News tagged 'engaging communities'

In recent years, there has been a steady shift in local and central government towards the use of behavioural change techniques in marketing and communications in order to achieve outcomes. Both public and private sector organisations are increasingly using social marketing techniques to achieve positive behavioural change results on issues like healthy eating, getting online or saving energy.

A good marketing and communications campaign will begin to persuade target audiences to think about changing their habits, but some audience segments can be more resistant to change or may be difficult to reach through traditional communications campaigns alone. For example, despite a wide range of initiatives to encourage people to use the internet, many people who do get online still only use it for a small number of activities and not, as the behaviour change aim intends, to access services and benefits and integrating ‘being online’ into daily activities. How do we ensure that we engage these audiences in a meaningful way that creates sustainable changes in behaviour?

Delivered alongside a wider marketing campaign, outreach could help to reach and engage those people who are not responding to the campaign – for example, if metrics show there is a lower response in certain postcode areas or amongst particular groups. As part of the campaign around the switch to digital TV, outreach programmes were used alongside their other communications tools to engage six specific audience groups identified in research as more likely to struggle with this change, and provide practical and personal support to enable them to take action.

Our experience of delivering outreach has found that one of the most effective ways of achieving behaviour change outcomes is to engage the voluntary and community sector to reach the target audience. This is driven by needs on the ground at a very local level, harnessing organisations which have the knowledge about what works within individual communities to really engage them.  In this way, someone known and trusted by the audience can convey the message face to face. In a recent project to raise awareness about breast cancer amongst women over 70, this made people sit up and take notice of the campaign message:

“Being given the information when you are just sat comfortably and relaxed, you tend to absorb more, you take more in… We’re not afraid to ask questions. We all know each other and we’re not afraid to ask things we want to know - even if they’re a bit more intimate… To be honest if I get a leaflet through the letterbox very often I’m quite annoyed and I think “Oh, some more rubbish,” whereas being spoken to personally, we all listen – it’s as though it’s delivered personally to you.” – Lily, Bainbridge Hall

Tapping in to peer to peer communication and social norms is very important in effecting behaviour change - for every person reached directly, we reach at least two more through the message being cascaded on. When a message is delivered by a trusted voice, it is better received and people are more likely to act upon it: in our Get Connected, Get Online project to encourage older people to use the internet, 75% of participants reacted positively to the sessions when the session leader was known to the group, whereas only 15% reacted positively when the session leader was not known to them. This support from a ‘trusted voice’ can even inspire individuals to pass the message on to others – in the same project, 1 in 10 participants went on to teach someone else how to use the internet after attending a session themselves.

It is a difficult task to achieve sustainable behaviour change amongst people who face multiple barriers to making that change.  Our outreach model gives an opportunity to provide longer term support for people’s on-going journey towards that change. The ‘Get Connected, Get Online’ digital inclusion project, for example, involved training session leaders and the sessions were integrated into existing regular activities and events. This embedded the knowledge and support within those groups so that participants know where further support is available. This longer-term support will be critical to encouraging people to take up many of the services which will be offered online and do more than just use Skype to talk to their grandchildren.

As well as helping to change attitudes and behaviours that have economic and social costs, outreach can improve corporate image by demonstrating a meaningful commitment and social responsibility to communities. This is especially important at a time when funding to many voluntary and community sector organisations is being cut. The financial investment and training brings vital lifeblood to some of these organisations which in turn sustains the sector, builds capacity and strengthens networks.  It is a clear commitment to the most vulnerable households in ensuring they don’t get left behind.

For more information about how outreach can add value to your social marketing campaign, please click here to read more about how it works or watch our short film for the views of commissioners, voluntary and community sector organisations and target groups on outreach.

Ian Agnew, Digital Outreach

Digital Outreach has been providing support to (mostly older or disabled) people to engage with digital technology for more than four years now, primarily through our outreach work for the digital TV switchover and Switchover Help Scheme, but also through digital inclusion initiatives, helping older people to learn about the internet. Of course, we are a small part of a very big effort from a lot of charities, businesses and public sector bodies to promote digital inclusion and to help get the remaining 8 million people to go online in a meaningful way.

