiveness, technology

Digital communicators transform service delivery. We are change agents.

By Kathy Kyle, Digital Communications Consultant, GovDelivery

Among the many topics discussed at this year’s Communications Camp (@commscamp | #commscamp13), the one that resonated most with me was how to best demonstrate the value of digital communications. If we can’t measure our impact as communicators, how can we influence and transform our organisations?

As a former Communications and Marketing Director in both the public and private sector, I found the most traction when I aligned communications performance metrics with customer service outcomes. In my central government agency roles, I ensured our communications approach focused on internal and external customers’ interests. Regardless of whether I was working on an internal communications programme to engage employees or a multi-faceted, externally facing digital campaign to generate support for a new regulation, I measured our success by aligning our communications efforts to our mission and by focusing on shifting my audiences’ activities and behaviours: web impressions, media coverage, social media activity, survey responses, focus group outcomes and anecdotal feedback.

We were able to demonstrate the value of digital communications by aligning our strategy and performance metrics with the people we served – both internally and externally. If you are struggling to develop a comprehensive evaluation programme, or just want to demonstrate your value as a communicator, consider the following activities:

Build support internally with leadership and cross-functionally across the organisation.
Drive your audience to online channels for accurate measurement of activities – measure whether you experience fewer calls and in-person visits due to your digital strategy.
Create content once and repurpose it (the COPE model: Create Once, Publish Everywhere)
Use the most effective, inexpensive and targeted communication channels that suit your audience. But don’t just use a social media tool because it is “free” – ensure your audience uses the channel. For example, 3.2 billion people use email, over a billion use Facebook and over 500 million use Twitter (some analysts indicate 140m active users).

Should you care about how many Twitter followers your organisation has? Or “likes” on Facebook? Yes and no. How do you know those followers are really fans? Or even in your target population? It matters more if you reach your intended audience and change their behaviour about government services. According to a study conducted by LGiU, “a Facebook ‘fan’ or Twitter follower doesn’t necessarily capture the connection and lead to a direct, sustainable, two-way relationship with a resident.” I am not suggesting throwing the baby out with the bathwater – instead, focus on your mission (some form of government service) and the people you serve (your customers) and create a bespoke plan to reach them.

There isn’t an exact science to measuring communications success – but there are ways in which we can demonstrate our value. We must shift our role from press release writers to service delivery communicators, and then delivering results that matter to our customers. We are change agents.

Kathy Kyle, Digital Communications Consultant at GovDelivery
kathy.kyle@govdelivery @bonominiyogini

citizen service, communication, community, content, responsiveness, social media, technology, UK Government, web 2.0

How to Reach 400% More Audience

This post was revised to include updated information on the webinar.

As a government communications professional, being able to reach your stakeholders is possibly the most important part of executing your responsibilities. If you need to send out communications to a specific group of people, being able to reach them is critical. It doesn’t matter what how well-written your communications are if they aren’t read.

So how do you increase your reach? Some recent posts can give you a tip or two: Let it snow! and Are you sitting on a pot of gold? But why not hear directly from a government agency that increased its outreach by 400%, growing their digital communication subscriber list from under 240,000 stakeholders to nearly 1 million.

Tomorrow, Christine Schwerin, Marketing Account Manager for the Michigan State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) sat down with us and offered up best practices, lessons learned, and tips on how to increase your communications reach. View the webinar recording on our website.

Still, for many, outreach is just the beginning. Engagement and customer satisfaction is often the elusive “true” goal. In reality, you’re competing with other communications (from businesses and friends and family). How do you increase engagement and customer satisfaction despite all the other things competing for your audience’s attention? You have to deliver information that is pertinent and resonates with your stakeholders. To that end, Christine is going to share how their communications strategy and execution has led to a 95% satisfaction rate with the DNR’s digital communications.

Webinar details

Topic: Best practices & successes from Michigan Department of Natural Resources

Duration: 1 hour

View the webinar online now.

citizen, communications, engagement, Gov 2.0, local government, outreach, responsiveness

Let it snow! Inclement weather drives engagement with the public

January 28th, 2013 | Posted by GovDelivery in Analytics/Data | Email Communication | UK Government - (1 Comments)

By Kathy Kyle, Digital Communications Consultant, GovDelivery UK

The whole of the United Kingdom experienced a week of widespread travel disruptions and school closures due to unusually inclement weather. The extended forecast promises additional wintry, blizzard-like conditions – with as much as seven inches of snow, rain and ice over the next week. One of the worst incidents reported was last Wednesday, when 30 people were forced to spend the night in a shelter after becoming stranded when the A39 between Bridgwater and Williton in Somerset became impassable.

