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Digital Communication Best Practices Guide Now Available

May 10th, 2012 | Posted by Mary Yang For GovDelivery in Best Practices | Client News | Tips & Tricks - (0 Comments)

Last week, GovDelivery released a new guide – Public Sector Digital Communication Management Best Practices: The Critical Role of Email – that details tips and strategies culled from more than 500 state, local, federal and international government organizations.

With all the buzz around social media, why is this guide focused on email? The PEW Internet and American Life Project’s recent survey of internet usage showed that 92% of adult online users using email. It’s clear that email is the central hub of online communication. With this knowledge, it’s critical for government communicators to incorporate email as the cornerstone of any communication strategy or outreach effort.

Pew Internet chart

The guide provides public sector employees with more than 20 pages of comprehensive best practices around digital communications and email, and it’s broken up into three main sections:

  • Effectiveness: building the largest possible base by leveraging existing contact lists and promoting sign-up options across organization websites and partners
  • Efficiency: streamlining and automating complex communications across email, SMS/text messaging and social media
  • Engagement: driving users to online and offline activities that create the most value for the public and the organization, ultimately creating mission value and changing behaviors that will create an immediate or, in some cases, lasting impact

The guide showcases examples from all levels of government – from Louisville, KY to King County, WA to the White House and Driving Standards Agency (UK) – to give you a clear idea of how your peers are implementing some of these digital communication best practices.

Here are a few of the tips that I found most interesting:

Effectiveness: Use Social Media to Get More Subscribers and Launch Email Outreach into Social Media

This may seem counter-intuitive but how many citizens know that your city, county, state, department or federal agency has a Facebook page? Or a Twitter feed? Or a blog? By leveraging social media to promote your email subscription services and vice versa, you reach a substantially larger audience.

Remember, it isn’t about communicating through a single channel. You want to push your information out as broadly as possible to reach as many people as you can.

Efficiency: Automatically Send Email Content to SMS and Social Media Channels

With the brilliance of technology these days, you should be able to automate your communication channels so you aren’t manually posting in several different channels.

This means that you should look for a platform or solution that allows you to create an email update and have that update post directly to social media channels or sent via SMS/text message at the same time.

Engagement: Content Best Practices – Provide a Clear Call to Action

In the business-to-consumer or business-to-business world, it’s easy to have a clear call to action: “buy this new product” or “download this coupon.” In the public sector, this hasn’t been as widely followed. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be. This is definitely one of those best practices from the private sector that the public sector can adapt and adopt.

When a reader takes an action from your email newsletter, that is true engagement. And for the public sector, engagement helps drive mission value. For example, in the Midwest, an email update that alerts citizens to snow emergencies and urges them to move their cars off the street so their cars don’t get towed provides a clear call to action that benefits everyone and provides immediate and long-lasting value.

These are just three tips from the guide that I found useful. For more tips, download the full guide at http://bit.ly/GDDCMGuide.

Does your government organization utilize any communication strategies or tactics that have been highly successful? I’d love to hear them. Share your best practices in the comments.

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3 Tips on Reaching a Broader Audience with Your Email

April 10th, 2012 | Posted by Mary Yang For GovDelivery in Best Practices | Tips & Tricks - (0 Comments)

In an earlier blog post, Top 3 Email Tips to Engage Your Stakeholders, we lay out some simple tips on crafting targeted email messages, effectively conveying your message and eliciting responses from your audience. Once you have identified the reason your audience should read your message, worked on a clear and personable communication style, and provided an interactive process for your audience to respond to your information, it is time to consider how to make your email marketing strategy work even better.

Creating powerful and engaging messages for your subscription list will help you attract and retain subscribers, but where do you go from there? Here are three tips on how to ensure your emails reach their optimal target.

1) Save Your Emails from the Spam Filter

A study on commercial email subscriptions revealed that over 20% of permission-based email does not reach the inboxes of intended subscribers. So, how do you keep your emails out of your audience’s spam filters?

Let Your Audience Control Email Frequency

Some users would like a daily reminder of what is going on with your communications, while others may prefer a weekly overview or emails containing information limited to specific topics. Provide the reader with the option to select from daily updates to weekly digests when they sign up for your subscription. Allow them to decide how often they receive messages and they will be less likely to mark your message as spam in the future.

Make Your Message So Good, Your Readers Will Miss It When It’s Gone

Following our tips on creating messages that are compelling, entertaining, personalized and interactive will help you build email communication that your audience looks forward to as a source of value and timely, relevant information. Work to continually improve your content and achieve the reputation of a trusted source, and your audience will let you know when they are not receiving your subscription. Gaining this type of feedback from your readers enables you to respond to any deliverability issues.