There is a growing push for public services to become “digital by default”; meaning that the primary way to access information and services will be online – whether it is claiming benefits (the new Universal Credit will be accessible solely online), renewing car tax or making a complaint. Commercial services and products are also increasingly available primarily online – insurance services, gas and electricity tariffs, train tickets – although consumer pressure is likely to keep other channels, such as call centres, going.

There are a number of issues that come to mind when thinking about the approach to getting non-internet users online.

There is still disparity in views on the statistics, with some academics estimating up to 24% of the population are still offline with 12% deeply excluded. As this number reduces (slowly), those remaining will become increasingly difficult to reach. They will include the very socially isolated, the very poor and marginalised in society and the “refuseniks”. It will be necessary to disaggregate these groups, devising strategies to get them online that are tailored around the specific barriers that each group faces. Just talking about a single group of 8 million will not work.  

At the moment, and for some years to come, public service providers have to keep multiple “offline” channels open for those not online – call centres, printed materials, staffed local offices and so on. The time will come when these offline channels may be totally withdrawn; the question is, when this will be? At what point do we as a society, and public service providers in particular, draw the line? When we are at 2 million, one million not online?

There is the important issue of security for those going online. The more that people are pressured into using the internet to access services, buy goods and so on, the more vulnerable they become to fraudsters. This also raises the question of how we define whether a person is online or not. There are millions of people who “use” the internet, but who may never actually transact through it. They never enter personal details or use a credit card online. There is a fear factor around this. Browsing information is one thing, but pushing the Enter button once you have typed in personal or bank details is another thing altogether. Yet this is exactly what is needed to achieve the ‘digital by default’ agenda. People will need to transact with service providers through the web, not simply look up information and then use it to fill in paper forms.

Finally, we need to think about how we persuade people to want to use the internet and educate them on how to use it. I think that one the first things we should work on is freeing up the internet from PCs. It’s daunting enough getting used to a new way of accessing information and services, but to also have to master a computer, keyboard, mouse, operating system and so on, doubles the challenge. With the new wave of mobile computing – tablets, smart phones, interactive TV, video consoles – that can be used to access the web, we need to get more imaginative about how we help and support people to use these. We need to get better at taking the internet to the people, not just insisting that they sign up to a class or go to where the computers are (usually in a library or community centre). We need to get better at embracing the various technologies out there and making it as easy as possible for people to access them. And we need to take the jargon out of the language we use; de-mystifying the web for those we are encouraging to access it.

We will get there, but it will be a long journey.



In March, three more transmitter groups in the Meridian TV region switched to digital – Midhurst, Whitehawk Hill and Rowridge.

Lead organisations Action in Rural Sussex, Community Action Hampshire and Age Concern Isle of Wight ran 12 advice points over 4 days during the two stages of switchover. Friendly, knowledgeable staff and volunteers, together with colleagues from Digital Outreach and Carillion, helped over 1,500 people with enquiries, giving them reassurance and practical support.

A big thank you to all the staff and volunteers who helped support so many people, and congratulations to the lead organisations on organising such a fantastic set of advice points.

The photo above shows Mrs Ayles practising re-tuning with volunteer Rowena Tyler at the Chichester advice point.

Here are a couple of stories from the advice points.

‘B’ is thrilled with support received

'B' was having problems with her TV, and her friend recommended that she pop down to the advice point, as she had been in herself the day before and said the team had been very helpful.

Hollie Watson (Community Action Hampshire) sat with B while she explained what her problem was. She had brought her remote control with her to show what buttons she had been pressing and talked Hollie and the volunteer through
what she thought she had to do, but she said nothing was working. She had mentioned that as she was on the verge of paying someone to come and do it for her as she was convinced she was doing something wrong!

One of the volunteers supporting the Romsey Advice Point, Roger, is also an Age Concern volunteer and had been conducting home visits to help people with re-tuning and other things around the home. He could see that B was quite distressed and offered to go home with her to do the re-tune. The volunteer wrote down very clear instructions for B, and when the second stage of switchover came, she was able to re-tune by herself.

B was thrilled. She had worked as a volunteer herself in the past and appreciated the support she had been given so much that after the switchover, she sent a letter to of thanks to Hollie to thank Roger, saying “I cannot tell you how much I appreciated his help and time, given so generously”.

