Custom platform aids communities around WA during COVID-19

During the peak of COVID-19, many Local Governments were struggling to find a solution to efficiently communicate the ever-changing information relating to the pandemic.

During this time, it was vital that Local Governments provided their staff and communities with access to timely and credible information to ensure they felt safe and well informed.

Larger local governments were faced with the challenge of how to harness their many communication platforms to deliver a consistent message in a way that was user-centric. For smaller local governments, the challenge was budget and resourcing to keep on top of the constant cycle of information.

WA-based marketing agency, Market Creations recognised these challenges early and responded quickly – developing a bespoke portal that could support Local Governments and their efforts to stay engaged with their key stakeholders.

Market Creations Managing Director, Darren Lee said the organisation wanted to ensure that the portal was fit for purpose and built from the ground up with the end user in mind.

“From the outset, we approached two local government pilot partners to work with us to develop the platform,” said Darren.

“The City of Vincent and Shire of Chapman Valley were our ‘subject matter experts’ and collaborated with us on the design, information architecture and content for the portal.”

The City of Vincent and Shire of Chapman Valley are two local governments disparate in size and organisational structure - each party had their own drivers and goals for the platform.

The City of Vincent have a sophisticated approach to how they service their stakeholders online and are heavily relied on by their peers as leaders in local government communications and marketing. Their challenges included effectively communicating changes for their various facilities, supporting local businesses as well as keeping staff well informed.

The Shire of Chapman Valley is a smaller regional council located in the Mid West region of Western Australia with their 1,422 population mainly supported by agriculture and small business. The Shire was challenged by resourcing to keep on top of the constant cycle of information as well as the expertise to communicate strategically.

“With each partner having different challenges and key objectives, we were able to ensure that the direction of the portal was ‘sense-checked’ at each step of development,” said Mr Lee.

“Both pilot partners wanted to create efficiencies for the dissemination of information, ensure information was easily accessible for their community, and facilitate a sense of transparency, support and connectedness with their key stakeholders.”

The COVID-19 Portal was largely content driven – ensuring credible government websites (state and federal), FAQs and fact sheets and health and wellbeing information were all presented at the forefront. The content was prepopulated in the portal as a base for each locality with Local Governments then able to add additional content to best suit their needs.

Managing Director Darren Lee said, “A critical factor in ensuring the success of the portal was the timeframe from development to launch with the average deployment period being 4-5 days. The structure of the portal was developed as a shell which allowed for faster deployment on request for each client.”

The COVID-19 portal was designed and developed rapidly in response to market demand, providing an adaptive online tool that enabled local governments to engage with and communicate to their key stakeholders during a time of crisis.

For more information on Market Creations, visit www.marketcreations.com.au

We are looking forward to launching the portal and using the platform to assist our staff & community keeping up to date in these challenging times. We truly believe it is a great option for the Shire.