More than ever, it is critical that government agencies at the national and local level efficiently and effectively alert local residents about floods, school closures, and road and mass transit disruptions.

At GovDelivery, we are finding that the snow has had a tremendous impact on the uptake of subscribers to government services and information, with increases in local authority subscriptions topping 3900% this past week. In one day, West Sussex received 1,447 new subscribers interested in receiving alerts. As we expected, there was an upward trend in subscriptions to the Highways Agency (HA) and the Met Office, with increases in alert subscribers of up to 180%.

More compelling than the expected increase in subscribers to weather and transit-related services was the surge in citizens subscribing to central government organisations, whose missions are completely unrelated to the impact of extreme weather. For instance, the National Audit Office (NAO) experienced a 16% increase new subscribers over the latest snowy three-day period, and the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) saw a 114% increase over the course of the same week.

This demonstrates the power of the GovDelivery Network, a bi-directional relationship formed between government organisations that use our integrated, seamless digital communications platform. Visitors have the opportunity to opt-in to alerts regarding a variety of government services. This cross-promotion of government services drives subscriptions, helping organisations reach dramatically more people, especially those who may have never known about or thought to search for a specific government topic.

Derbyshire County Council, who is using GovDelivery to reach more residents regarding school closures, experienced an increase of 956 subscribers in one day. Other councils – Sheffield, Herefordshire, and Crawley Borough – all experienced increases between 575% and 752%, with the majority of traffic to their websites coming from HA, the Met Office, and Department of Health.

With nearly 1.5 million subscribers in the UK alone (41 million worldwide), the GovDelivery Network not only drives engagement, but connects citizens to potentially life-saving information in an efficient, effective way through a simple, opt-in subscription process.

With pending severe weather across the country, it is more important than ever to leverage the GovDelivery ecosystem to maximise direct connections with citizens.

Learn more about how central government and local authorities are reaching more people.

citizen service, communications, digital, email, government services, outreach

Top 10 Most Viewed Blog Posts on Reach the Public

I know 2013 started just over a week ago, but it already feels like it’s been weeks since I celebrated the holidays and New Year’s with my family and friends. I think part of this is jumping back into the work day after some time off, but part of it is probably due to the fact that 2012 “year-end” reviews started weeks ago. (Google posted their Zeitgeist 2012 video a month ago! If you haven’t watched it, take a look and note how many cool events were driven by government organizations like yours.)

So I may be a little late to the game in adding my 2012 “top viewed blog entries” list, but I console myself that it’s only been a week or so. And with the belief that this list contains good reading that’s timeless. For those who may have missed these along the way, here are the top ten most-viewed blog entries on Reach the Public in 2012 and why I think they’re worth revisiting:

In this post, Lauren Modeen, Engagement Strategist extraordinaire, answers a question she received in a Reddit chat: how can you use rewards to motivate your online community?

She highlights four different ways that rewards can spur conversation and keep a community engaged, from simply featuring a member’s activity (whether that’s a discussion, question, or profile) to sending thank you notes or swag.

Why do I think this post is worth revisiting now? As we moved through 2012, it was impossible to ignore the impact of social media in government. Not just because it was a “new” way of amplifying the reach of government communications but also because of the emphasis on social. At the end of the day, people want to be part of a community; they want to interact with others who are interested in things they’re interested in. And government organizations began to understand that creating, developing and managing communities could be one way to truly drive mission value in a way that had never been done before.

Using Rewards to Motivate Your Online Community

This post was written quickly as I sat in a hotel room near GovDelivery UK’s office, up late with jet lag; so please allow me a moment to be a bit proud that it’s in this top ten list.

I logged onto my email to catch up on news in the communications world, and I saw the article on ReadWriteWeb detailing Mark Cuban’s opinion on Facebook. It was a fascinating read to me, mainly because of the very provocative but highly understandable situation Cuban faced with his basketball team (the Dallas Mavericks.) His organization had worked hard to gain Facebook fans, and they’d worked hard to engage that audience over a long period of time. So to come face-to-face with the knowledge that those connections aren’t actually available when you want them — or worse, that you have to pay Facebook to reach them — was jarring. For a government agency, that can mean a matter of life or death when you consider a situation like Hurricane Sandy.

Why is this post worth revisiting? It’s a good reminder that direct connections matter, especially in urgent situations. But it’s also good to remember that an integrated communications approach is still the key to ensuring that your government organization’s message is distributed as broadly as possible.

