4 Things to Automate When Resources Are Tight

Every year, we ask government employees for insight on their digital strategies in our annual trends survey. The results (published here in the 2017 Public Sector Digital Communications Trends Report) are meant to help organizations on every level check in on their digital tools and tactics for the coming year, and also provide a baseline for what’s top of mind for government employees.

This year – like previous years – the greatest challenge identified by 40 percent of those surveyed was lack of resources or staff.

While additional resources and staff aren’t always within your control, there are specific steps you can take to reduce the need for additional staff or funding while maintaining (or even increasing) productivity. Here are a few things to consider:

• Automate Your Messages

Automation is becoming more common in private sector marketing, as software is becoming increasingly sophisticated in its ability to handle segmentation and marketing campaigns. The Advanced Package in GovDelivery’s Communications Cloud has this type of capability, which allows organizations like Wrexham County in Wales to reduce one full day formally dedicated to sending emails to two hours of work with automation.

• Cut the Cost of Paper

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 to printing and managing paper documents. By cutting out these costs, you can save valuable resources. The City of Stockton, CA streamlined their paper-heavy process of citizens applying for boards and commissions 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 Pre-Built Campaigns

Pre-built campaigns allow you to share your organization’s brand story, mission, programs, and resources in an efficient manner, with scale and agility. They’re user-friendly and intuitive to communicators at any level. The benefits of pre-built campaigns within the GovDelivery Communications Suite include the ability to onboard new audiences, cross-promote programs and services with similar organizations around the country, and re-engage inactive audiences.

• Leverage APIs

With advances in technology, especially with application programming interfaces (APIs), the ability to maintain financial or citizen relationship management systems have been easier than ever. APIs do the work of pulling in personalized information and then sending out transactional messages to their intended recipients, and can even update citizens on important information like 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.

For more information on ways to automate your paper-heavy processes, visit the Meeting and Agenda Suite.