Building an active and engaged subscriber base

Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council: get started on social media guide

Not wanting to solely rely on the media to share the council's news, direct communication with residents has been an essential part of the authority's work for some time. For several years this was done via social media and the website, however the implementation of an e-alert became a priority in 2013.

In 2013/14 the council undertook its largest budget consultation to date, receiving around 4,500 responses. As part of the consultation, respondents were asked to provide email addresses if they wished to be contacted in the future. As a result, 1,500 email addresses were collected.

The communications team used a piece of software called Absolute Newsletter to create its first e-bulletin and contact these residents. The open rate was higher than 90 per cent. Using social media and the local press, the team then managed to grow the mailing list to 2,500.

The e-bulletins – which won the comms2point0 UnAwards 2014 for the best email marketing category - use a fully responsive email template which displays on mobiles, tablets and PCs, and are sent out every six weeks – keeping open rates high and unsubscribe rates low.

The e-bulletins are sent out before school holidays and incorporate ‘what's on' news for parents and children. Other content includes changes to council services and weather alerts to inform residents of school closures and disruption to services such as bin collections.

The communications team has then increased the size of the mailing list by speaking to all council departments, to find out what email addresses they held in their systems. These included council tax e-billing, leisure centre memberships, customer call centre contacts and library members. In total the council e-bulletin now goes out to over 75,000 valid email addresses. Average open rates are 20 per cent.