REPORT: Agencies are getting better at communicating with the public, but progress remains

As governments across the U.S. increasingly strive to connect with their residents, a new report offers data-informed strategies for improving public trust and service delivery through government communications. 

Expanding outreach and communications to residents is a crucial pathway for constituents to learn about government services available to them, like public benefit programs, that could otherwise remain underutilized, according to a new report from civic engagement software provider Granicus. 

In fact, the report’s release comes as state governments must implement major eligibility and enrollment changes to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by the end of the year. Such changes include new rules for work requirements and state’s payment rates that state governments must clearly and effectively communicate to beneficiaries to help reduce the risk of people losing coverage and having to reenroll. 

“Limited communication also fosters perceptions of [government] inefficiency or even secrecy, eroding public trust,” the report reads. “The solution lies in a strategic commitment to growing and understanding the audience.”  

The report highlights the changing landscape of government communication efforts and offers agencies a framework for leveraging data to enhance their engagement with and service delivery to constituents. The findings released last week are based on internal data from Granicus and survey results of nearly 1,300 public sector employees collected by ath Power Consulting last year. 

The report aims to help governments “get access to as many [residents] as they possibly can, but also do it in a very smart way,” said Stu MacFarlane, general manager for local government at Granicus. 

From 2024 to 2025, data suggests that agencies’ priorities transitioned from building an audience to strategizing how to leverage “a more diverse toolkit to provide more dynamic touchpoints” with residents, like emails, texts and other digital resources, more effectively, according to the report. 

These findings point to the framework’s first pillar, which is growth. The report suggests that increasing access to self-service resources is one way agencies can grow their audience base. 

Indeed, basic website forms and email campaigns were the main engagement channels leveraged by government agencies in 2024. But data indicates that agencies in 2025 increasingly used methods like text messaging, targeted social media campaigns, cross-promotional website content and dynamic online forms to interact with more residents, the report found. 

Agencies should consider ways to make access to their content and services more diverse as a way to increase their engagement, according to the report. This allows residents to subscribe to or complete forms for services they are most interested in and therefore likely to interact with, according to the report. Radnor, Pennsylvania, for instance, has seen a 98% increase in email subscriber growth since 2024 after enabling residents to join mailing lists from the jurisdiction based on their topics of interest. 

The second pillar of Granicus’ framework is knowing the audience’s behaviors and feelings, then turning them into actionable insights. “This means moving beyond basic demographics to harness behavioral data, preference tracking and community sentiment to build public trust and drive operational efficiency,” the report states. 

Agencies should dig deeper into performance and engagement metrics for more effective insights, MacFarlane said. Instead of focusing only on, for example, open rates of email campaigns, officials could track how often recipients click through the message’s content or what type of information gets the most views. Doing so can help agencies better understand what content and resources they should prioritize when communicating with constituents, he explained. 

Governments can also directly ask residents to describe their experiences with agency outreach methods through user surveys, according to the report. Such efforts can not only improve the performance of government communications, but also impact the flow of operations. For instance, the report found that agencies that did not leverage audience intelligence reported a 33% higher incidence of service delays. 

Another pillar of the report’s framework is the delivery of public information. The report calls for government leaders to continue digitizing or modernizing their services to ensure that things like critical program or policy information seamlessly reaches the public. 

“Agencies that embraced integrated digital service delivery moved beyond static webpages to create dynamic, transactional journeys that make it easy for citizens to get things done,” the report states. 

By consolidating online resources and services into fewer sites or platforms, for example, governments can more clearly present data that residents need to complete their own tasks, like applying for a city permit. The report suggests that doing so can reduce friction with agency resources and administrative burdens for staff. 

Data shows that agencies that failed to modernize saw 40% more calls to help desks and 28% more stalled applications compared to agencies who reported using modernized digital service platforms, according to the report. 

The final framework pillar suggests that agencies should measure more meaningful outcomes from their efforts to improve communications and service delivery. In 2025 and moving forward, agencies have shifted from focusing on surface-level data metrics, such as page views and clicks, to examining additional key performance indicators, like program enrollment and compliance rates. 

Indeed, agency data indicated that in 2025, “organizations had shifted 65% of their core measurement framework to outcome-based KPIs,” a move that helps government leaders “directly connect communication initiatives to agency policy objectives,” the report states. 

In fact, the marrying of communications-related data and service delivery data is becoming increasingly common, as 42% of local agencies reported they have integrated the two streams in 2025 compared with 15% in 2024, according to the report. 

“Integrated analytics enabled agencies to correlate outreach activity with spikes in service utilization, allowing more responsive and impactful program adjustments,” the report reads. 

Despite agencies’ inroads to expanding and optimizing communications in 2025, MacFarlane said challenges remain for agencies facing budget, resource and staffing constraints. The survey found, for example, that 70% of staff said they lack the technology needed to perform their jobs more efficiently, and only 53% said their current engagement activities helped build public trust in government. 

But by prioritizing constituent engagement data insights, MacFarlane said that agencies can continue to build the evidence that certain communication mediums or strategies are effective, which “helps them get access to budget dollars … to help fund” these operational improvements.