Engaging Citizens and Improving Outcomes: Digital Communications for State and Local Governments

RESEARCH BRIEF

Engaging Citizens and Improving Outcomes: Digital Communication for State and Local Governments

Executive Summary

In today’s competitive environment, companies know that outreach and engagement can make or break their business and drive the outcomes they need. But in government, the focus on improving these areas has been less pronounced. Oftentimes, government is the sole provider of a particular service, and the supporting tools, outreach and communication have not been optimized to meet the needs of increasingly tech-savvy and mobile customers.

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nd sometimes when digital technologies are not optimized and citizens are not engaged or made aware of government information or programs, mission outcomes are not met. In the public sector, failure to meet those outcomes can be drastic – children might not receive free school lunches, the elderly might not get flu shots or permits of all sorts might not be renewed in time.

But with the voice of citizens being heard more via social media and online technologies, things have recently started to change. Public-sector digital communications strategies are evolving to help organizations better connect with citizens and promote their content. Although we have more tools to facilitate this today than ever before – everything from email automation to A/B testing to audience segmenting – there is still room to share and learn best practices for digital communication.

To gauge where state and local governments are in their digital communications, and to figure out better and more efficient strategies to help them reach citizens and drive outcomes, GovLoop partnered with Granicus, a leading public-sector digital communications company, for this research brief and a survey of public-sector employees.

In the following pages, we’ll discuss the digital outreach and communication priorities of 179 public-sector survey respondents, go over tips and tactics to make outreach efforts more successful, and hear insights from two Granicus executives: Natalie Fedie, Vice President of Customer Success, and Andrew Krzmarzick, Vice President of Solutions Consulting.

Engaging Citizens and Improving Outcomes: Digital Communication for State and Local Governments

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Survey Results: A Growing Recognition of the Need for Better Digital Communication

To get a snapshot of where state and local digital communicators stand in their outreach efforts, GovLoop and Granicus surveyed 179 public-sector employees who are on the front lines of state and local communication efforts with citizens. The survey asked them about their perceptions of their current digital efforts, their current priorities and what roadblocks they face in achieving better digital communication, for example.

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he good news? The majority of the survey respondents are extremely focused on growing their audience and better communication. In fact, 84 percent said that “growing and communicating with our citizen audience is a priority of my agency.” (See Figure 1.)

“The reasons for this current focus on growth and engagement of a digital audience in government are varied and more urgent today than ever,” said Andrew Krzmarzick, Vice President of Granicus Solutions Consulting. “The reality is that every agency’s program requires communication

Are growing and communicating with your citizen audience priorities of your agency?

16% No

Figure

1.

84% Yes

2

Granicus & GovLoop Research Brief

What are the priorities of your communication and outreach efforts?

Are your digital engagement strategies aligned with your agency’s mission objectives?

48% Increase citizen satisfaction

48% Yes

Figure

17%

18%

Other

No

2.

Figure

3.

5%

30%

34%

Increase web traffic

Have my audience engage with my agency’s content

Not quite yet, but we’re working on it

if it’s going to be successful. Agencies know that they can spend a lot of time and money in planning a program only to have limited participation. This leads to lack of trust and disenchanted citizens. And now, with the rise of disinformation and fake news, agencies must recognize their vital role in delivering trustworthy and accurate communications more than ever before.”

The survey results reflect this reality, with the majority of respondents saying the priorities of their outreach efforts are to “increase citizen satisfaction” (48 percent) and “have my audience engage with my agency’s content” (30 percent).

(See Figure 2.) “[We want to] increase public knowledge, expand access to justice and improve public trust and confidence in our branch of government,” said one survey respondent. “I want to be able to give citizens information before they ask for it,” another said.

Clearly, most respondents’ digital outreach priority is to promote their information and point citizens to the right information online, thereby increasing citizen trust in government services. In short, agencies want to make sure

their mission goals are aligned with and supported by the information citizens are finding and receiving online.

“The vast majority of public servants wake up every morning and sincerely want to make a difference and be a good steward of taxpayer dollars,” Krzmarzick said. “They know that the only way to change public misperception is by ensuring that citizens experience direct value from their activities. That’s why an agency needs to have a comprehensive, integrated, digital communications and content strategy that drives the delivery of information and services. Ultimately, communicating effectively is what translates to direct and immediate value that really matters in people’s lives.”

And in fact, a good portion of survey respondents (47 percent) believe that their digital communications efforts are in fact aligned with their missions. (See Figure 3.)

However, when asked if their digital efforts are totally aligned with mission goals, 35 percent say, “We’re not quite there yet, but we’re working on it,” and 18 percent say their digital engagement strategies are not yet at all aligned with their agencies’ mission objectives.

