January 2009 Archives

 Email is the Internet's Killer App. Use it well.

To many, email communications seems like  "yesterday's news."  Even though we here at GovDelivery have been working with federal, state, and local government on improving email communication with the public since 1999, we still get excited about email!  As our marketing director, I want to share how we're helping clients leverage email to promote blogs, support Twitter, and utilize other social media.  I want to brag about what our clients are doing in the area of collaboration and Web 2.0.

When we step back and think about how we can best help government communicate with the public effectively, email rises above every other opportunity for two reasons.  First, it is ubiquitous.  Our clients care about reaching people and email is the number one use of the Internet by a landslide.  Second, there is still a lot of room for improvement. 

One stat from Jupiter suggests that citizens spend over 80% of online time using email.  It has become such a part of daily life that its dominance simply doesn't make headline news. 

The Pew Internet and American Life Project released a new report on daily Internet activity. Although the focus of the report was the growth of daily search activity by Americans, the report showed an astounding 60% of Americans use email every day. Search has grown to 49 percent, from about a third in 2002. But the author calls email "arguably the Internet's all time killer app:"

And just last month eMarketer released survey data showing the digital channels preferred by various age groups. Email is used by almost 53% of Americans to share information about a new product or service with others, second only to face to face communication and ahead of phone calls. Email is also the preferred digital channel for all purposes in every age group with the exception of young teenagers, who prefer text messaging where social communication is the priority.

So if email is the channel of choice of the majority of Americans, the question becomes "how well does your organization "do email?"  If you're wondering how you're doing, read through this document that was shared at the Federal Consulting Group's Proactive Communication Roundtable earlier this year: http://tinyurl.com/govd1 .

Consider this:

Do you do a good job of offering and promoting all important topics by email?  Are you offering subscribers many choices?  Are you promoting your new types of content (blogs, videos, social media content) by email (http://tinyurl.com/govd13)?  Are you treating your email subscription links like "add to cart" links and promoting them on your site?  Are you following the lead of NASA, EPA, and others by allowing citizens to signup for emails directly on your website (http://tinyurl.com/gddirectsignup).

Newer applications like text messaging and social networks like Twitter get far more attention. But for final measure, let's compare some stats.
Washington State Department of Transportation

Twitter followers: 2,411

Email subscribers: >28,000

Mayor of Minneapolis

Twitter followers: 984

Email subscribers: 7,498 (with >43,000 subscribed to all City information)

EPA

Twitter followers: <2,000

Email subscribers: >77,000 with 5,000-7,500 new signing up monthly

To top it off, it is much easier to track results and learn about your subscriber base with email than with many Web 2.0 channels.

RSS and wireless alerts are also very powerful, but when launched side by side with email, citizens prefer email at a 10-20 to 1 ratio over these other channels.

In fact, I'd bet that the Obama campaign and others found that email delivered the most tangible results in their campaigns for fundraising and mobilization.  They used other channels, but their most critical and reliable outreach seemed to be by email.

All of this is not to say that Twitter, Facebook, Texting, RSS, etc. do not have value.  They are amazing channels that build community, allow for direct conversations, and give citizens flexibility in how they will interact with government.  See how we use Twitter (www.twitter.com/govdelivery ).

However, the power of email for driving better communication with the public is unrivaled, and there are still many opportunities to use email better.  I suggest you treat email like the foundation of your digital communication house and treat other channels as nice additions that you can focus on when your foundation is strong.  If you focus too much on using new channels, you may fail to leverage the most powerful channel for public communication in history... plain old email.

We've got a new President, and there are many reasons to be optimistic that positive changes are in store.

My optimism has increased over the past few months as I've met and seen commentary from the transition team working on the Administration's technology and Web strategy.

In addition to the New Media office that's just opened at the White House, which has been operating as part of the transition team, the transition team set up the Technology, Innovation and Government Reform (TIGR) Team to explore new ways of communicating with the public. Experienced administrators like Julius Genachowski (incoming FCC chairman), former FCC chief of staff Blair Levin and Washington DC CTO Vivek Kundra are advising the administration on how to leverage technology. The TIGR team developed a video that talks about their priorities: http://tinyurl.com/9tk4nj.

What is striking about the video (aside from the embrace of Cloud Computing and other concepts that have been difficult for government to grab onto in the past), is the focus on trying new things.  That same focus was evident in Change.gov's embrace of new types of commenting and online voting technologies.  I appreciated one link on their site that said, "have a better way of doing this, tell us!"  I also noted a complaint on the site about how Change.gov had not gone through enough effort to create a single, shared, login for people visiting the site to use the various pieces of functionality.  I smiled because it's that kind of thinking ("let's get this perfect rather than getting something online" ) that has stalled many innovative Web communication projects in federal government. 

It is easy in technology to let the better be the enemy of the good, but it's not necessary.  As long as critical data is kept secure, Web apps don't have to work perfectly when first released.    The Change.gov people know what everyone else on earth has also figured out... you can make changes and improve things more effectively once you have them out and see how people use them.  This is not just true in Web communication and technology, but often with public policy as well, something Obama seemed to acknowledge in asking us to be patient and expect some mistakes and false starts as he moves forward with his agenda.

Virtually every agency in federal government has some risk takers who've ignored at least a few rules and put their agency up on Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook.  You can see the great progress being made within agencies in social media and read about some of the barriers agencies face at www.webcontent.gov.