Work with a Partner that Provides High Deliverability

Email deliverability is much more complex than many people realize. If you’re sending your email out with an in-house solution, you have to manage all the technical aspects of different email formats, spam filters, and Internet Service Provider (ISP) relationships to ensure they remain healthy, while measuring the deliverability rate of your emails. That’s a lot of work! If you feel that time and effort would be better focused on other aspects of your communications, put a trusted email marketing partner to work! GovDelivery is just one example of a partner that can coordinate your subscriptions, and we offer a 98% delivery rate and the peace of mind that someone with email marketing experience is getting your email to the inbox of your readers.

2) Test Your Email Format

Do you know if you get more opens and click-throughs with plain text or HTML emails? Plain text and HTML emails each have pros and cons. Plain text emails look more like the emails your readers might receive from a friend, and all email programs will display these messages in a consistent way. HTML messages allow formatting like colored text, images and links, and support advanced design features like columns and headers. You may get more clicks and opens with one version versus the other, so be sure you try and continually test both to gauge what your subscribers prefer.

3) Try New Methods to Build Your List

“How do I build my list?” may be the holy grail of email marketing because it is not immediately clear what successful subscription lists are doing right. You need to hone in on what makes your target reader hand over their email address to a subscription list. Here are a few options to consider:

Use an Overlay

Using an overlay, which darkens your website and highlights a small box for email sign-ups can help double or triple sign-ups to your email list.

The Department of Interior recently launched an overlay and saw dramatic results. They were able to increase their email sign-ups from 80 to 90 sign-ups per day to over 300!

Department of Interior Web Overlay

To find out what works best for your organization, try testing an overlay form for a month and see what results you receive versus your typical sign-up placement.

The New Trend: Use a Prominent Sign-up Box

If you don’t want to use a pop-up form or an overlay, you can try placing your sign-up box in the top or middle of your website’s screen where even mobile visitors will see it immediately. This way, you can ask for email sign-ups in a way that can’t be missed. Your reader has the opportunity to sign up easily if interested or continue to the rest of your content without disruption. Best of all, this method also successfully generates two to three times the number of email sign-ups as a less-prominent sign-up form.

The City of Cerritos is a great example, with a prominent sign-up box on their homepage. The graphics and visual also helps emphasize the call to action to sign up for updates.

City of Cerritos home page

Provide Social Proof and Incentives

There are two key things to include in your sign-up box. First and foremost, ask for the reader’s email address. Second and almost as importantly, provide social proof for why they should subscribe and continue to subscribe to your messages. An automated calculation based on the number of subscribers will help make your case: “Join over 20,000 in-the-know citizens.”

As a bonus, include a short message or a direct incentive to convince the reader why they should sign up. The message might promise “Weekly tips,” “Daily news” or “Personalized links,” while some subscription lists offer an incentive in the form of a PDF e-book, brochure or paper to first-time subscribers. For example, the CDC offered a zombie comic book, while FEMA provided a list of citizen preparedness tips.

Government organizations looking to connect with their citizens via email marketing and subscription lists are already on the right track by providing timely and relevant information, enabling interaction and conversation between readers and the organization, and defining an official yet approachable internet persona. By following these tips for even more effective email marketing, you can leverage your carefully crafted messages to reach a broader audience and produce a bigger impact.

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Top 3 Email Tips to Engage Your Stakeholders

March 28th, 2012 | Posted by Mary Yang For GovDelivery in Best Practices | Tips & Tricks - (1 Comments)

Email is one of the most powerful mediums of communication in our technology-driven world. It is cheap; it is effective; and it almost instantaneously broadcasts to millions of clients. Recent studies have shown that, while social media communications is increasing significantly, “email continues to deliver the largest share of both impressions and visitors.” But, if people don’t read your email, they won’t get the message you’re trying to send. This means it’s imperative for government organizations to carefully craft messages in order to communicate effectively with the public.

Crafting an engaging email requires some basic tenets of good writing: having a reason to write, successfully communicating that reason and eliciting a response (i.e. creating engagement) from your audience. Here are some tips on how to do that:

1) Have a reason to write

Why do you read anything? A good email, like a good book, needs to have interesting and relevant content. After all, if readers of your email are engaged and interested, they are more likely to pass on this information, respond to it, or interact with it in other ways.

Is your message compelling or, at least, entertaining?

