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Digital at Gingerbread

by CharityComms on Jul 13, 2012

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Lucy Abell, Head of Communications and Marketing, Gingerbread

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Context: run a helpline, run training courses, political lobbying and campaigning. Big mission. Lot to do – especially when so much discrimination around about single parents and their families – stigma still rife. We all know Vicky Pollard stereotype – still v potent. In fact, SP average age 38, normally married / long term rel, most in work – BUT, still huge inequalities, children twice as likely to be brought up in poverty if raised by a single parent rather than two. Practical changes calling for to change that situation, but also social changes needed.
How do we do that? We have just over 60 staff in total. Our comms team is comprised of fivepeople, covering online, press, marketing and campaigning. Our dedicated web team is composed of one person, part time. And a bit of me. There are two million single parents in UK. Raising around three million children. As you can see by my highly scientific diagram, those numbers don’t add up easily – many of those 2 million single parents (or as the Daily Mail might put it, marauding hordes of benefit scroungers, ruining the morals of upstanding sorts like us and breeding rioters) need the help of 60 charity workers, being communicated by 5 comms professionals.
So how do we manage that? We took a strategic decision to focus our work, where appropriate “online first”The ‘where appropriate’ is key – our website can never give very complex advice to individuals, or be leader on a group holiday with other single parents, or make Ministers sit up and take notice of our new policy report over their breakfast caviar, but for us there is a lot it can do, so we decided organisationally to look into and prioritise that.Reach – we are trying to reach as many single parents as we can. Numbers matter to us.Funding – we are finding it hard to get funding for marketing, esp when reliant on statutory. As a charity, don’t have much unrestricted income so we have to be clever.Audience – Huge need and appetite for practical information from our audience. When examining how best to get that info to them, we did some research that surprised us. In March 2011, we found 52% of sp we surveyed had smartphones, which we imagine will have hugely risen in the last year.
This single bit of info has changed our relationship with our website, and influenced all the information we put online. It means that old arguments about access to the internet being severely limited for the poorer end of our audience are changing, and that in turn has changed the way we are communicating. Important trend when planning our digital offer – contract costs are falling, and for many people the smartphone has taken the place of a landline, and enabled more people to have easy access to the internet. Morgan Stanley predict smartphone website visits will have overtaken desktop by 2015. We felt it was vital to respond to this early, and with a small pot of statutory funding we developedIssues:
Small screen size – super strict about content. Integrated with social media. Taking out complexity. Ours for one audience. Test on different devices – tablets. If you know it will happen future proof design work – no flash, images that expand etc
We need to make sure that our tools aren’t just fun for us – that they serve a valid purpose. Really three areas where our online offer has grown hugely in the last year, each using different methods and technologies, and I’ll go through each of them briefly now.
Pace of change breathtaking.Need it in palatable form – interactive tools
Online advice, email advice, decision trees using a yes/no Q&A.Aim of it all: break down complex information so it’s not so scary, and so it fits on a mobile screen.
In at home in the evenings, don’t go out – high levels of depression, esp single fathersWe have history of groups – mismatch between those wanting to join groups and those willing to run them. We use our forums to create online groups – we treat them exactly the same as physical groups, supporting them and providing adviceParticular groups of people may be geographically distant but really benefit from peer support – eg fathers, parents whose kids have a specific disabilityIn all of these ways use online to support single parents – our website not just info tool, social tool as well
SPs consistently say want us to campaign at a national level, and they want to be involvedWe have a strategic aim to make SPs a political force – 2m votes
Where does it fit in?Some struggles when we are trying to increase membership, and participation on our own forums. What good are facebookers to us?it’s the exposure and potential reach that’s exciting about social media.Working with an agency on a tool for our upcoming campaign that uses facebook to sign people up – thus giving us access to their info, their profile pic and the ability to be mentioned to their own pool of contacts.Will still hope that they end up as members or supporters eventually. But we are at peace with our facebook likes.For young single parents, facebook key way we communicate with course participants. Phones get lost, contracts get swapped, move house, but always on facebook and so communicate that way.Important part of our three year strategy is it’s built-in changeability. We don’t know what the online world will look like in 2015. That needs to be reflected in organisational plans, that conversation needs to be had to build in understanding from senior management.
Over last year seen over 35% increase in online unique visitors.Mobile visits more than trebled.Interactive advice tools use has skyrocketed and we can track the impact that is having – DfE survey, overwhelming felt that although our advice didn’t solve their problems, it informed them so they know where to go and go armed with right infoCampaigning – with help of SPs organised the largest Lords defeat of the government – swayed by the testimony our members gave us via social media and the website.
Don’t get sidetracked by expensive appsTwo afternoons spent with your target audience is no time commitment, but can yield huge amounts of info and ideas. Your work needs to fit in with how they use the internet, not how you do. Run a couple of focus groups, test your ideas and brainstorm for new ones.- Need buy-in right from the top. Make them feel like they’re cutting edge experts! Make sure you get the authority to try things out.- As you know, for social media you need a flow of new content. You do for most areas of your site, and get a system in place so that when there’s new work done by any part of the org, it flows through your online channels in the appropriate toneLoads of free stuff

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David Harris, Digital manager at Sustrans 10 months ago

Digital at Gingerbread Presentation Transcript

Strategic DigitalCommunications Seminar 12 July, 2012, London #CCdigital
“Online First”Digital at Gingerbread Lucy Abell, Head of Communications
GingerbreadA society in which single parentfamilies are valued and treated equally and fairly
Singleparents Gingerbread
Online first, for:• Reach• Funding• Our audience
Mobile siteKey issues• Clear on audience• Content – just say no!• Integrating with social media• Practical issues – different devices
Online firstWhat for?• Advice and info• Addressing social isolation• Campaigning
Advice and info• Getting information to those that need it• Starting point: how are people going to use it?• Move to interactive advice
Addressing social isolation• A single parent’s lifestyle• Online groups• Peer support
Campaigning• Our role as national voice• Giving single parents a channel for their own voice
Social media• Friend or foe?• Tapping into how your audience uses them• Facebook and twitter – what next?
Evaluation• Targets• Tools – Google analytics, Facebook insights, Klout, SocialBro• Our results
Top tips• Get a mobile site!• Create a small internal team to champion online work• Quiz your audience…• …and cosy up to your CEO• Be inventive and you can afford it• Never sit back and relax
Thank you!

Digital at Gingerbread

by CharityComms on Jul 13, 2012

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Digital at Gingerbread Presentation Transcript