According to research, 88% to 90% of British residents who make a New Year’s resolution will fail to keep their resolution by March. So we created our “Resolution: Revolution” email drip campaign in govDelivery to help residents keep the promises they had made to themselves.
Can a council proactively impact public health by helping residents keep their New Year’s resolutions? During a time when the NHS and social care is under strain to provide support, Kirklees Council met the need through their ‘Resolution: Revolution’ email campaign. The result — supported by Granicus govDelivery — is not only inspiring but has also earned the team recognition, including a Granicus Digital Public Sector Award. See Kirklees Council's presentation from the Granicus 10th Annual Digital Engagement Summit.
Kirklees,
United Kingdom
How One Council Beat the Odds & Impacted Public Well-Being With an Award-Winning Email Campaign
Overview
Say Emails Helped
89%
32
Drip
Emails
The automated email campaign lasted 66 days — the time it takes to form a habit.
3.7x
Results
Expecting a 14–19% success rate, their 71% success rate went over and above.
Success
Rate
Almost ¾ of those who participated reported keeping their resolutions.
An overwhelming majority of those who participated credited the email campaign.
71%
Must-have Granicus solution
Discover how govDelivery can improve your agency’s communications impact and efficiency. Sign up today to see it in action!
January can be bleak. The month brings Blue Monday, peaks in divorces and suicides, and the pressure to start a New Years’ resolution. Research states that 88% to 90% of British citizens who make a New Year’s resolution will fail to keep their resolution by March. At the same time, the NHS is under strain to provide many residents with the care they need at one of their busiest periods in the year.
Staff at Kirklees Council considered these facts while planning an email campaign that proactively promoted health and well-being. “The emails we normally send in January tend to be preachy. We wanted to tweak the messaging to something more positive. So we set out to see whether or not our campaign could help people keep their health-based resolutions,” said Niel Stewart, Deputy Head of Strategic Communications.
Kirklees staff defined parameters to evaluate the success of their campaign. Using research, staff determined that behavior interventions typically have improvements between 4% to 7%. The campaign would follow a 66-day timeline, which is the average time it takes to form a new habit. "We just needed to design and build the campaign,” said Niel.
Only 10% of People Keep Their Resolution
The team hadn’t used email for previous behavioral campaigns, but felt that it would be the perfect medium for this effort. They recognized, however, that emails typically act as stand-alone pieces of communication, and the subscriber list builds gradually over time, which wouldn’t help Kirklees build the relationships and engagement that were important to the campaign’s success. So they took advantage of the automated drip campaign feature in the govDelivery Advanced package.
32 Emails, 4 Journeys, 1 Drip Campaign
Did the campaign have an impact? After 66 days and 32 emails, the Resolution: Revolution campaign came to an end. Kirklees staff sent an engagement survey to see if they had really helped residents with their resolutions. Kirklees had expected to see somewhere between 14% to 19% of the campaign recipients to keep their resolutions. They discovered, however, that the campaign helped 71% of participants keep their resolutions.
Importantly, 89% of the survey respondents said that the emails helped them keep their resolutions and that the frequency of emails felt right. Survey responses also brought to light the real impact and true possibilities of effective public sector communications.
According to one respondent, the emails "…have inspired me to try harder, and with renewed confidence to obtain a better, healthier lifestyle. Sometimes a lapse or two has disappointed, however, along came more emails to help me get back on track, and renew my own personal aims and ambitions. The whole experience was really well worthwhile."
With a smart strategy and an innovative campaign, the communications team at Kirklees Council has illustrated that local authorities can play an active role in resident health and well-being, especially at a time when resources are limited at the NHS.
71% of Participants Kept Their Resolution
How wrexham county council improved citizen experience through integrated communications & service delivery
Overview
The county council knew the first step to improve the citizen experience was to modernise the way they communicated bin removal services. To ensure citizens received relevant, timely and automated communications, Wrexham implemented Granicus’s govDelivery email, mobile message, and social media platform. Now, they have the sophisticated marketing automation and audience segmentation required to deliver personalised waste and recycling bin collection reminders to over 12,000 residents. Targeted email messages from the county empower residents to take the correct action at the right moment.
These reminders — delivered alongside educational messages about what can and can’t be recycled — are positively impacting local recycling rates. For example, more customers know what can and can’t be recycled; the number of bins not being collected due to contamination has decreased by 27% since implementing govDelivery.
How the Firmstep + GovDelivery integration streamlines service
Citizens love the online experience they are receiving
93%
Increasing by 500 new accounts per month
18K
Bin Reminders
12K
Increasing by 800 subscribers per month
The result of targeted, proactive communications
Reduction in Calls
48%
Must-have Granicus product
Could your citizens benefit from seamless and integrated digital experiences? Get in touch with us today to learn more about how Granicus can help!
See It Live
We love govDelivery because it gives us control over information. We can find the answers to our questions, and then form good processes to better interact with the people in our council.
Situation
Solution
Results
Background
Like many local governments in California, the team at the Napa County Election Division has many critical duties in support of local, state, and federal elections. They also must help ensure all required government officials disclose their financial interests.
Designated filing officers must accurately track, manage, and deliver documents related to the disclosure of government employee and elected official Statement of Economic Interest, known as Form 700 in California. The process is regulated by the State of California’s Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC).
Staff at the Election Division have their own goals to increase efficiency and make sure officials file on time. Napa County’s recently updated strategic plan has a priority goal of making government more transparent.
Situation
Solution
From Manual to Automatic
See It Live
govDelivery
govDelivery
– Niel Stewart, Deputy Head of Strategic Communications
TMS is definitely a success for our agency. We’re able to reach consumers more quickly and reliably. I would recommend anyone with a similar need or circumstance to switch to govDelivery TMS.
"With the functionality built into govDelivery’s Advanced Package, we created an email experience that worked for everyone — regardless of whether they signed up for the campaign immediately or later on."
To make sure the campaign would stay relevant to subscribers no matter when they opted-in to the campaign, the Kirklees Council communications team created four different email campaign journeys that changed depending on when people signed up. For example, those who signed up early received one cadence of emails while those who signed up later received a different cadence that caught them up quickly with the rest of the participants.
They planned emails for days when they thought their audience would need extra support (Mondays, for example) and kept things fresh and unexpected by varying the days and times when emails were sent. They also avoided the preachy, authoritative tone that many adopt in similar campaigns. Instead, the emails adopted a friendly, relaxed tone.
Drip Emails
Say Emails Helped
A Mandate for Transparency & Efficiency
The Host Compliance software found 229 active listings in Garden Grove, and automatically identified the addresses of those listings.
Through the software’s Compliance Monitoring module, which allows users to send letters to hosts with a few clicks, staff provide hosts with educational material. This material gives hosts the chance to come into compliance before staff issue a citation. “I think that’s very important when you’re putting together any type of enforcement program. Educate the public first, and then follow through with proper enforcement,” said Roque.
The City also opted for the software’s 24/7 hotline to reduce the burden on police; citizens can now file a complaint online or by calling.
“A lot of vacation rental providers are on more than one platform, which makes it more difficult to track. It simply wouldn’t be possible to have an acceptable compliance rate without having an online monitoring tool like Host Compliance because of the sheer effort to identify properties — it does take a lot of time.” – Alex Thumm, Planning and Building Analyst
The DisclosureDocs implementation team worked closely with Napa County staff to meet their tight deadline. After their kickoff meeting in January 2019, they migrated files, trained staff, and then deployed. In the end, they were able to implement DisclosureDocs by their deadline of April 2.