Remember that subscribers are, first and foremost, human beings. They are receptive and respond to what they find appealing. Your message content determines if your subscribers read and respond or ignore your message. You can make a difference here. Your subscribers have already taken the first step of opting-in to receive messages from you, trusting that you have relevant information to share with them that is important, but you can help them take the next step of interacting with your content by providing information that is relevant or attractive. For example, a look at the 2011 State & Local Communications Report shows the kinds of topics that gained the most subscribers in 2011 and clearly demonstrates what types of information the public is looking for:

2) Communicate clearly

Having a reason to reach out to your subscribers and sending relevant information is great, but you also need to communicate clearly in your message. Part of communicating clearly is being personable and conversational. Your readers need to know that they are receiving communications from people, not automatons. There are a couple of key tips to help you communicate clearly and ensure that your subscribers are paying attention to your messages: :

Be recognizable

People are most likely to open an email from someone they know and trust. In today’s world, fear of viruses, scams and spam have made email users savvier about the information that gets filtered out. People must be able to identify the message as one to keep, which is only possible if the email comes from a source that is easily verified and trusted. Government organizations will have official .gov email addresses, but your agency should also take steps to ensure that emails have an equally email persona (e.g. “City of Minneapolis” is more trustworthy than “Judy Wellsworth”).

Personalize your message

Next, be creative and informative with your subject line. Subject lines can motivate a reader to open the message. Think about what’s important to your target audience or the public today. What do they connect with, what are their concerns, what do they want to learn more about? This can help you determine your content and shape your subject lines. For example, GovDelivery’s 2011 Federal Digital Communications Report shows that the most-shared government communications and subject lines were ones that connected easily with citizens – alerts that impacted daily life, such as the IRS increasing mileage reimbursement rates and information on a more national scale, such as the official moment of silence time in remembrance of September 11th.

Next, although it may seem like a small thing, personalize the email to the individual recipient. This can make a big difference in getting someone to read your message. Wouldn’t you want to read a message that was addressed to you, with your name at the beginning of the email, rather than a generic message sent to “Resident?” It is simple and easy to do, with the right personalization macros, and the payoff can be huge!

3) Elicit a (positive) response in your target audience

Just like a book, if you get the reader to open your email, then don’t disappoint them. Some tips on how to avoid disappointment are:

Identify the type of response desired

Do you want your users to use the information you provide, forward your message or take action in some way? Once you have decided how you want your users to interact with the information you are providing, ensure that they have a way to do so, e.g. at the end of your email, offer a space where they can provide feedback or a way to easily forward your message to their family and friends.

Give them a reason to read your next communication

It is important for government organizations to be timely with their emails, sending out pertinent information about upcoming opportunities with enough time for users to plan for them or about current topics of interest while they are still current. For instance, USA.gov recently blogged an answer to a question from a citizen, titled “Why the Price of Gas is Rising.” With recent news stories of gas in Florida reaching $6 a gallon, this email was timely, gave the public information that was relevant and engaging. This means, the next time USA.gov sends out an email, citizens have a good reason to open the next email. Give the public something extra and current.

As a government organization, you often are at the forefront of news and information. Harness your direct connections to information to provide timely updates to the public, and your government organization will accelerate its growth in reaching the public through email as well as interact and engage with them in a much more personalized manner. You’re already working hard at growing your subscriber base – now maximize your impact by implementing some of these simple tips.

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Ahead in the Clouds?

March 13th, 2012 | Posted by govdelivery in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

By Dave Worsell, Director, Government Solutions, GovDelivery UK

I’ve worked with UK Government long enough to be more than a bit sceptical when they announce an initiative like the CloudStore as a vehicle for SMEs to engage with government.

Sure it sounds like good idea.  Government working closely with SMEs, purchasing innovative technologies, agile, quick and cost efficient.  What could be better for an SME like GovDelivery?

Our biggest challenge hasn’t been engaging with the behemoth that is UK Government, in that respect we’ve been hugely successful.  Our problem has been closing the deal, getting that all important signed purchase order.  It’s been hugely frustrating having a really cool and completely unique service that government desires but is so difficult for them to purchase.  It often takes many times longer to procure GovDelivery than implement it.  We nearly always managed it, but it was a struggle, took time and restricted our growth.

The fact that we weren’t on any UK frameworks two years ago made life very difficult so the CloudStore seemed like an ideal solution to the problem.  But I was worried…

I attended a suppliers briefing organised through our membership at Intellect.  It was at this point alarm bells started ringing.  Procurement doesn’t work like this.

