Myplace Weeknotes: Learnings from phase two with the Lancashire Wildlife Trust

Furthermore and the Myplace team at the Lancashire Wildlife Trust, embarked on a project with support from Catalyst and National Lottery funding in February 2021.

Myplace is a green prescribing initiative run by the Lancashire Wildlife Trust which aims to increase mental wellbeing through connecting clients to the natural environment in a group setting. It is predicted that due to COVID-19, almost 20% of the population will need either new or additional mental health support making initiatives like Myplace essential in supporting community mental health provision.

The aim of the project was to increase the number of people who move from initial enquiry or referral to actually joining Myplace and experiencing the benefits of connecting with nature via ecotherapy.

Phase one recap

In the first phase of the project we carried out discovery research with prospects who had dropped off from the onboarding journey to inform the creation of three prototype communication pathways: ‘Basic email’, ‘Multimedia email’ and ‘Basic email + SMS’.

Each pathway was made up of different types of content. We tested each pathway in a live onboarding process with 41 prospects to see if communicating with prospects in this way reduced the drop off rate during the onboarding process.

After four weeks, we successfully managed to reduce the drop off rate by 25% during the onboarding process.

We shared our reflections on our key project milestones during our journey in the form of weeknotes, linked at the bottom of this article and you can also take a look at our work on our Miro board.

Phase two

In the second phase of the project, we let the live test run for four further weeks to allow for more of the 41 prospects in the pipeline from the original prototype test, to complete the onboarding journey.

Extending the testing phase for a further four weeks allowed us to maximise the number of prospects who made it through the pipeline.

We were thrilled to see that the number of session attendees rocketed from five to 22 in four weeks. We also managed to keep the drop off rate low at 29%, a reduction of 16% from baseline.

Prospect drop off during the eight week testing period was concentrated at the first contact from Myplace, a phone call and at the second contact from Myplace from the Project Officer to discuss the registration process.

Whilst our sample was relatively small at 41 prospects, the ‘Multimedia’ pathway had the lowest drop off rate closely followed by the ‘Basic email & SMS’ pathway. This suggests that the video content in the multimedia pathway and a two pronged approach resonated with prospects, making them more likely to continue the onboarding journey.

Drop off rate per communication pathway indicatively shows the impact of the ‘Multimedia’ pathway in keeping prospects in the pipeline for longer.

Phase two learnings

1. Numbers help reveal the ‘what’

• During phase one and two we were able to compare the impact of each communication pathway on drop off rate. This was vital to understand whether implementing more touchpoints into the onboarding process and what type of content these touchpoints were comprised of, had an impact on the drop off rate
• Despite a small sample, ‘Multimedia’ emails, containing video content including a 360 degree video had the lowest drop off rate, with the ‘Basic email & SMS’ pathway following closely behind advocating for the merits of a two pronged approach
• We wouldn’t have been able to reach these conclusions without our structured, live environment, quantitative approach

2. Words help reveal nuance

• Our live test also enabled us to identify any pain points in the backstage process of our prototypes. Sending and tracking email and SMS communications required a CRM system which the Myplace team had never used before as well as a spreadsheet to track which stage of the journey prospects were in
• Collecting anecdotal feedback about this process from Myplace project officers (responsible for sending emails and SMS to prospects during the paper based registration process) in phase one, and the support officer (responsible for initial contact with prospects) in phase two, provided some of the richest data we collected
• For example, whilst our quantitative phase two results showed that a combined approach of ‘multimedia email’ and ‘SMS’ pathways may lead to more prospects completing the onboarding process, a conversation with the Myplace support officer revealed that sending SMS was a laborious manual process that was significantly increasing her workload
• This led to us co-designing our recommended pathway to ‘Multimedia’ with a ‘check-in’ SMS message should the prospect not have opened the first email or answered the first support officer phone call. This would reduce the number of SMS the support officer would need to send

Anecdotal feedback after both phase one and two of the project provided more detailed stories about how prospects and the Myplace team interacted with the prototypes.

3. Trying something new removes barriers for our users

• Rhoda, project manager at Myplace, had this learning to add:
• At Myplace we see so many people who want to get out in to nature, have new experiences, meet new people, and feel more positive and optimistic about life. At the same time we also know that the fear and anxiety involved in going new places, meeting new people, and trying new things is a huge barrier that can appear insurmountable for lots of people
• With the support of the Catalyst programme and the Furthermore team we’ve been able to really address these issues and start to remove as many barriers as possible
• We’ve already seen people immediately more confident as they start their journey with us, and it’s great that we’re now able to look beyond this to ensure that more people are able to experience the wellbeing benefits of getting active for nature

Next steps

We’re thrilled to have been allocated funding for a third phase. This will be focused on developing a communications strategy and process for contacting dropped off prospects. The Myplace team will also be embedding a CRM system into their process in order to more easily track prospects and Myplace service users throughout their time at Myplace. Watch this space!

Phase one weeknotes:

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 11

Week 12