Mid and South Essex Health and Care Partnership has gone live with an integrated communications solution from Granicus.
The organisation, which completed the implementation of Granicus’ govDelivery in September, acquired the cloud-based, integrated communications platform to enable the organisation to create e-marketing campaigns.
The platform will help the service to engage with its subscriber base on relevant health and social care topics — with campaigns targeted to staff, stakeholders, and partners in the community — and it will also be used to create and distribute several newsletters in the local area.
As of 1 July this year, Mid and South Essex will become an Integrated Care System (ICS), subject to the passage of the new Health and Care Bill currently undergoing parliamentary review; and, as a result, it will join forces with other organisations within the region, creating one communications directive.
The govDelivery platform will support communications to stakeholders around any changes that will arise as a result and feed into the new ICS website with news round-up sections.
We wanted to engage with a wider demographic amongst our residents by offering them a choice of how they wanted to be communicated with; whether that’s by email, website, or mobile notification
The partnership is also one of the first UK customers to utilise the Granicus Experience Group (GXG) service; an in-house team of digital experts and strategists who conduct audience research to create targeted digital messaging campaigns, to support Mid and South Essex in creating and distributing a winter 2021/2022 campaign, in which residents can sign up for alerts.
Through this, subscribers will get a weekly email with health advice, such as how to boost your immunity, the importance of checking in on elderly or vulnerable relatives, looking after your mental health, or reminders around getting a COVID-19 booster or flu vaccination.
This will encourage people to take control of their own care and wellbeing, with a view to reducing pressure on the service during the busy winter period.
The campaign is already running above benchmark for all high-level stats so far, with 1,620 current subscribers for alerts and emails, an open rate of 44.8%, and 76% engagement rate, well above the industry engagement rate benchmark of 50%.
James Sharp, digital media and marketing manager at Mid and South Essex Health and Care Partnership, said: “We were drawn to the Granicus govDelivery platform because it’s tailored for the public sector, along with the analytics and the results it provides.
“We find its functionality is much more pointed towards our needs as an organisation.
“We wanted to engage with a wider demographic amongst our residents by offering them a choice of how they wanted to be communicated with; whether that’s by email, website, or mobile notification.
“We are also seeing some excellent results from our winter campaign powered through Granicus’ platform and we haven’t seen a significant number of unsubscribes from the campaign.”
We are seeing some excellent results from our winter campaign powered through Granicus’ platform and we haven’t seen a significant number of unsubscribes from the campaign
Ian Roberts, managing director at Granicus UK, added: “NHS communications need to be clear, timely, and secure, and our platforms are designed with this in mind.
"We are excited to see how Mid and South Essex is using the govDelivery platform and the outputs of our Granicus Experience Group (GXG) service, and we are even more excited to see how they will use it next.
“We hope that through the application of smart and interesting content made possible through this system, Mid and South Essex will continue to see its digital marketing engagement rise.”
As a next step, Mid and South Essex is looking to expand its platform to include weather alerts and advice based on data shared with the organisation directly by the Met Office, as well as also looking at fresh ways to engage with subscribers through a new podcast service.
