Eric Pickles, Minister for Communities and Local Government recently stated to the LGA that the public sector needs to work with local newspapers to reduce the spend and improve engagement with the public using digital.
Spider Online has been championing a solution to this decade old problem for several years and our TellMeScotland Project is a fine example of a best practise solution. TellMeScotland has been live for over 2 years and saves the Scottish tax payer almost £500,000 per annum. This equates to roughly 10% of the spend in Scotland on public notices. Imagine how many carers, social workers, teachers, refuse collectors and health visitors that money could fund!
The consumer shift to digital and mobile platforms leaves local authorities behind the curve and the question is when and how they will take action?
Research into consumer behaviour by the British Banking Association reinforces this point, proving that UK consumers trust and engage on a massive scale with the digital channel. The research found that customers from the five largest banks;
Downloaded more than 12.4million bank apps
Used mobile phones for 18.6million transactions a week in 2013 – up from 9.1million in 2012
Made nearly 40million mobile and internet transactions a week in 2013
Signed up to receive more than 457.7million SMS balance alerts and other text messages during 2013
This runs in parallel with the ongoing decline of traditional media, highlighted by a study by Camden Council which found that in some areas only 2% of the population were actually reading PINS in local press.
We agree with Stephen Kelly, the Chief Operating Officer of the UK Government, speaking at the recent Digital Government event, that best practise should be used to across the digital channel to engage with UK citizens. Spider Online have an off the shelf, tried and tested solution which can save an average 20% and in some cases up to 50% on your advertising budget. What’s stopping you? It’s time for action!
For a copy of the presentation given by John Campbell, Managing Director of Spider Online at Digital Government 2014 conference, email info@spideronline.co.uk, call John directly on 0141 353 0574.