  • Lightweight procurement – Yeah, I’ve heard that before.  It usually means I don’t get to sleep for weeks.  Government tenders become all consuming and burn resources faster than a coal power station.   As a small SME we couldn’t afford to undertake a long procurement without severely impacting our business.
  • Open to all – Was Government aware of how many suppliers would bid for this work?  Surely hell would freeze over before they could evaluate and award this many contracts.
  • Suppliers Catalogue – The catalogue would be more like a large telephone directory.  Purchasing would be based on price not value and that was if they could find us in the first place. This doesn’t bode well for suppliers like GovDelivery with unique service propositions that fall outside normal search parameters.

I left the briefing thinking it was a cynical box ticking exercise.  Government engaged with SMEs.  TICK. Keep calm and carry on as usual.

Despite my many misgivings, we pressed ahead.  Being on a framework that gave our existing prospect a vehicle for procurement was beneficial even if we saw no other value.

CloudStore_SaaS

I’m pleased to say I was wrong.  Very wrong.

  • Procurement was slightly more demanding than we were led to believe but it wasn’t as onerous as I expected, not even close.  We’ve got the Accreditation process to go but so far so good, it’s been relatively painless.
  • Award of contract was delayed, slightly.  However, the process was much faster than I was expecting with 257 suppliers given contracts and 1,700 solutions listed in such a short period of time.  A lot of credit needs to be given to the entire Government Procurement Service (GPS) team who made the impossible, possible.
  • The CloudStore has a few teething problems.  We’re still waiting for our details to be entered correctly on the CloudStore website.  However, potential clients are managing to find us.
  • Most importantly, we are seeing value.  We’ve had enquires and are hopeful of making our first CloudStore sale very soon.

What I wasn’t expecting was the huge level of interest.  Our press release went around the world several times and was picked up by more media agencies than anything we’ve ever done before, both in the UK and the US.

The world is watching the UK and the trail-blazing CloudStore team.  We’re immensely proud to be a part of something truly game-changing.

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How to Successfully Date Your Subscribers (Or, How to Send Great Bulletins)

February 29th, 2012 | Posted by govdelivery in Best Practices - (0 Comments)

By Lauren Modeen, Engagement Strategist

One of GovDelivery’s Client Success Consultants, Bandar El-Eita recently came up with a helpful metaphor on bulletin sending best practices. His thinking is that the process of encouraging a new citizen to sign up and read your bulletins is akin to the process of dating. That is, when a communications professional sends bulletins, he can think of the process as having five stages: the Introduction, a First Impression, a “Let’s Make Plans” Call, the Big Date, and then, of course, the Relationship.

Stay with me. I’ll walk you through it.

Let’s say you are interested in dating. Well, first you have to meet someone. As you know, you probably meet a potential candidate in one of two ways. First way: you are so well known, so appealing, so spectacular, that a potential suitor seeks you out in a bar, at a community gathering, or, well, you get the point. Second way? A friend introduces you (often, the more likely of the two).

In gaining subscribers, it’s the same. Your audiences is likely to find you in one of two ways. Either, you are so well known, so appealing, so spectacular, that a potential subscriber seeks you out in their browser., or a GovDelivery Network Partner introduces you (quite likely).

Regardless of how you meet, you meet. What happens now? You have a chance at a first impression. In the digital communication “dating” world, you might only have a few seconds to make this first impression. This first impression is where you present your subscription topics. At this point you should ask yourself: am I making my offerings clear? Would descriptions help my subscribers? Are my subscription pages customized to best increase the likelihood I can continue to the next phase?

National Heart, Lung and Blood InstituteLet’s say you do these things right, and your potential suitor (subscriber) gives you the cue that you should give them a call. They subscribe to your bulletins. What happens now? You might ask them some questions so you can get to know them better. Here you have successfully moved to the “Let’s Make Plans” Call.

Just like you would on any first call to ask someone out, here you can put your best foot forward to confirm and peak their interest from your original introduction.

So, you’re on the phone. Chatting away. Learning more about them. Next up? You need to ask for the Big Date. How do you successfully ask for the Big Date, and once you do, how do you present yourself on that date? Keep in mind, on this date your potential suitor (subscriber) will ask: who is this? Is this “dater” attractive, well-groomed, and interesting (i.e. bulletin looks good and is interesting)? Is the date what I expected, and if not, will I want to go on another date (i.e. meets needs)? Will I tell my friends (i.e. share the bulletin)? Do I want to go back to their place (i.e. click on a link in the body of your bulletin)? Do I want to ever hear from the person again (i.e. unsubscribe)?

This Big Date step, actually sending a bulletin, is crucial.