Roger gets advice so he can help re-tune friends' TVs

Roger visited the Lymington Advice Point to enquire about the help he had given to a friend in adjusting and re-tuning her televisions. He had managed the main TV, but was baffled by the second. A different brand of television make and range of cables had confused him; he eventually found the re-tuning menu but was unable to complete the process even though he had tried several times.

Asking Roger a few questions, the advice point staff found that his friend had a main TV aerial and a separate Sky dish which was acting as an aerial for the second TV. The team suggested that Roger could look to see if it was possible to connect the TV using a normal aerial cable and connectors and then convert it with a digibox. They reassured Roger that he could also phone Digital UK if he needed further advice. Roger was very enthused and said he wanted to try and do it himself and would come back and let the team know.

Roger returned at the end of the day to share his success – just as the team were helping their last customer of the day, who turned out to be another friend of Roger’s! This lady had been in twice before about re-tuning and had been unsuccessful – so he offered to help her too.

Digital Outreach’s new brand Convey is working with local voluntary and community sector organisations on a campaign to reduce blockages in the water system.

Anglian Water, in collaboration with social marketing experts Corporate Culture, identified the principal areas and neighbourhoods which had repeat blockages, and two priority audience groups. We designed an outreach programme to engage local community groups to help spread the messages to target households. Supported by training, literature, grants and giveaways to make disposing of waste easier, our partners cascaded the message about disposal of waste to other local organisations.

One of the organisations working on the project is Northampton Volunteer Centre.  Dana Hannon, Information, Marketing, Events & BME Engagement Officer, with LINk (an organisation hosted by Northampton Volunteer Centre) has been going out and about to talk to local groups.

Dana says. “We were in a great position to work on the Keep it Clear project. We regularly go to visit local groups across Northamptonshire to find out what their issues and concerns are about health services. The groups already knew us, so nothing had to be set up from scratch, which made it much easier for us to talk to them about water use.”

The target audience is women aged between 18 and 45 in very specific areas, so Dana and her team have targeted the groups that supported women in this age group. Dana said: “It’s not as simple as just going to the geographical areas where the problems are, we needed to find the groups that women living in those areas attend.”

Dana found one very important group was the local Neighbourhood Watch which put them in touch with some very localised, informal groups that they wouldn’t have been able to reach otherwise. “These groups might just support people who live in a few streets, so they rely on word of mouth and don’t advertise,” Dana says. “The Neighbourhood Watch is a really active group and our relationship with them was key to getting in touch with these smaller groups.”

Dana found that talking to people face to face about the subject has been very effective. “People have been very responsive. Being able to give people the information face to face really helped, as lots of people didn’t realise that the things they were doing every day were causing problems.  People don’t always take in a poster but if you’ve handed them information and discussed it with them, it reinforces that the message. They also have the opportunity to ask questions and find out what they can do to dispose of fats in an alternative way.”

Having materials to give away was important too. “People loved the sink strainers, and the bags went down exceptionally well too!” Dana says. “This is all making people aware of how they can safely dispose of fats and grease, which will help make a positive difference to local water systems.”

The outreach programme has benefited Northampton Volunteer Centre and Northamptonshire LINk too.  “Although we have great networks with our communities, working on this project has introduced us to new, more informal, groups that we had never heard of before – particularly the groups we got in touch with through Neighbourhood Watch. They are now in contact with us and we can communicate with them about other issues that might be important to them. It’s helped raise awareness of our organisation amongst these people too, which will help us to achieve our aims of supporting people and groups in the community and voluntary sector.”

Thanks to Northampton LINk and all the other organisations working on the Keep it Clear campaign.

Case studies

Mums & Tots - Methodist Church, Park Avenue North

The Mums & Tots Group meets every week at the local Methodist Church. Around 20 parents come to the group each week, with their children.  Northamptonshire LINk contacted the church to say they were talking to lots of different groups about water use and asked if they could come and talk to the mothers’ and toddlers’ group.

The group hadn’t realised the environmental cost of putting things like baby wipes down the toilet - as many wipes are advertised as ‘flushable’ they hadn’t considered that there could be any problem with getting rid of wipes in this way. The group often visit parks and open areas with their children, so they were concerned about smells and environmental damage in their neighbourhoods and were very keen to help by taking the simple step of putting wipes into the bin.

