North West Energy Intelligence Service
An online news centre which delivers regularly-updated information, commentary and analysis on the energy market for the North West industrial and academic communities.
Client
Created to boost energy research and development, the Joule Centre is a collaboration between North West Universities, commercial organisations and various stakeholders within the energy industry, including the Northwest Regional Development Agency.
Objective
To substantially increase the Joule Centre’s visibility in the Northwest energy scene and establish it as the NWDA’s ‘voice’ on energy research.
Audience
Northwest Regional Development Agency, regional partners, Northwest universities, industry, policy makers and legislators and the general public.
IMS Consulting Delivers
An online ‘news centre’ which sits alongside the Joule Centre’s main website. The Joule News Centre is dedicated to providing information, comment and analysis on the Joule Centre’s activities as well as wider aspects of the energy scene. The site is particularly focused on energy news relating to the Northwest of England.
All of the content on the site is sourced, written and managed by IMS Consulting. As part of its on-going commitment to the Joule Centre, IMS also produces and distributes a monthly e-newsletter, which is sent to over 900 individuals.
Outcome
The News Centre allows the Joule team to communicate with its wide range of stakeholders more easily, frequently and cost-effectively than was previously possible. Not only has the News Centre helped to raise Joule’s profile as a serious ‘voice’ in the energy sector, it has contributed to an increased awareness of the availability of its grants, as well as providing a ‘shop window’ on current projects.
More Detail
IMS has worked with The Joule Centre since the beginning of 2008, primarily in the role of a media relations consultant. As part of this activity, IMS has written articles and formulated comment and opinion on Joule’s behalf for a range of national and international publications.
This press activity has raised the Centre’s profile with ‘the outside world’ and press coverage has been achieved in some of the most influential journals and publications.
However after a successful year of ‘profile raising’, the Joule Centre’s management team felt that attention was needed on communications that were ‘closer to home’. The challenge was: ‘how could the Joule Centre engage more effectively with their more immediate stakeholders such as the NWDA, grant holders and regional partners?’
IMS Consulting felt that this challenge required a web-based solution. This way, it would be possible to reach a wide range of stakeholders by providing regular channels of communication and an on-going ‘resource’ for news, information and intelligence on energy-related topics.
IMS’s first task was to build an online news-centre which could ‘sit’ alongside the existing Joule website. In order that users would feel comfortable and familiar in this web-environment IMS deployed a similar structure to the BBC’s news website, using the IMS StakeholderTALK News! web product. Visitors to the Joule News Centre can, at a glance, view the latest content and commentary from the Joule Centre or, alternatively, delve down into a particular topic area to read articles and intelligence that particularly interests them. Additionally, visitors can sign up to receive a monthly Joule e-newsletter (see below), a feature which is growing the Joule Centre contact database rapidly.
News content – which is originated by IMS as part of its on-going media relations activities – is classified and uploaded into one of six sections of the site. Each of these sections represents one of the Joule Centre’s main areas of interest or activity: renewables, energy supply, demand reduction, leadership and debate, major challenges and comment.
IMS has worked with the Joule Centre’s staff to encourage partner organisations and grant holders to use the site as a primary information resource on energy issues. Similarly, they are encouraged to contribute their news to the site. This helps to give the site greater credibility, as it is not simply a ‘shop window’ for Joule activities.
Each month, IMS selects a range of stories from the site, and uses these to produce a graphical HTML e-newsletter which is distributed to the Joule Centre’s 900+ contacts (using the IMS StakeholderTALK Inform! web tool). This method of communication has proven very successful, with a large number of Joule stakeholders reading and utilising the information provided in the e-newsletters.
Where next?
Click here to view the Joule News Centre.
Click here to see an example of a Joule News enewsletter.
Click here to find out more about StakeholderTALK News!
Click here to contact IMS and find out how we can help you communicate with your stakeholders
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