City of Morgan Hill Communications Assessment

• The City does not utilize a formal policy for website governance, which would typically outline the structure of staff and the technical systems, policies and procedures needed to maintain and manage a website. • Multiple staff members have been empowered to add Department-specific content to the website. As of this writing, there was no regular audit process or timetable in place to ensure website content is up-to-date and accurate, but the City has begun to address this with the implementation of Siteimprove and its toolset. Some teammates do make use of the ‘Expiring Content’ feature of CivicPlus, though. • The site is “mobile responsive,” which is a best practice due to the rapid growth of website traffic frommobile devices. Google has confirmed that responsive design is their preferred mobile configuration and will give some preference in search results to websites that display well on mobile devices. Email (Constant Contact) Email is one of the most effective direct communication tools in a City’s toolset, as an email message is almost certain to end up in the inbox to which it is sent, though sometimes Spam filters can intervene. Email remains the original “killer app” for the internet and most people continue to use email as their workflow tool for managing information. As such, injecting City information into a resident’s inbox is a Communications win. Morgan Hill uses Constant Contact for its email marketing solution, mainly to communicate about official City meetings, agendas, and notices about projects that could impact the community’s day-to-day routines. The City’s email contact database is, by far, its largest asset in terms of the number of individuals it is possible to immediately reach. As of November 2016, there are 13,800 individual Constant Contact Subscribers. While there are likely some subscribers from outside the city, the amount of Subscriber Profiles is equivalent to 36% of the City’s 2010 total population. Please see Appendix C for a full table of the Constant Contact Lists and their Subscriber counts. The City encourages website visitors to sign up for Constant Contact via a “Subscribe: Morgan Hill Newsletters” link in the website footer. That links to a Constant Contact sign-up page that gives the visitor five possible email lists to sign up for: Downtown Updates, Environmental Programs, General Interest, MHPD Newsletter, and Senior Center Contacts. From May 1, 2016 to November 1, 2016, the City sent 124 emails—an average of about 21 emails per month. One of the most common (and widely read) emails is the monthly Public Calendar of Events; the latest was sent to over 8,500 Subscribers. As of this writing, the last six Calendar of Events emails have averaged a 22% Open Rate and a 10.9% Clickthrough Rate. According to Constant Contact, the industry average for “Government Agency or Services” (as of October 2016) is a 23.34% Open Rate and a 9.16% Clickthrough Rate. 12 Using that industry benchmark and using the Calendar of Events emails as a proxy, the City’s email efforts are just slightly underperforming in terms of average of Open Rate and slightly outperforming in terms of average Clickthrough Rate.

12 https://support2.constantcontact.com/articles/FAQ/2499

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