Engaging Citizens and Improving Outcomes: Digital Communication for State and Local Governments

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“An agency who ranks their communications and engagement strategies as sophisticated is an agency who is maximizing the technology that’s available to them today and reaching large audiences,” Natalie Fedie, Vice President of Granicus Customer Success.

On a scale of 1-5, rank your opinion of your current communications and engagement strategy (1 being low, 5 being high)

37%

40%

51%

Good (3)

Basic

Moderate

Figure

Figure

4.

27% Very Good (4)

5.

18%

10% Excellent (5)

Fair (2)

8% Poor (1)

In fact, though the majority of survey respondents realize the importance of digital communications and are prioritizing it or want to, the truth is that overall, many feel their agencies are doing very well with their current communications and engagement strategies. When asked how they would rank their strategies on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being badly and 5 being well, only 10 percent gave themselves a ranking of 5. (See Figure 4.) Sixty-three percent ranked themselves a 3 or lower. And only 9 percent of respondents said their email communication efforts were sophisticated, with the majority of respondents rating their efforts as basic (40 percent) or moderate (51 percent). (See Figure 5.)

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How would you rate your email communication efforts?

Granicus & GovLoop Research Brief

9% Sophisticated

“An agency who ranks their communications and engagement strategies as sophisticated is an agency who is maximizing the technology that’s available to them today and reaching large audiences,” explained Natalie Fedie, Vice President of Granicus Customer Success. “They’re engaging their audience with the right content and the right channels at the right time.”

Agencies that do not have sophisticated or mature digital communications often are stymied by persistent and common challenges – some of which we’ll go over in the next section.

Strategies for Overcoming Persistent Challenges in Digital Communications There are many reasons for state and local governments to be optimistic about the future when it comes to digital communications. But as discussed earlier, the survey results show that many employees don’t feel that their digital communications and outreach are as sophisticated or targeted as they could be.

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ccording to our survey findings, governments face several major challenges in digital outreach and communications: lack of budget (41.7 percent), lack of staff and skills (26.3 percent), and no leadership buy-in (10.3 percent).

(See Figure 6.) Additionally, 61 percent of respondents said that their digital communications team did not exist or was very small. (See Figure 7.)

“There is a general lack of recognition of the importance of digital communication,”

Technology, when used effectively, can help governments overcome each of these challenges to achieve stellar digital communication – and they’re all tied together.

Additional resources and staff aren’t always within the control of state and local governments, given that some departments are so small, but there are GovLoop survey response. specific steps that can reduce the need for these while maintaining — or even increasing — productivity. When you’re able to prove with data that you’ve increased productivity and reach, you’ll more easily be able to “Our staff is small and very busy, and we have only two convince leaders to support other strategies and investments. dedicated people focused on communication objectives,” wrote one respondent. “All three issues – leadership, staff The challenges are real and persistent across state and and resources – are a problem for us. We lack strategy,” local governments, no matter where you go. But with the wrote another. “There is a general lack of recognition of the technology available today and a smart strategic approach, importance of digital communication.” added another. governments can use a variety of strategies to address these digital outreach and communications challenges.

Engaging Citizens and Improving Outcomes: Digital Communication for State and Local Governments

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What roadblocks exist to keep you from improving in your communications and outreach areas?

22% Other

Figure

6.

26%

42%

Automation is becoming more common in private-sector marketing as software is increasingly able to handle segmentation and marketing campaigns. The Advanced Package in the Communications Cloud has this capability.

Its automation enabled the Wrexham County Borough, Wales, government to go from spending a full day sending emails to two hours, for example.

Lack of budget

Lack of staff and skills

CUT THE COST OF PAPER

10% No leadership buy-in

What level of staff and experience do you have on your communications team?

25%

41%

No dedicated staff

A small team with some digital communications skills

Figure

7.

6

AUTOMATION

With the level of reports, agendas and meeting minutes that government organizations produce, it’s not uncommon to spend a significant portion of a budget on printing and managing paper documents. By cutting out these costs, agencies can save valuable resources. The City of Stockton, Calif., streamlined its paper-heavy process for applying for board and commission positions and saved significant resources per year. Not only will cutting the cost of paper free up funding, but leveraging digital solutions instead of printing has also been proven to increase citizen engagement. See the Meeting and Agenda Management Overview for more information.

USE PREBUILT CAMPAIGNS

7%

27%

A very skilled and large team with long-term digital communication planning abilities and skills

A dedicated staff with experienced digital communications skills

Granicus & GovLoop Research Brief

Prebuilt campaigns allow agencies to share their brand story, mission, programs and resources efficiently and with scalability and agility. They’re user-friendly and intuitive to communicators at any level. The benefits of prebuilt campaigns within the Communications Suite include the ability to onboard new audiences, cross-promote programs and services with similar organizations nationwide, and reengage inactive audiences.