From the subject line to the bulletin design to the content, there is a lot to think about. So, here’s where I’ll jump into some commonly asked questions including tips on best fonts, colors, subject line best practices, image best practices, and best times to send. Follow these best practices, and you’ll have more than one successful “date!”

Bulletin Design Best Practices:

Subject Line: As the gateway to your bulletin, the subject line is crucial. If your subscriber is not drawn in here, the best bulletin in the world will not be read. Here are five quick tips for writing high open-rate subject lines:

  1. Provide a clear call to action
  2. Keep it brief: try to write less than 50 characters
  3. Make it definitive
  4. Make it intriguing
  5. If appropriate, localize the content (include a city or specific location)
  6. Words to avoid: like the word “free,” words like “helpful” and “reminder” aren’t specific or intriguing enough to garner an open

Content: Once you successfully draw in a reader, keep the engagement going with solid content. Here are five easy tips:

  1. Personalize the bulletin when possible
  2. Use social English (write at an appropriate reading level for your readers)
  3. Write in the present tense
  4. Have a sense of humor when appropriate
  5. Never use all-caps
  6. Don’t overdo exclamation points

Fonts: When picking fonts, the best rule of thumb is to keep it simple. Pick a few that best resemble your brand, and pick a font that is web safe (here is a list of web-safe fonts and their explanations). My top favorite fonts include: Arial, Georgia, and Tahoma, Lucida Sans Unicode, Trebuchet MS. Finally, avoid having too many fonts, or switching font types from line to line.

Colors: Along the same vein as fonts, the best colors to choose are simply colors easy on the eyes that keep in line with your brand and help your readers easily digest your content.

Images: There are lots of schools of thought on image best practices, but here are 6 extremely important ones:

  1. Make sure your bulletin makes sense without any pictures. Not everyone will download your images, so you are best assuming no one will see them and go from there.
  2. Make sure you include alt text (some tutorial tips can be found here).
  3. Include high-quality, appropriate images.
  4. Host the image yourself – otherwise you have no control over it
  5. Don’t include one giant image. Why? It will significantly increase the time for the bulletin to load, and may get blocked from the start. What to do instead? Try editing images so they’re smaller and flow with the text of the email. You may also consider asking an HTML designer to help design a solution if your images are integral to the bulletin.
  6. Re-size the image before you embed.

Let’s get back to the dating metaphor, shall we? Let’s say you send a few successful bulletins, and your subscriber reads them, and even tells a friend about them. Maybe you even get a chance to show your subscriber your place (they click on your link and return to your website). So, you have a few successful dates. Now what? You start to move into the Relationship phase. And like any successful relationship, meeting your subscribers’ needs is critical. How do you move along in the Relationship phase? Communicate openly. Evaluate their interactions with you (examine your metrics). Ask them to introduce you to their friends. Consider thanking them on their anniversaries. You fill in the rest.

 

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Social media is more than just followers

February 21st, 2012 | Posted by govdelivery in Best Practices | Client News - (0 Comments)

By John Simpson, Federal Consultant

It’s a given that social media and its wide reach with the public has revolutionized how organizations and companies interact with their stakeholders. Communicating to citizens through channels like Facebook and Twitter allows for a free, easy and more direct connection. Much of the government has embraced social media, working to integrate their communication efforts with these new tools to better reach the public. However, outreach through social media cannot stop with the simple re-posting of press releases or resting on the laurels of a large number of “followers.” As budgets shrink and offices are forced to justify initiatives, wasting or ignoring that opportunity to engage with your audience on a personal level is not an option.

An organization needs to know its community. Why are these people signing up to read your posts and tweets in the first place? Likely it isn’t for only site updates or press releases. Your organization provides a basic service they need to know about, research information related to their major, or resources to help build up their small business. When you send out newsletters, you work to craft articles or emails to a certain group of stakeholders. It should be the same for your tweets and posts. The attention span of someone surfing their Twitter feed through a smart phone won’t have time for an ill-targeted or uninteresting tweet.suggestion box

Once you understand the needs of your followers, solicit their feedback or comments. Posting general information about upcoming programs, events or blog entries is important, but social media was built as a tool of engagement. Ask for their advice on how to improve a program or how to better serve a need. Take questions on an upcoming tax deadline, inquire what they spent their tax return on or pose trivia questions on national forests. Build relationships with your followers so that they are actually looking for your next post instead of dismissing it after a quick glance. Stakeholder feedback is an invaluable resource for any organization and social media makes it easier than ever to solicit. Some public organizations fear that asking for feedback can only lead down a dark road of criticism and unregulated commentary. Sometimes your biggest critic can turn into your best resource. The Department of Veterans Affairs went so far as hired one of its sharpest critics to become a blogger on their site.

