Details:
- Company: Granicus
- Client: City of Doncaster Council
- Year: 2023
- Region: England
- Product: govDelivery, EngagementHQ
Service areas:
- Community engagement
- Artificial intelligence (AI) and software solutions
- Organisational digital transformation
Introduction
How City of Doncaster Council improved communications with Audience Segmentation. The widespread group of towns and villages that make up South Yorkshire’s City of Doncaster Council, made impactful emergency communications difficult, leading to negative feedback to their response. After integrating the audience segmentation tools found in Granicus’ digital communications platform, City of Doncaster Council was able to better serve their communities after a 2023 storm, earning recognition in 2023 Granicus Digital Public Sector Awards.
Challenges
Struggling to Communicate with “A Place of Places”
As one of the worst hit areas during flood storms in 2019, communications both during the storm and in the clean-up efforts that followed relied mostly on social media for digital resident communication. After initial positive exposure, the comms team soon found that this method was not connecting with community members.
As one of the worst hit areas during flood storms in 2019, communications both during the storm and in the clean-up efforts that followed relied mostly on social media for digital resident communication. After initial positive exposure, the comms team soon found that this method was not connecting with community members.
Solutions
Messaging Segmented to Specific Audiences
The City of Doncaster Council integrated a new digital tool into their communications: govDelivery. The audience segmentation features helped better target communications to audiences based on interests. By broadcasting general messages around news and sending reminders, the team was then able to encourage their audience to sign up for more detailed topic channels to adjust the level of information received from the city.
The City of Doncaster Council integrated a new digital tool into their communications: govDelivery. The audience segmentation features helped better target communications to audiences based on interests. By broadcasting general messages around news and sending reminders, the team was then able to encourage their audience to sign up for more detailed topic channels to adjust the level of information received from the city.
Results
A Path Forward Beyond Social Media
When Storm Babet hit in 2023, the positive changes could be seen both during and after the storm, with an average open rate of 47% on messaging and more than 7,000 visits to Storm Babet related webpages in the days surrounding the storm. Of even more interest to the communications team was the increase in newsletter open rates that were localised to specific towns and villages, reaching a nearly 60% open rate compared to the 40% open rate of emails with Doncaster-wide messaging.
When Storm Babet hit in 2023, the positive changes could be seen both during and after the storm, with an average open rate of 47% on messaging and more than 7,000 visits to Storm Babet related webpages in the days surrounding the storm. Of even more interest to the communications team was the increase in newsletter open rates that were localised to specific towns and villages, reaching a nearly 60% open rate compared to the 40% open rate of emails with Doncaster-wide messaging.
“[govDelivery] was amazing compared to social media because we were able to help people find specific information and we knew people were finding it. We knew people were interested through analytics and keeping related pages up to date”
Nick Fromont
Communications Business Partner, City of Doncaster Council
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