RSGB Connect: a new way for RSOs to build an online audience

12.00 | 14 October 2015 | | 1 comment

Road Safety GB has unveiled a new online tool designed especially to enable road safety professionals to create and deploy targeted email communications.

The impetus for ‘RSGB Connect’, which has been developed by Road Safety GB in partnership with FirstCar, came from research showing that email is the most efficient and cost effective way of building and maintaining an online audience.

While social media has become a popular tool for road safety marketing, the research suggests email marketing offers better traction as 90% of all emails are delivered to the intended recipient’s inbox, whereas only 2% of Facebook fans will see a post in their newsfeed.

RSGB Connect extends the benefits of digital communication to offline road safety activates. The system can be used to drive attendees for courses and events, prompt people to complete evaluation and as a long-tail reminder of road safety education they may have received in the past.

Honor Byford, chair of Road Safety GB, said: “Many of the opportunities for truly sustainable, long-term road safety engagement involve digital communication. 

“Reaching our audiences online and developing an effective social media following often turns out more costly than traditional methods – especially in terms of the time needed to manage fast and responsive social media.

“RSGB Connect changes all that and creates a digital relationship between road safety professionals and those we wish to communicate with.

“The commercial sector have been using this technology for years and I’m pleased that Road Safety GB has taken the initiative to make this highly-effective tool available to the road safety profession.”

James Evans, founder of FirstCar, said: “Like many local authorities, at FirstCar we’ve long struggled with the idea of ‘digital by default’.

“Many online publications, websites and apps function very well indeed, but don’t generate much traffic and require constant marketing in order to keep driving new visitors.

“In order to benefit from ‘digital by default’, we must first address the challenge of building an online audience. RSGB Connect fixes this problem.”

15 RSGB Connect accounts will be made available before the end of 2015, to enable the project team to ‘hand-hold’ the early adopters and help them get the most from the system. These 15 accounts will be allocated on a first come first served basis. From 1 January 2016 onwards, a maximum of a further five accounts per month will be allocated.

Costs for a 12-month licence start from under £250per month (£2,850pa) and are calculated on volume. There are discounts of up to 50% for authorities that join as part of a partnership, region or sub-region.

For more information visit RSGB Connect on the Road Safety GB website or contact James Evans on 08451 308853. 

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    Excellent, makes sense. But why the very low limits on accounts? Why the high costs? How is “professional” defined?


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