As government communicators, we’re always looking for new ways to innovate and optimize our strategies for the best outcome. But with so many tools at our disposal, how do we know if we’re reaching our full potential?
GovDelivery’s recent breakfast series 10 Tips to Optimize your GovDelivery Account tackled some of the unique challenges that government face and highlighted options for maximizing GovDelivery’s offerings. Natalie Fedie, Vice President of Client Success at GovDelivery, gave a presentation on taking digital communications tools to the next level.
According to Fedie, agency outcomes typically fall into three buckets: promote and transform services, enhance public awareness, and improve citizen involvement. While digital engagement can be used to accomplish these goals, some agencies are better at maximizing their use of GovDelivery tools to achieve their outcomes. The Digital Engagement Maturity Model maps out different levels of engagement that range from emerging, proficient, experienced, and expert.
Fedie noted that for agencies on the lower end of the Digital Engagement Maturity Model, there is always room to grow and move up to the expert level. Here are the top ten ways to improve digital engagement:
1. Optimize web properties to convert visitors to subscribers: In order to convert your audience from visitors to subscribers you have to read and engage with your target audience. This can be done successfully by collecting and uploading email lists, strategically placed direct sign up boxes, overlays on your agency’s home page, social media integration, and through the GovDelivery Network.
2. Leverage commonly underutilized features to acquire key audiences: Growing your agency’s audience is easier than it sounds. A few key ways to do this are through website overlays, text message campaigns, and engagement with passive followers on social media. These underutilized techniques allow your agency to broaden their reach with resources that are within your capabilities as a GovDelivery account holder.
3. Capture more information on your users: In order to send more personalized and relevant content, capturing information on your audience is important. Contextually, you can capture information on your website visits based on where they are browsing, or based on information they provide when they sign up. Both of these allow you to send out personalized content that further engages your audience in a more meaningful way.
4. Utilize the GovDelivery Network to increase engagement around key priorities: The GovDelivery Network allows your agency to promote its content beyond the walls of your website. This often untapped potential is a huge source of new subscribers and allows you to build your audience beyond those who would typically visit your website.
5. Nurture and retain subscribers through welcome and re-engagement campaigns: Re-engagement with subscribers is necessary to become an expert at digital engagement. GovDelivery offers marketing tools to help accomplish this in their advanced account package. These tools include email or text campaigns, segmentation, A/B testing, and advanced analytics.
6. Automate messages so they are timely and relevant: GovDelivery targeted messaging allows you the opportunity to schedule and send emails to appropriate contact lists to optimize the impact of the email. Your agency will also receive deliverability metrics that will then allow you to tailor your email schedule and content to get the more opens and a higher click-through rate.
7. Utilize data to tell stories and drive action and behavior change: In order to advance how you engage your audience, your agency must use big data to its advantage. Big data allows your agency to tell your success stories and drive behavior. Additionally, GovDelivery offers an advanced package for Communications Cloud, interactive text messaging, and interactive learning opportunities.
8. Monitor subscriber growth and attrition over time for continuous improvement: GovDelivery’s benchmarking subscription growth allows your agency to clearly see subscription metrics. Access to these metrics and reports enables agencies to make data-driven decisions to continuously improve their ability to drive desired outcomes. For more information, check out the first benchmark report for the public sector “Improving the Metrics that Matter.”
9. Compare engagement metrics with web, satisfaction and other data to improve citizen experience: For this tip, data is key as it is the primary way to understand citizen customer expectations. Leverage the data your agency gathers from communication reporting, website metrics, and customer surveys by analyzing it and allowing it to drive action.
10. Use engagement data to measure success and demonstrate the value of your communications efforts: Tracking engagement is important to reaching your desired experience. In this respect, expert digital maturity includes collecting and tracking program outcomes and ensuring that digital outreach is a core business objective.
Not sure where your agency stands on digital engagement? See where you stack up against the Digital Engagement Maturity Model and test your digital engagement strategy with the Digital Engagement Strategy Assessment. Once you have an idea of your capabilities, apply these tips to improve your digital engagement.
