A recycling campaign to improve garden waste recycling and generate income: London Borough of Havering

Overview

The London Borough of Havering is a local government authority of Havering, found within greater London, England. The agency offers assistance and resources for benefits and tax, building control and planning, business, education, environment, housing, employment, licensing, and waste and recycling management. For more information visit havering.gov.uk.

Learn how Havering Council is using multi-channel marketing to ensure they are meeting the council’s goals.

SITUATION

In the face of budget cuts, Havering Council was challenged with increasing adoption of recycling programs.

The Havering Council plays an important role in the lives of each London resident, offering citizen resources and services in the areas of tax, building control and planning, business, education, environment, housing, employment, licensing, and waste/recycling management. Like many public sector organisations, Havering Council recently faced significant budget cuts. In fact, over a period of four years, the Council had to contend with a £40 million funding gap, and is currently working with a further £60 million worth of cuts – a third of its budget. Because of this, the Council had to find unique ways to reduce overhead, while maintaining its high-quality service.

To this end, Havering Council set forth to promote a recycling campaign that would support waste and recycling management called Green Bins. The programme consisted of this: for an annual charge, residents were loaned a 240-litre green-wheeled bin or sold a roll of 50 compostable garden waste sacks. The campaign focused on encouraging existing residents to renew contracts.

The Havering Council brought on Granicus to accomplish these high level goals:

1. Encourage online renewal, promoting channel shift and reducing Council costs.
2. Generate an income flow to Havering Council through renewal fees.
3. Reduce overall costs associated with collecting Green Bins.
4. Raise the profile of the green waste collection service and encourage its use.

SOLUTION

Leveraging digital channels to make a fiscal impact and improve the programme’s profile.

Tasked with the goals of generating more revenue, reducing overall cost, and raising the profile of the Green Bin recycling programme, Granicus and the Havering Council created a multi-channel digital strategy. Four primary channels were used – web content, social media, email, and a telephone system – covering a five-week period.

The strategy included the following tactics:

1. Develop a relevant web page, now found at www.havering.gov.uk/ReduceWaste.
2. Create a unique logo to brand the campaign.
3. Send an email every fortnight to inform and engage subscribers.
4. Include information in the monthly ‘Cleaner Havering’ email update.
5. Include information in the monthly email ‘At the Heart’ directed to housing tenants.
6. Encourage the 3,000 Borough employees to renew through weekly staff emails.
7. Create ‘act now’ emails for former Green Bin contract holders.
8. Send supporting social media messages to encourage residents to visit the web page.

Additionally, the Havering Council integrated digital marketing best practices, used effective calls to action, targeted messaging, and simple design to increase engagement. Every email was delivered through Granicus, providing built-in automation, customisation, tracking, and analytics technology. In using the platform, the Havering Council was able to send targeted and action-based messaging to drive audience behaviour, which led to the “Green Bin” campaign’s success.

RESULTS

Used multi-channel marketing to meet the council’s goals.

The Havering Council reached and exceeded each campaign goal through strategic digital communication efforts. By March 2015, there were 17,943 Green Bin renewals, an increase of 375 percent. During the past year, the number of subscribers to the Borough’s emails has risen from 2,296 to 55,530.

The goal of driving automation was also successful. Ninety eight percent of renewals used the self-service option. Another side benefit of the campaign was gaining a large number of new registrants, which totalled 20 times the normal volume.

The Green Waste campaign doubled the number of households registered for “My Account” in one month, which provides the Havering Council with contact information for other communications.

The success is 100 percent attributed to digital strategies, as there was no other promotional effort in place.