Do you use A/B testing in your email outreach efforts?

LEVERAGE APIS With advances in technology, especially with application programming interfaces (APIs), the ability to maintain financial or citizen relationship management systems is easier than ever. APIs pull in personalized information and then send out transactional messages to their intended recipients, and can even update citizens on important information such as legislative bill updates.

Transactions with government organizations that were generated from paper-based communications can move to an all-electronic process, saving your organization time, money and resources.

A/B TESTING Sixty-six percent of survey respondents said they do not use A/B testing (comparing two versions of an email to see which performs better). (See Figure 8.) By not using A/B testing, they’re leaving a valuable strategy on the table that doesn’t require expert strategy or extra resources. A/B testing allows for side-by-side comparisons so agencies can better optimize their content and maximize impact. With A/B testing, you can test many variables, including subject lines, message content, images/video, message length, format and call-to-action buttons, to see which resonates best with your audience.

66% No

Figure

8.

25%

9%

Not yet, but we’re working on it

Yes

What is your audience capture strategy?

37% We have no strategy

36% We acquire subscribers and audience through a variety of channels

Figure

9.

CAPTURE STRATEGY A capture strategy refers to the methods and strategies by which you acquire email subscribers and grow the number of people receiving your communications. Growing your agency’s audience is easier than it sounds, but nearly 37 of survey respondents said they do not have any capture strategy at all. (See Figure 9.) A few key ways to do this are through website overlays, text message campaigns and engagement with passive followers on social media. These underused techniques allow your agency to broaden its reach with resources that are within its capabilities.

11%

16%

We have a highly engaged audience receiving personalized content and have developed audience personas and segmented contact lists

We acquire subscribers and have segmented and targeted our audiences

Engaging Citizens and Improving Outcomes: Digital Communication for State and Local Governments

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DATA AND METRICS

MATURITY MODEL

Data is a communicator’s best friend. It allows greater visibility into how well your message affects your target audience. It helps you understand who cares about your messages, what topics interest your subscribers, what techniques are most effective in generating a response and, most importantly, what elements of your communications strategy drive the most engagement. And yet, 62 percent of survey respondents said they do not yet use their data or metrics to drive action or engagement. (See Figure 10.) Leverage the data your agency gathers from communication reporting, website metrics and customer surveys by analyzing it and allowing it to drive action and decision-making.

The Granicus Digital Engagement Maturity Assessment allows communications departments to assess their strengths and weaknesses in how they engage with their audiences on digital platforms. It’s a framework that allows you to analyze your departments’ digital outreach and engagement efforts. Six key areas determine the analysis: people, audience, outcomes, solutions, data and security.

In each area, you can determine if your department is emerging, proficient, experienced or expert based on criteria for each area. Each level corresponds with a number that you add to determine your overall digital engagement maturity score. This will help you figure out weaknesses in your digital communication efforts.

“The long and the short of it for [a] small staff is that you must use data and technology to prioritize and optimize your activities,” Krzmarzick said. A possible resource to turn for help with measuring and prioritizing is the Granicus 2016 Benchmarking report.

Do you use data and metrics to increase engagement and drive action?

38%

34%

Yes

No

Figure

10.

28% Not yet, but we’re working on it

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Granicus & GovLoop Research Brief

HOW GRANICUS CAN HELP More than 40 states and 3,000 publicsector agencies across the country and the world rely on Granicus’ technology, services and solutions to share information with their citizens. With the ability to help state and local governments do everything from reach more people via email to understand the data and metrics of website visits, Granicus can help governments drive outcomes that will engage citizens and help them live better lives.

Questions to Ask Yourself to Improve Your Digital Outreach

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lack of knowledge or resources in any of the areas can prevent government organizations from achieving the outcomes needed to complete mission-critical priorities and programs. Ask yourself these questions and go over the answers as a team to identify any pain points or ways to improve your current strategies that will lead to better engagement with your intended audiences. Once you have the answers to these questions, you’ll have a stronger starting point for achieving better digital communications.

1.

2.

3.

4.

What are your goals/ desired outcomes (i.e., downstream metrics, strategic goals, budgeted priorities)?

What is your total potential reach (i.e., size of target audience)?

What is your current reach (i.e., number of people on contact lists)?

Who are your target audiences?

5.

6.

7.

8.

What type of content are you sharing with those audiences now?

Are enough of these people taking the action you’d like them to take?

What is your current digital communications strategy?

How are you currently capturing interested audience members?

9.

10.

11.

12.

What channels are you using to communicate with target audiences?

How often are you communicating?

What is the state of your data to track outcomes and make better decisions to achieve them?