These same risk takers have been pushing the envelope for years, but now they have a lot more cover from above with the White House taking the lead on innovation.

At GovDelivery, we've been delivering a Software-as-a-Service (i.e., Web-hosted platform) to federal government for years.  Early on, we had many clients who felt uneasy discussing our solution with their security people; they were afraid that it would be beat up because it's not behind the firewall.  Years of success working with DHS, DoD, DOJ and others with no security breaches helped us gain momentum, but it took 5 years to reach the point where most federal agencies have embraced our platform.  Adoption of social media technologies and new types of cloud computing will happen much faster if the administration continues to encourage the risk takers.

The recent election demonstrated the power of digital communication for fundraising, network building, and organizing.  At all levels of government, new appointees and elected officials are coming in to government from private sector and political environments where digital communication was a key to their success (and in many cases, to their election).

Within government, 2008 was a critical year at all levels as organizations embraced new communication tools at a rapid rate.  Having previously shied away from new or "fad" approaches to communication methods like blogging, Faceboook and Twitter, hundreds of government organizations have now integrated these tools into a comprehensive communications strategy, with more coming on board everyday.  

Now, if you are a government Web manager or communicator, in all likelihood, you are currently or will soon be asked to take maximum advantage of all of these opportunities with similar resources to what you've had in the past.  You need a plan to improve communication at your agency/office/department, and you're wondering where to focus.  As always, budgets are probably tight and everyone has an opinion. 

Here are my ideas for government Web manager and communicator goals for the New Year:

1. Focus on adapting (not just copying) best practice from outside government. Adapt but don't transfer best practice from political campaigns and e-commerce.  At a typical government organization, the focus is on communication not target marketing, selling, fundraising, or electing a particular candidate.  Explain to the new people coming in that you are open to their ideas, but while they bring useful experience from outside government, you can help them put it to use inside government.

2. Map digital communications to your mission. If you are at a local or state government, focus on improving communication while using more cost-effective approaches (ROI is the ticket in these tough budget times). We're seeing GovDelivery clients increasingly focus on ROI in state and local government by thinking outside of the box about how processes need to be changed to leverage digital communication. If you are at a federal agency, explain how better communication will help you catch criminals (FBI), improve public health (CDC), or support more efficient regulation (SEC).

3. Prioritize communication channels. There is no need to reinvent the wheel - focus your energy on what has already been proven.  When clients ask us where to focus their energy, we point out key statistics.  The average citizen spends over 80% of online time using email, according to Jupiter. Our clients use the GovDelivery platform for email, wireless (text) alerts, and in some cases, to manage RSS feeds to best reach their audience.  But, if they ask us where to focus first, we're going to say email because it is the most far-reaching channel.  If you're optimizing search results, focus on Google as they have the most market share. If you want to post video, focus on YouTube, not a site that no one uses.  This is not government picking winners.  This is about government knowing where the public looks for information and going there.

4. Build your subscriber base and connect all channels. If you're using social media, promote your new media content in your emails to the public and on your website.  By the same token, promote your website, digital communication channels, and subscription options wherever you have a social media presence.  You will build your social media community on an ongoing basis and increase your overall website and subscriber audience (people who have provided at least their email address and registered for updates from your organization).

5. Set goals and track metrics. Include Web traffic (site visits, length of visits and sources of visitors) as well as the number of people signing up for email and/or wireless updates, the number of topics chosen by each subscriber, and, if you're using social media, the size of your communities in Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere.  Share your goals and engage other staff and your stakeholders to help your organization improve against its digital communication performance metrics.  

6. Engage stakeholders. Post video on your websites if not already doing so and look for ways to use YouTube, provided your office/agency allows it.  Post comments on blogs of interest and engage in conversations through Twitter and other tools.

7. Collaborate. Find other government organizations serving a similar audience to you and work with them to build your audience.  One amazing benefit of online government communication is that governments don't generally compete with one another.  We've seen cities work with counties to build their subscriber base by "cross-promoting" subscription options to residents signing up for updates.  We've also seen state and federal agencies collaborate and many different federal agencies work together.  You can read more about the work GovDelivery is doing in this area at http://tinyurl.com/gdcollaborate.  Our collaboration tools are free for any of our clients and the results achieved to date provide a good example of what can be accomplished through collaboration with minimal effort.

8. Be a leader. Promote your Web communication efforts internally.  Talk to your colleagues about how every office in your organization can leverage the tools you have in place to improve communication and, where possible, shift spending from old media (mailings, print publications, etc.) to more efficient electronic approaches.  Your internal audience is as important to your long-term success as your external audience. At the state and local level, get creative in how you help elected officials become more seamless and visible to the electorate.  Challenge yourself to help your elected officials embrace Twitter, blogs, Facebook, and other tools that make them more available to the public.

9. Be active. Become active in Government Web Manager.  Most importantly, monitor and join www.WebContent.gov as it is the premier resources for government Web managers and brings together some incredibly passionate and talented public sector Web managers

10. See the opportunity.  At all levels of government, social media, citizen engagement, transparency, and efficiency are priorities.  Effective digital communication fits in with these priorities, but you have to waive the flag to make sure that new efforts build on the momentum you already have in place and that the leadership at your organization understands how more attention and investment in digital communication supports traditional and new objectives. The Obama election and the new White House agenda to press for better use of Web 2.0 will bring exciting attention to these opportunities. Strike while the iron is hot!

Please share your thoughts.