Giving residents another way to receive news and updates from the council via an e-newsletter delivered directly to an email address has proven to be a useful addition to our communications strategy.

Emails are sent out on a monthly basis using Mailchimp, which is an ideal tool for letting us tailor each e-newsletter accordingly based on what our residents are interested in.

Since May 2022 we have seen a 300% increase in our number of e-newsletter subscribers and as we continue to grow our online audience we want to make it as easy as possible for residents to sign up to our e-newsletter.

Previously there was a button on our News pages, but to promote it further we have created an e-newsletter signup popup that appears when users arrive on www.ashford.gov.uk.

The popup appears when a user first arrives on our website and provides them with four options: ‘Subscribe’, ‘Remind me later’, ‘No thanks’, and the close button in the top right.

The subscribe button takes users to our online form to sign up for updates from the council whilst clicking the close button or ‘No thanks’ will prevent the pop from reappearing on that device.

Web browser local storage on the user’s device enables the popup to return after 30 days if they’ve opted for ‘Remind Me Later’.

In the first month we had more than 450 residents sign up to the e-newsletter via the popup, helping us to reach a wider audience with our regular news roundups.