Northampton Bangladeshi Association

The Northampton Bangladeshi Association supports members of the Bangladeshi community of all ages to access training, education, health services and to give the Bangladeshi community a voice. Dana from Northamptonshire LINk went to visit the group leader, Ms Begum, to have a chat with her and explain the Keep it Clear campaign.  Ms Begum said that she uses lots of oil in her cooking, as this is an important ingredient in many Bangladeshi dishes.  Like many of us, she didn’t realise that oil in its liquid form can actually cause blockages, and that there are other ways of disposing of it safely.  She said she would pass this information on to the various groups she supports, and reported back that the sink strainers had gone down very well and that everyone is now aware of how to dispose of fat, oil and grease appropriately.

The Hannington transmitter was the first in the Meridian TV region to switch to digital this year, with many households in Hampshire, Berkshire and Surrey being able to receive digital TV for the first time.

Lead organisation Community Action Hampshire organised advice points in easy to access community venues in Basingstoke, Andover, Newbury and Alton. They were held over four days – two at stage one of the switchover and two a fortnight later at the second stage.

Over the two switchover dates, staff and volunteers gave help and reassurance to over 550 people. Most of the enquiries were about re-tuning, equipment and TV signal, and the advice point staff did a great job of building people’s confidence, with several people coming back to the advice point delighted to report they had managed to re-tune successfully!  

Thanks to everyone who put in so much hard work during the first switchover of the year – here are some of the stories from the four days.

Mrs Pruden – Blue Onion cafe, Andover

Mrs Pruden, a grandmother in the Andover area, visited the advice point at the Blue Onion cafe on the first day of switchover.  The next day, she came back to the cafe and told staff that she had managed to re-tune her TV herself by following the advice they had given.

Later, Mrs Pruden received a call from her son, whose son had said to him: "Dad, I think you should call Granny as she has no idea how to re-tune and we should drop round and do it for her". When Mrs Pruden told her son that she didn't need any help as she had sorted it out herself, he asked how she could possibly have done it. She said "The man at the Blue Onion told me what to do". She returned to the advice point two weeks later to tell the advice point staff of her delight at being able to show to her son and grandson that she was quite competent.

Christine -  Newbury Library

In early January, the Community Council for Berkshire (CCB) visited the Eight Bells for Mental Health Drop In as an end user event. The drop in provides a place for people with mental health issues to meet for lunch and activities.  It was at the end user event that CCB met Christine, who is 58 and mobile but has learning difficulties and mental health issues which cause her to feel anxious about change. She attends the Eight Bells for Mental Health drop in four days a week and finds it provides great support to her. Christine told CCB that she was very worried about the switchover but did not have her Help Scheme letter with her at the time. CCB advised her to come to the advice point, which she did.

Christine has a digital TV in her living room but an analogue one in her bedroom which needs converting. She brought her letter to the advice point and the staff rang the Help Scheme for her as she was nervous of doing so. They arranged for an engineer to visit on 14 February. Christine was delighted and thanked everyone.

‘Sandra’ – Basingstoke Library

One lady visitor, ‘Sandra’, who can hear but cannot speak, saw the advert in the local paper and came in to the advice point with her TV manual and a picture of her remote control. Because of her medical condition, Sandra had not been able to phone the advice lines and she didn’t have a textphone, so she had previously not been able to communicate with anyone about the switchover.  She wrote down her questions to the staff, and they spent as much time as was needed working through her queries. She was very pleased to have been able to get some help at the advice point, and went home to re-tune her TV.

Pat – Alton community centre

Pat, an older lady, came in to the advice point to ask about retuning her telly. She was quite upset and not feeling confident to do it on her own. The Advice Point team gave her demo on the TV and talked her through the re-tuning leaflet. A short while later, Pat returned and was upset because the instructions in the booklet didn’t work for her set-up. The team advised her to either come back to the advice point with the manual for her TV so they could write down the exact instructions, or phone Digital UK so they could talk her through the process while she was in front of her TV.

The team noticed that Pat had only gone as far as the bustling community centre café, where she stopped to talk to another visitor, the mother of Miranda who was the lady on reception. One of team spoke to Miranda about their concerns for Pat as they were unsure she could confidently manage on her own and to find out if there were any local volunteers who could help her. It turned out that Miranda’s mum is a friend of Pat’s and is always helping her out, and the team could hear her in the café telling Pat that it wasn’t that complicated and not to worry.