fist bumpOutreach is a two-way street. Your followers may communicate to you questions or concerns around a recent initiative. Just like the private sector, customer service is crucial to any successful company. You should respond completely, accurately and turn that inquiry into a real connection. If someone tweets your profile a question or places a question on your Facebook page, that is a sign that some of your audience is actually invested in what you’re posting. When Japan was scrambling in mid-2011 to handle the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant, some U.S. west coast residents were concerned if any possible fallout could affect them. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) posted clarifying content and fielded questions on both Twitter and Facebook to answer the questions of concerned citizens and calm those who weren’t necessarily looking for press releases.

Luckily, any public organization looking to expand into social media doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel. An agency can look to the work of other government offices to see what they’re doing to be successful. A nonprofit group, Expert Labs, has created a dashboard measuring the success of federal agencies based on their public engagement on Twitter. Although not a complete picture of an agency’s digital interaction with their stakeholders, the rankings of organizations and offices gives a view of who is regularly asking questions and receiving answers back on Twitter. This dashboard also illustrates that you don’t necessarily need a staggering amount of Followers to effectively communicate to the public. NASA is often listed as one of the most engaging agencies.

Interactions through social media must not be a second thought nor “might as well” automation. Like any communications strategy, there must be an endgame and a method for measuring success. Having 20,000 followers who aren’t truly invested in the information you’re posting means you’re wasting both your resources and your time. Doing something just for the sake of doing it is always a poor plan. Only when you actively interact with your subscribers will you turn Twitter followers into an engaged community.

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APIs and Tax Season

February 16th, 2012 | Posted by govdelivery in Client News | GovDelivery Features | Integration - (0 Comments)

By Richard Fong, Technical Implementation Consultant

Have you wondered how your organization can step into the mobile world? Do you want to extend your reach and drive more engagement with the general public wherever they can consume your content – whether that’s from a desktop or a mobile device such as a smartphone?

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) stepped more firmly into the mobile device arena, recently announcing an update to their IRS2GO 2.0 app on iOS and Android platforms. This update adds new features to their previous app, such as access to their YouTube channel. In addition, IRS2GO allows app users to enter in their email address to receive “simple, straightforward tips and reminders” from the IRS. This helps extend the IRS’s reach by encouraging app users to also sign up to receive emails from the IRS, specifically from the “Tax Tips” topic. The sign up portion of the app was built using a Subscriber API (application programming interface) within GovDelivery Digital Communication Management (DCM).

IRS2Go

This integration isn’t as complicated as it seems. In fact, many GovDelivery clients are already using APIs to help integrate a number of processes. Examples of current API integrations include:

  • The State of Michigan is using our API to capture subscribers for their Fall Colors eNewsletter.
  • A large Federal agency is using our API to sync their internal grants database with GovDelivery to ensure grantees get the most recent and relevant information.
  • Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) sends out email and SMS alerts about elevator service availability on a daily basis via our Send Bulletin API.

Many private companies (Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, Twitter, etc.) have APIs available to build out an automated integration, and GovDelivery is no different. An API is made up of resources that are available programmatically. With a library of industry standard RESTful APIs that clients can use to make requests to GovDelivery DCM – from creating and assigning subscribers to sending a message – your organization can automate manual processes and free up times and resources.

If you have any questions about how your organization can use APIs or integrate with GovDelivery DCM, contact us at info@govdelivery.com.

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Sift Through Big Data to Find Real Insight

January 18th, 2012 | Posted by Dennis Still for Govdelivery in Client News | GovDelivery Features - (0 Comments)

There is a ton of talk today about “big” data.  The concept comes from our ever increasing ability to collect, store, and manage larger and larger datasets full of vast amounts of information – customer information, habits, purchasing patterns, social media visits, and so on.  Unfortunately, I think many private and public organizations have become much like the Once-ler in Dr. Seuss’ Lorax:

I had to grow bigger so bigger I got. I biggered my factory, I biggered my roads, I biggered the wagons, I biggered the loads…

I biggered my datasets because that is what everyone, everyone needs…

The true test of an organization’s ability to use any data effectively is in the analysis of that data.  What can you understand from “big” data and how can it help government organizations achieve greater efficiencies, effectiveness, and engagement with the citizens they serve?  I think the answer is in the smaller, localized, actionable gems that you sift out of the ever-growing big data.