Abandoning Facebook

You’ll notice as you go through the rest of this list how much of these posts cover social media in government. Do you think it’s odd that the second most-viewed post was about abandoning Facebook but other posts in the top ten are about how to leverage or use social media? I think this is indicative of our society’s love/hate relationship with social media.

In this post, we summarize one of the most popular webinars I’ve ever hosted in my professional career (and I’ve hosted a lot of webinars). Our main speaker, Kristy Fifelski, also known as “GovGirl,” detailed her top 8 ways for government to engage citizens with social media – and boy, did we learn how hot a topic that was.

With nearly 1000 registrants, we had to expand our webinar contract (which had been limited to 250 “seats” to 1000 just in case everyone showed up.) And we had to expand our teleconference capability to ensure that everyone who attended could hear us. The experience gave myself and my IT team a mini heart attack – but it was all for a good cause, because this webinar was really amazing.

With concrete examples, in-the-field knowledge and expertise, and a fun presentation, Kristy/GovGirl gave our audience of government communicators key tips and tricks that could be implemented immediately to start using social media in more engaging ways. This is one post definitely worth revisiting.

8 Ways for Government to Engage Citizens with Social Media

Pinterest, another social networking site, launched in beta form in 2010 but didn’t start picking up more traction until mid-2011. By early 2012, it had become, as our post notes, “the hottest thing in social media.” By the end of 2012, the hotness had worn off a bit; but Pinterest remains a solid social networking site, with the most year-over-year growth for social desktop, web and app usage, according to Nielsen’s 2012 Social Media Report.

So take a look at this post on how government organizations can leverage Pinterest. As a site that stresses the social aspect of images, Pinterest can be a powerful storytelling social platform that extends beyond the capabilities of a social network like Twitter. This post reminds you of some ways to leverage this storytelling foundation to generate more interest and provide more value for your stakeholders.

Why Should Government be Interested in Pinterest?

That’s right, folks. The Internet and technology is no longer the sole purview of the young. In this post, we take on the idea that you can’t reach older demographics with digital means. That’s bollocks, as the British would say.

“Studies show that senior citizens are fast adopting email as one of their primary methods of digital interaction and communication. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 87% of senior citizens use email and search engines, while the Nielsen Company found that checking email was the primary online activity for 88.6% of seniors.”

If that’s not a prime reason to review your communications strategy and ensure that you’re using your digital communications to reach a broad spectrum of stakeholders, take a look at this post to find out which age group uses digital technology to do what (i.e. to get email, to use a search engine, to look for health information, etc.) The statistics will surprise you!

Tech-Savvy Senior Citizens on the Rise

The title says it all. Here’s a guide to help you with the best practices we’ve found in utilizing digital communications to reach your stakeholders and the public.

The post talks about why the guide is important and some of the strategies used by well-known public sector organizations. In fact, the guide’s been accessed more than 8,500 times since it was released last April.

The guide itself is a pretty deep dive into what works for digital communications, culled from over a decade of work with government organizations worldwide. If you don’t have the time to sit down to read it all, why not download it and try to tackle one tip or trick a week?

Digital Communication Best Practices Guide Now Available

Our friend and professional colleague, Steve Ressler, Founder of GovLoop, allowed us to share his thoughts on internal communications.

In the world of Gov 2.0 and Web 2.0, he tackles the next version of internal communications, drawing on current technologies used to communicate with the public to help facilitate internal communications. For instance, Human Resources could use text messages/SMS to remind employees of form deadlines.

As one of the top ten most popular posts of 2012, I think this post speaks to the need not only to reach the public to drive mission value but to reach our own internal audiences to help ensure that everyone is on the same page and working towards the same big goals.

Internal Communications 2.0

I have to be honest: this was one of my favorite posts from 2012. Why? Because it brought something virtual and often “abstract” or conceptual into something physical that I understood: a shining example of how great communications can be.

In this post, our resident community management expert, Lauren, addresses the question, “How do I design an online community? What’s it supposed to look like?” And her answer is, in my opinion, pretty awesome.

If your government organization has an online community or is even thinking about starting one, take a look at this post. It’s a critical piece to consider when developing a community. Oftentimes, when we think about communities, we consider finding people who are going to be the community managers and hype people; how to keep an online community going; or how to generate discussion – all of which is important. But a clean, easy, and structured online community helps with all of that, and Lauren gives you an easy-to-read road map here.

How to Design an Online Community

Just a few days ago, Joseph Marks posted a short note about content on government websites, noting that most “dot-govs fail on content, not technology.”