Are you satisfied with your current results?

Why or why not?

Engaging Citizens and Improving Outcomes: Digital Communication for State and Local Governments

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Case Studies Prince George’s County Public Schools SITUATION: One of the nation’s largest school districts was in need of a communications plan. Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) is a school district based in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

It serves an expansive and diverse group of students and employees — approximately 131,000 students and nearly 18,000 employees — making it one of the largest school districts in the country. PGCPS needed “a comprehensive solution that schools could grab onto and do their own text messaging, emails and newsletters out to parents,” Max Pugh Jr., Senior Web Specialist at PGCPS said.

Accessibility of information to all socioeconomic levels was another important factor. Studies have found that many low-income families have no internet access at home, but they have cell phones to receive text messages.

PGCPS’ previous communication software required families to pay to get text alerts from the school, leaving some low-income families unable to afford to receive messages.

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Granicus & GovLoop Research Brief

“The amount of people who have been subscribing has been really positive. The schools have come on board and embraced Granicus solutions wholeheartedly. It seems to be a really good communications tool for a lot of our schools.”

Max Pugh Jr., Senior Web Specialist, Prince George’s County Public Schools

In order to increase equal access to school information, PGCPS needed a platform with multiple digital channels available at no cost to the recipient.

SOLUTION: PGCPS streamlined communications to better serve low-income families.

They launched Granicus’ GovDelivery Communications Cloud across the district under one managed platform to automate and streamline text and email messages. “A lot of the setup was handled by Granicus, which was great since we didn’t have to input all the topics for every single school. Every single school was set up so they could get started right away,” Pugh said.

Granicus also led onsite training for school staff to get started before handing off the training process to PGCPS. PGCPS sent surveys after implementing Granicus to determine their stakeholders’ preferences for receiving messages from the school.

They developed best practices based on the results.

RESULTS: Complex communications management were met with realtime analytics to increase access to information. PGCPS now has more control over the branding and success of communications in the district, while still allowing the flexibility for each school to manage and automate its own topics without interference.

187,000 People reached

3.9 millions Total subscriptions

2.5 millions SMS messages sent

“I think it makes sense that the Granicus and GovDelivery products are coming together.

We’ve been using these products for a very long time now, and it just makes sense that they would work well together.”

City of St. Paul, Minnesota

Shari Moore, City Clerk, City of St. Paul, Minn.

SITUATION: Keeping the public informed of decisions and issues that affect citizens’ way of life – while also providing convenient, accessible outlets to further explore that information – is a daunting task, but it’s not one that government staffers take lightly.

For the City of Saint Paul, Minn., this mission of transparency and public service is made easier by leveraging software both in managing the information flow of public meetings, and in distributing that information to those in the community that wish to be informed.

SOLUTION: The City was one of the first users of the GovDelivery Communications Cloud to send out information updates to subscribers, with now City Clerk Shari Moore as one of the first users of the system in 1999.

In 2006, Saint Paul began using

Granicus’ webcasting software to livestream Council meetings. A year later, it launched Legistar to prepare legislation and agendas for public meetings, and to pair minutes with recorded meeting video.

Since then, Moore and her office have not only streamlined how they prepare for and run the City’s public meetings thanks to Granicus’ legislative and webstreaming software, but have successfully leveraged the Communications Cloud to quickly and conveniently promote that information to the public.

“We’ve been using these products for a very long time now,” says Moore, “and it just makes sense that they would work well together.” Moore says her office benefits from being able to have such streamlined method of keeping the public informed. “To not have to manage an email list – to put that ownership on the citizen or whoever it is that’s looking for it where you lead them to the tool and they can choose what information they want – that’s very valuable,” Moore says.

RESULTS: The City is now able to utilize GovDelivery Communications Cloud to promote content created and built in Granicus agenda management and webcasting software. The Clerk’s office no longer must manage an email list or a mailing list to send meeting agendas out to the public. And finally, public meeting notices, new agendas, mayor’s messages, and Council video are promoted through St. Paul’s Early Notification System, which citizens can easily opt into.

233,000 Total Subscribers

+35,000 Subscribers in the last year

2,416 Total number of public videos

Engaging Citizens and Improving Outcomes: Digital Communication for State and Local Governments

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Conclusion Clearly, state and local governments are working to provide better digital communications and outreach to their citizens, and they understand that even if their efforts are lagging, they must continue to make those goals a priority. Although there are myriad challenges to this effort, from lack of budget to small staff and teams, using the technology available – such as metrics and A/B testing to target audiences – they continue to connect in more effective ways. And when the right information reaches the right audience at the right time, government missions are better supported and citizens learn to better trust the services and communications offered to them – a win-win for everybody involved.

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Granicus & GovLoop Research Brief

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