GovDelivery recently published the 2011 Federal Digital Communications Report in which we reflect on the breadth and depth of digital communications across governmental agencies.  We leveraged big data to highlight actionable information that can provide important insights for government agencies, including what topics were important to citizens.

  • 28% of governmental messages sent out via the GovDelivery platform dealt with Health & Health Care in 2011.  It was a critical topic focused on by the national media, and this report shows that all levels of government agencies provided further analyses, clarifications, policies, and follow-up through their digital communications.

  • Over 25% of governmental messages dealt with Business & Small Business and Jobs & Employment.  Again, the economy has been a major focus throughout the world.  This has given government organizations the opportunity to get out timely information to help its citizens cope as well as help support increased economic activity by educating and encouraging entrepreneurs and small businesses.
  • IRS, National Weather Service, FEMA, and USDA had some of the highest shared content across all Federal agencies that use the GovDelivery digital communications solution.  This list shows the specific messages from government agencies that citizens felt compelled to share with family and other social networks. It demonstrates immediate mission value for government while also providing agencies with information that can help them tailor their future communications. Many shared important updates and news alerts related to subjects like:
  1. SAMHSA – Facebook’s First-of-a-Kind Service to Help Prevent Suicides
  2. USDA – New Food Icon to help consumers make healthier food choices
  3. USA.gov – Moment of silence in remembrance of 9/11
  • By identifying some detailed data, we were able to highlight the incredible growth of specific topics that showed growing public interest. The report showed that the SSA’s W-2 News, FEMA’s Updates During Disasters, and AHRQ’s Patient Safety grew the most by number of subscribers over 2011.

The study overall provides remarkable proof that governments are providing relevant, topic based, and insightful information for their citizens.  GovDelivery is proud to partner with government organizations to help get the word out about the kind of information that impact all of us.

Theoretically, the idea of big data for government sounds valuable, but in reality, big data doesn’t provide the insight that helps you communicate better with the public.  It is not just about “biggering” your data; it is about leveraging specific data to lead to greater wisdom and insights.  If you ever need help seeing the detailed trees through the ever-growing data forest, contact us at GovDelivery.

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The Lucky 7 Ways to Increase Your Outreach

January 11th, 2012 | Posted by Jennifer Kaplan for GovDelivery in Best Practices | Tips & Tricks | Unique Uses of GovDelivery - (1 Comments)

GovDelivery’s clients find that the value of digital outreach is driven by three key metrics:

  • Effectiveness:  Reaching the maximum number of people with the information they want and need
  • Efficiency:  Managing resources by automating and streamlining communications across many departments, topics, and digital channels
  • Engagement: Driving measurable results with communication ranging from reducing printing costs to getting more people to adopt pets, apply for grants, or take flu shots

The first and most important metric to focus on is effectiveness, or how many citizens you reach.  Your stakeholder size sets the stage for driving users to the online and offline activities that create the most value for the public and your agency.

Your actions make all the difference in maximizing outreach, and there are some amazing opportunities to hit the accelerator on your growth.  You can contact me or anyone on your GovDelivery team to get help implementing any (or all!) of these acquisition strategies.

Below are my current “Lucky 7” ideas for increasing your outreach:

Effective Promotion

1. Participate in the unique GovDelivery Network: GovDelivery allows you to work with other government agencies to promote your content with the GovDelivery Network.  Indicate to your GovDelivery Implementation or Client Success Consultant that you are willing to allow GovDelivery to optimize your Network and feel free to provide us with any suggestions of agencies/organizations working with GovDelivery that would be good partners for you. GovDelivery will add/subtract Network partners to maximize your outreach. Check out a list of current clients that you can network with on our website.

2. Promote communications on your home page: The easier it is to find the sign-up area on your website, the more likely it is that users will join your list. Add a direct sign-up box allowing users to enter their email address directly on your home page. The key to success is a prominent position.  Keep it in the upper right or upper left of your page, but be careful not to “merge” it into your site design or search bar too much.  You want it to stand out, like this example from USDA.

3. Proactively invite website visitors: Consider an overlay on your homepage or other high traffic pages to encourage site visitors to take the important step of signing up for your updates so you can reach them in the future.  The White House uses this technique from time to time, and here is an example in our test environment.  These can be set up to appear every time someone visits your website or they can use a cookie (without personal information) to only display to first time visitors. The best part? GovDelivery can help design an overlay specific to your organization.

4. Go where the traffic is: Review your website analytics and make sure that you have simple and clear “Sign up to receive ….” links just above your most popular content. This ensures that you are capturing browsers at key points of interest. Here is a great example from the FDA.

