SUCCESS STORY
How the Utah House of Representatives Brings Consistency, Flexibility to Communications Outreach
With one of the shortest legislative sessions in the country, the Utah House of Representatives looks to get a lot done in a short period of time. So effective constituent communications are vital. By centralizing their messaging efforts through govDelivery, communications became more consistent, while growing mailing lists of engaged residents.
SITUATION
For many, the idea of Congress brings to mind bustling halls of full-time staffers providing support for elected officials who have dedicated their life to public service. While that might reflect government on the federal level, state governments are often significantly different.
The passion, intensity, and dedication to service certainly exists. But for many states, legislative sessions can be much shorter, with elected officials splitting time between their statehouse duties while continuing full-time jobs throughout the year. Perhaps due to that limited time in legislative session, some states do not have full staff for each representative.
In one such state, Utah, the smaller staff made delivering consistent communications to constituents challenging. Unlike other states where rank and file members might have their own dedicated communications staff, the Utah House of Representatives has a small team to create communications for 61 members of the majority caucus.
When Paige Bridges took on the role of Communications Coordinator in 2021, she found that a hodge-podge of different communications tools were being used to create and deliver communications addressed from specific legislators. The logistics alone created issues.
“Logging into several people’s separate MailChimp accounts isn’t ideal,” she laughed. “I’d try to log in and ask a representative ‘Did you get a code on your phone?’ When they didn’t respond for hours, I’d have to tell them the code was expired and ask if I could send them another one. It was a real pain.”
The challenges made encouraging email communications from legislators more difficult, she added.
“We just want to support our members the best we can,” Bridges said. “And we want them to feel like staff is helping them, and that they have resources.”
SOLUTION
Implementing Granicus’ govDelivery communications tool not only helped centralize the messaging efforts, but also helped change the perspective of digital communications throughout the statehouse while growing subscriber lists.
By connecting through govDelivery, the Utah House of Representatives was able to both customize messaging, maintaining a consistency in information, while evolving the look and feel of newsletters.
Another tool that Bridges and team saw as advantageous was the website plug-ins that made it easier for constituents to subscribe to newsletters, as well as allow new representatives to build their contact lists.
When 16 new legislators took office in January 2023, Bridges said that sign-up builder tool helped create an immediate communications benefit.
“We let them know that we had the ability to email consistent content to their constituents,” she said. “But their biggest concern was that they didn’t feel like they had very many contacts. We were able to create customizable sign-up builders with a link that they could post on social media. Many of them have built their mailing list that way. That’s been helpful to us, especially. We have new legislators who want to reach their constituents, but don’t really know where to get started.”
RESULTS
Placing govDelivery at the hub of the Utah House of Representatives’ communications efforts has created a means for consistent messaging and opportunities for newer representatives to reach their constituents more easily. But Bridges adds that the digital evolution has seen other representatives embrace new ways of communicating.
Bridges mentioned one representative of a rural district who had become set in his ways of communicating as an example.
“He has a great relationship with the newspapers in his district and sends them content to publish each month she said. “He was very hesitant about digital newsletters at first, but after some convincing, he now sends a monthly newsletter and is reaching dozens more of his constituents. These are people who probably don’t read the newspaper.”
Through each unique situation, Bridges said, the flexibility created by govDelivery provides reliable support that can help relieve the stress of communications for state legislators.