That makes this post increasingly relevant. As a communications person myself, the power of content is becoming more and more apparent. It’s what drives connections between an organization and its audience.

In this post, our Digital Marketing Manager/Guru, Mike Bernard, tackles the idea of content marketing for government and provides ten tips that your organization can start using immediately to leverage the power of content to help meet your agency’s goals and drive mission value. From repurposing content to curation to making content easily shareable, these tactics can help you see an uptick in your outreach programs.

Content Marketing – Government Style

If you’re remotely interested in government technology, you probably already know the acronym “APIs”. It was hard to miss Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel’s tweet about it.

That’s why I think this post was one of the most-viewed from 2012. In 2013, I’d be surprised if APIs weren’t a continuing hot topic. The integrations available with this technology make it a critical component of the Federal Digital Government Strategy, but even more than that, it allows connections in ways that make government more efficient. What’s not to love?

In this post, Richard Fong, a (master) Technical Implementation Consultant, discusses his work in helping the US National Weather Service (NWS) implement APIs to help get the word out with tsunami warnings. Their API integration with their digital communications tool allows NWS to send out tsunami warning communications more quickly than ever before, helping to save lives in situations where seconds really matter.

It’s a good post to end the list, too, because it’s a great reminder of the crucially important work that government organizations do and how critical communications are in helping organizations meet their mission in serving the public.

National Weather Service Using APIs for Tsunami Alerts

So that’s our top ten list of most-viewed blog entries on Reach the Public. Was there one that you found especially insightful that I’ve missed here? Did you find these posts useful? Let me know in the comments!

APIs, collaboration, communications, community, content, data, digital government, e-gov, email, engagement, Facebook, Gov 2.0, government, GovLoop, outreach, Pinterest, social media, Steve Ressler, technology

MUSTARD MAIL: 20 things to learn from #govd12

This is a guest post from Dan Slee, Senior Press and Publicity Officer at Walsall Council in England. Last Thursdsay, Dan attended GovDelivery UK’s Annual Digital Communications conference to hear more about delivering real value to the public through effective use of digital communications.

Okay, so here’s three things that may just help you fall off your seat a little bit. Or at least raise an eyebrow.

Boom! Email can be a bit sexy. Not shiny hipster Apple sexy but in an effective way of communicating with people kind of a way.

Boom! I’m seeing one of the key roles of public sector communications is to point people at more efficient ways of contacting them that’s going to make them happier and save the organisation a stack of money.

Boom! Somebody somewhere in a restaurant had a service so very bad they spelt out their complaint in mustard and ketchup.

Here’s 20 things I learned from the excellent GovDelivery Delivering Real Value to the Public Through Effective Use of Digital Communications 2012 event at the National Audit Office.

1. Bad customer service can be repaid in ketchup

Gerald Power from Trapeze used this rather fabulous slide that told a rather splendid story. Person or persons go into restaurant with wipe-clean tables. Nobody comes and talks to them for half an hour. They spell this out in condiments, take a picture, post it to the web and leave. It’s a perfect tomato-based illustration of where we are with customer service in the social web.

If people just ain’t happy they’ll tell their friends. In creative ways that will go viral.

2. Email is…. sexy?

Actually, bad email is always bad news. The sort that clogs the inbox. The cc to far. But cutting through the rubbish, email does have results as a comms channel. Clearly, govdelivery are keen to stress their product which helps government deliver opt-in targeted emails on request on a whole bunch of subjects. But actually, there’s some pretty good results. Thinking it through, wouldn’t mind opting in as a parent for child-friendly events in the borough where I live. Or winter school closure updates.

3. Comms is essential

As one speaker said, the role of comms in delivering the changes needed in local government is central, fundamental and essential. That made me think a little.

Research by accountants PWC has worked out the cost of local government contact by residents to resolve a problem. For face-to-face it’s £10.53, for telephone it is £3.39, while post costs £12.10 and online just 8p.

One of the roles of comms teams is to help point people at the channel that’s most effective to help save money.

So point people at more efficient ways of talking to the council and you’ll earn your worth as a comms team. That’s just a bit important.

Here’s some other things from the event:

4. There are 650 UK gov services (bar the NHS) costing up to £9bn a year but 300 have no digital presence at all.

5. The new gov.uk domain has saved £36m savings pa by moving from directgov and businesslink.

6. There’s a government target to save up to £421m from #localgov by digitisation.

7. The UK gov could save up to £1.7bn by digitising more.

8. Investment in comms is critical for local government.

9. There’s no need for fancy emails. Simple, to the point and effective for MHRA audience.

10. The digital by default line for UK government isn’t just coming from digital people. It’s coming from the heart of civil service too.

