The term ‘revenue generation’ refers to how your organization makes money. It is typically broken down into three components: income, expenses, and surplus or deficit. Yours can be modified depending on what services you offer and what level of service you provide for customers.
Income comes from charging fees for services you already have or offering new ones that generate revenue. This could be anything form licensing a product to running workshops and classes or starting a charity.
Expenses are things like salaries, office supplies, website design, and more- all of these cost money to maintain.
Surplus or deficit indicates whether your department is making or losing money respectively. A surplus means your department is bringing in enough money to pay its bills, while a deficit means it is spending more than it gets!
This article will talk about ways to improve the revenue generation process at local government levels. There are several areas where you can make changes to increase funding, reduce costs, and achieve a balanced budget.
The next step in improving your revenue generation is creating a full-fledged, well-planned marketing strategy. This article’s title mentioned creating a “marketing plan,” so let’s get into details!
Marketing strategies usually contain three main components: product, price, and promotion.
Your product can be anything from an annual conference to a monthly newsletter that offers tips for local government leaders. Your price can be a monthly membership fee or a one time event registration fee. And your promotion could be through social media ads or direct mail campaigns.
There are many ways to approach each of these parts of your marketing strategy. You do not have to stick to what we discussed earlier in this article about being cost effective and relevant with your messaging. Instead you can brainstorm and come up with some new ideas to mix it up and be creative.
Product — what services does your organization offer? What events do you hold?
Price – how much money do you want to make per month? Or perhaps you would like to maximize profit at a given time such as during the summer months when people attend parks more frequently than winter.
Promotion– what types of messages will you spread around your community to gain attention? Will you use social media, print advertisements, or radio commercials to promote your service?
Once you have determined all three pieces of your marketing strategy, you can start developing and executing them.
The first step towards improving your revenue generation is identifying who you want to reach and what they need. Who are your local government targets? Are there any demographics or areas of the community that could use some more services or information?
You can start by looking at where other organizations deliver their service and see if it’s possible to offer those services too, or improve upon them.
By thinking about how others have done things before, you begin to create an idea pool. Some of these ideas may be good ones and able to help your organization succeed as well.
It’s also important to consider what types of services people in your area are seeking. Does anyone else offering free exercise classes for seniors get less attendance than they should? Or maybe there’s a neighborhood group that no one ever attends outside of the initial meeting.
Finding out why someone doesn’t come back around will tell you something about whether this program is needed and if it’s being offered in the right place.
Having a beautiful looking website is great, but it will not help you generate revenue unless you are doing something with it. You can spend hours editing and enhancing your site, but if you are running out of things to do, then what?
You must be investing time into creating content for your site, now how about adding some functionality? There are many ways to develop your website beyond just changing the colors and pictures.
There are several free tools that can help you grow your business online. Some of these are completely free while others may require an initial investment or membership fee, but they all have one thing in common – THEY ARE BUSY!
Whether you’re trying to find new pages, layouts, features, or functions for your current page, there are always people using them for other purposes. By exploring their code, you could possibly add those features or even make changes to bring your own version closer to what you want.
That is why this article will talk about some easy ways to improve your local government web presence by tweaking your website and/or tooling.
Social media has become an integral part of our daily lives, with over 2 billion people using at least one major platform like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. While it was once seen as a way for corporations to connect with customers, it now is used by just about anyone to share information, advertise products and services, and keep in touch with friends.
It’s no surprise then that most successful local governments have organized themselves into strong social networks where their constituents can interact, learn more about government services, and stay up-to-date on community events.
By having a robust online presence, your municipality will gain exposure to new audiences, and you’ll get valuable feedback from those viewers.
As mentioned earlier, offering high-quality services can be your main revenue generator for local government. People will keep coming back if you provide good service every time!
Running an event at a park is one of the best ways to offer quality service to the community. By hosting events such as festivals or free swimming classes, people will have access to important resources that they would otherwise pay money for.
These types of events are also great exposure for your organization as more people show up than expected, which could lead to more donations or members.
The number one way that local governments lose money is by charging too little for services they provide. This can be through providing free or very inexpensive services, which cuts into revenue, or higher fees being imposed on service providers who are not able to afford paying their bills.
Local government offices and departments spend lots of money on utilities, phone lines, computer systems, etc. These expenses are typically covered under budget categories such as Technology, Utilities, or Communications. Because these budgets are open to re-evaluation every year, there is no guarantee that those funds will be kept at the same level.
If you work for a municipal department, it is your responsibility to ask if there are any ways to reduce the cost of operating the department. There may be things like water conservation programs, energy efficient lighting, using hand sanitizer instead of paper towels when necessary, outsourcing some services, etc.
There should always be an effort made to find cost savings within the organization, but outside agencies and corporations also have a lot of resources available. By sharing the costs with others, this article’s main topic says, you can improve overall efficiency and save money.
Being a leader is not something that you are born with, it takes work and effort to rise up through the ranks. A leader learns from their colleagues, reads books and studies other people’s strategies to see how they operated and then incorporates these into their own style of leadership.
Local government leaders do not have more money than others their age, but they are aware of the best ways to generate revenue for their organisation.
By acting as informed learners, you will stand out from the crowd and keep yourself at the forefront of changes occurring within your field.
Reading business books, listening to audiobooks and studying academic papers can all contribute towards knowledge growth.
As discussed earlier, changing your revenue model is not easy. It will take time to see results. You can’t just test one thing for very-lucky timing and have lasting benefits.
That said, you should start with something simple like offering free coffee or tarts during business hours to draw in new customers. Or giving away small souvenirs at events to generate buzz and word of mouth.
These are starting points that can be easily implemented into current practices. By offering such incentives, it creates an atmosphere where people come back because they want what you offer.
Your colleagues and superiors may even praise your efforts!
Local governments could also consider taking steps towards more sustainable options. For example, by using alternative vendors or recycling programs instead of buying expensive paper cups from big corporations.
By investing in ways to improve customer service, they will keep coming back and telling their friends about you.