Time-saving tip: start with your top 10 most visited pages.  If you have a page that contains topics where you aren’t offering subscriptions currently, add those topics and subscription options to your GovDelivery account.

5. Offer a broad range of topics and don’t hide sign-up options:

Capture Information at Critical Times

6. Take an inventory of existing email addresses and outreach lists:

  • Where do you currently store email addresses? Where did these addresses come from?
  • Work with your GovDelivery Client Success Consultant to determine if you can upload existing lists directly to GovDelivery or if it is preferable to invite people to sign up.  In most cases, you can create new topics in GovDelivery that map directly to the outreach you are already providing.  You’ll want to ask departments/offices/programs where they have email lists to maximize the impact. GovDelivery can also help by supplying potential invite templates.

7.     Promote opportunities to connect when the public is engaged with you: 

  • Any emails received from your office or agency should include a link inviting the public to sign up for updates. To optimize this process, use a URL shortening service such as http://www.bit.ly to make the links as small as possible.  Try the custom URL feature to create a branded version: http://bit.ly/agencynamesignup.
  • Leverage print! Promote “Sign up to receive updates from us” on posters and business cards using a short URL.
  • Ask people to sign up when they call in to 311 or other office numbers.  Capture email address in real-time and indicate you will sign callers up, if they are willing, to receive your updates.  Email addresses can be uploaded from within the GovDelivery interface, and you can send a confirmation inviting callers to sign up for more options and adjust their profile.
  • Promote sign-up options in any postal mailings you send, including tax and utility statements as well as catalogs and grant mailings.  Schools can be very effective in sending home “sign up” invitations with students.
  • Consider high traffic moments in your office or in other formats and determine how best to encourage sign-ups or to capture contact information during those times.

As government communicators, our clients want to make sure that they reach as many citizens as possible. The more stakeholders you reach and relationships you build, they more likely it is that your stakeholders will take action and serve to help you improve mission results. With this expansion, the more potential you have to directly affect citizen satisfaction and trust with your organization.

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Analyst or Reporter – Implications for Data

October 27th, 2011 | Posted by Dennis Still for Govdelivery in Uncategorized - (1 Comments)

By Dennis Still, Client Performance Analyst, GovDelivery

NumbersI was watching the news the other day and started thinking about the differences between news analysts and news reporters. Many channels now have folks with titles like senior news analyst, senior Washington correspondent, policy analyst, and so on. When did reporting “news” become more than just actually telling folks what happened in a particular place or during an event? When did saying Joe Smith, Reporter stop being enough? This definitely got me thinking about how we use certain terms to
identify what someone actual does within an organization.

I went looking for some clear definitions and found the following via Wikipedia: 1) News Analyst is someone who examines, analyzes and interprets news received from various sources, and 2) News Reporter is a type of journalist who researches and presents information in certain types of media. Analysis is the interpretation of information while reporting provides specific facts/details about a particular situation.

The challenge for most organizations, including governmental agencies, is to remember that reporting and analyzing are closely related to each other, but not necessarily the same thing. With incredible advances in technology, IT and DBA personnel often become critical to the extraction of data
related to an organization’s health. They know where it lives and how to get at it. They are often tasked with collecting and providing vital “numbers” when called upon by managers and other stakeholders. However, their skill sets may not be in taking that information, presenting it to a customer or citizen, and
drawing actionable conclusions to help the end user.

Impactful organizations understand the value of both collecting and interpreting data. Having both reporters and analysts is critical if you want to get the most out of your data—big or small. Reporters collect data and supply information from various data sources, while analysts take the raw data and craft it in incredible ways to reveal hidden stories about trends, findings, and outcomes.

I have worked with data and the analysis of that data in some capacity for 15 years now. I’ve been called graduate researcher, content acquisition specialist, and now client performance analyst (among other things that I don’t want to repeat here about being a data “jockey”). I believe my job is about
taking information and transforming it into something that others can use to make more intelligent decisions about their organization or business—analyzing. Looking at information and thinking it through systematically. For instance,

  • Why do we see increases in subscribers over time?
  • Why do most messages sent by a governmental agency get opened between 4:00 and 5:00 pm?
  • Does the number of subscribers for agencies fall within a confidence interval for similar-sized agencies?

With ever larger data sets and information being collected, the art of taking raw data and creating analyses that organizations can act upon will continue to be incredibly powerful. If you are a reporter, and have interests in analyzing data, you should push to do so and take the initiative to show your manager what you can do. And for the analysts out there, be proud and don’t let yourself become just a reporter. The power of data is in the wisdom it can help provide.

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