Getting information in the right hands at the right time can be critical to the effectiveness of a message. Granicus’ Targeted Messaging Service (TMS) balances the delicate “signal versus noise” issue many communications teams struggle with: how to keep people informed on what is relevant without overwhelming them with “noise,” or extra information that clogs the messaging pipeline.
During the TMS: Transactional Messaging webinar on November 7, Granicus Technical Implementation Consultant Richard Fong and Solutions Engineer Shawn Pillow highlighted how personalized messages, or one-to-one messaging, expands an organization’s reach, whether it’s through routine updates or in the case of critical information dissemination. One-to-one messaging is tailored to the recipient through GovDelivery Communications Cloud, even in cases of high volume messaging like during a large scale crisis or when trying to reach groups of license holders about upcoming expirations.
TMS is a pure Application Programming Interface (API) product that facilitates the exchange and integration of data. “It can and does provide a richer and better user experience,” Fong said. “API is everywhere, and you, as a consumer, encounter it every day.”
Powerhouses like Google, Twitter and Amazon use APIs to embed features on their sites or make products more accessible. TMS uses APIs to provide access to Granicus’ sending and processing infrastructure.
TMS’s scalability and metric reporting sets it apart as an industry gold standard. As an automated messaging system, TMS can be scaled for a small handful of readers or millions of recipients. Afterwards, the software collects data on how many inboxes were successfully hit, along with open and click data to paint a picture of how efficient the messaging style was.
“Being able to connect with an audience consistently at a huge scale lets [organizations] make a real impact,” Pillow explained.
As an example, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wanted to increase the number of citizens taking action on recalled vehicles. With only 70 percent of recalled vehicles ever being repaired, it became a critical matter of life or death. By implementing TMS through GovDelivery Communications Cloud, the NHTSA saw a 1,700 percent increase in subscribers to recall notifications in August of 2017 alone. Since implementing the Communications Cloud software, the NHTSA has continued to see 10 times more subscriptions to updates per month.
“Getting the right information in the right hands can be a life saver,” Pillow said. And, while some information can be the difference between a safe drive home and becoming another statistic in road collisions, TMS has obvious email, voice and text messaging applications for everyday activities like appointment reminders, license renewals and bill payment reminders.
Making life more automated through targeted messaging not only improves business processes, but simplifies consumer’s lives, making them more likely to trust the companies and governments that serve them.
Improving the customer and employee experience requires no extra work with Granicus’ Communications Cloud TMS implementation. With ReST (Representational State Transfer) architecture, developers can implement TMS into their framework of choice (Python, Java, Ruby, etc).
Template features help define the body and subject of the message beforehand, decreasing bandwidth requirements and improving high volume send rates. “We’ve updated our template capability to allow for smart templates which include if/then branch logic,” Fong added.
TMS’s success relies on its deliverability and security to be considered a reliable resource for organizations. Messages sent through TMS are not sorted into a promotional or spam folder, but head directly to the recipients inbox, making it a priority to be seen. As a FedRAMP-compliant software, the data in Communications Cloud used for TMS is protected from malware.
Targeted messaging has multiple applications for local, statewide and federal agencies. If you missed the TMS webinar on November 7, catch it on demand here. For more information about targeted messaging, be sure to connect with us at info@granicus.com.