11. There’s no universal best time for an email as each campaign is different.

12. Don’t automate social content. Re-shape it.

13. Only way to realise cashable benefits from digital is headcount reduction and estate rationalisation.

14. A quarter of UK adults and half of all teenagers with smartphones and 77 per cent have broadband.

15. Love @geraldpower‘s idea of avoiding digital ’magical thinking’. Don’t copy for the sake of it. Think it through http://bit.ly/cOFmkl #govd12

16. Look to put #digital in BIG areas. Not little. Digital wedding bookings will save pence. Go to where you spend most cash.

17. LGA estmates £67.8m spent by #localgov on print public notices.

18. Public notices are an anachronism in a digital age.

19. 76 per cent of #localgov in an LGIU survey want to publish public notices online only while just 4 per cent want print.

20. There’s a debate about public notices being a subsidy to the print media. There a report. (You can download LGiU’s report here.)

Read the original post on Dan’s blog.

communications, Dan Slee, digital, email, engagement, events, Gov 2.0, govd12, government, government services, GovUK, local government, outreach, responsiveness, technology, UK Government

Email vs. Social Media

November 12th, 2012 | Posted by GovDelivery in E-Government | Email Communication | Government 2.0 | Social Media - (1 Comments)

Although email traces its history all the way back to the university system in the late 1960s, it wasn’t until the early 1990s that this simple way of communicating literally changed our lives.

Just as snail mail was eventually superseded by faxes for the highest priority communications in the 1980s, email came roaring into popular use in the 1990s as a way to communicate with others in the fastest way possible.

Suddenly, two or more people could almost instantly pose questions to others, share information (or jokes) and seek consensus on almost any topic. In fact, email was so transformative in the business and personal sphere that it sparked its own set of problems—including spam and the “information overload” that occurred when people could over-share anything at the touch of a button.

Today, in the age of Twitter, Facebook, texting and numerous other information-sharing tools, email may seem quaint. Some people believe email gets lost in the glitz and glamor of other types of information delivery, but in reality, it remains one of the most important ways to share information effectively, in part because of the powerful tools that can be used in conjunction with it.

MediaBistro recently posted an infographic declaring email still the smartest way for savvy marketers to communicate with their audiences.

In an accompanying blog post, “Email Vs. Social Media Marketing—Which One Deserves Your Dollars?” the authors wrote, “Email marketing spend increased by 60 percent in 2012, and that’s because email marketing delivered a return on investment (ROI) of 4,000 percent over that same period.”

How is this possible? Well, in the first place, email has not been superseded by any of the other new social marketing tools. People have not abandoned their email accounts in favor of Twitter or Facebook, but instead, have simply added those new tools to their personal information arsenal. And while the enforced brevity of Twitter’s 140-character limit may prove adequate for some uses, email’s ability to provide more substantive communication remains undimmed.

Add to that the fact that numerous tools exist with which to measure and track the true impact of email communication. Email lists can be easily compiled, and then segregated by users, for instance. With email, users are able to pick and choose among topics in which they have a specific interest. This also allows organizations that use email to communicate to segment their audiences into specific groups based on factors such as location, income, demographics and more.

Organizations that use email to communicate with their respective audiences also have several tangible ways to gauge how successful their communications are. They can track delivery (or bounce) rates; monitor “open” rates, test subject line and from line variants against each other, and finally, definitively see whether or not recipients took action in response to the email blast, such as visiting a web site, signing up for a program or simply clicking through to another forum such as Facebook to learn more.

By being able to tightly control who receives specific information (such as by neighborhood, in the case of city or county organizations, for instance), senders can greatly increase the chance that their emails will be welcome to recipients. Recipients who want email communications on various subjects are receptive to these messages because of their immediacy and relevance to their lives.

Coupling an email strategy with tools such as GovDelivery Digital Communication Management, provides organizations with a powerful one-two punch to effectively communicate with their audiences and also to measure the impact of their email campaigns.

In fact, a recent study examining the impact of email in various industries and market segments showed that government-originated email communications maintain the highest level of effectiveness for both opens and click-throughs.

Using email as part of an integrated communications plan that also includes other social media marketing remains central to a powerful, cost-effective communications strategy that delivers information to users in the way that’s most efficient for them.

communications, digital, email, Facebook, Gov 2.0, social media, Twitter

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