New website, new look!

I usually try to avoid any kind of work related promotion on this blog, however seeing as how my work and personal passions (leveraging social media marketing to improve society) are fully intertwined, I thought it would be a good opportunity to mention that the Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing finally has a new website. Please browse around and let me know if we’re missing any key components. Or better yet , fill out our quick usability survey. I have integrated numerous rss feeds into the site (including a CEPSM newsfeed), so that content is continually updated and can be viewed on various platforms and devices. If you know of any good links to public sector marketing resources, please let me know so that I can add them to our “community” section. Finally, if you haven’t done so already, please join the Public Sector Marketing Society to stay in touch and network with others in the field. For those of you that speak French, please note that our equivalent French site should be up in the next few weeks.

10-tips on how to develop an effective Website Marketing Strategy

Rather than using a “one-size fits all ” web marketing strategy template, I often stun my clients by asking lots of questions. Questions like, Who is your target audience? What do you want them to do on your site? What are they currently doing? Are they finding what they came for? If not, why not. Are you measuring any sort of conversion goals? This is the point where I am usually interrupted as they start to ramble on about how they wish they had met me sooner. Little do they know those are just a few of the absolutely essential questions, all of which can easily be measured.

I had a random thought the other day, “What would I recommend to someone developing a website if I met them on an elevator and had 20 seconds to talk?” Out of this thought the following 10 items manifested themselves, which you can use as a high-level checklist when developing your strategy:

1. Determine your overall high-level marketing objectives (e.g. increase market share, increase membership, attain higher revenues)
2. Perform a needs analysis (e.g. survey your existing audience online, conduct interviews, etc…)
3. Segment your target market (e.g youth) and choose between specific target audiences (e.g. socially active, male hockey players, aged 18-25) based on your marketing research.
4. Come up with clear “calls to action” and website conversion goals that are based on your marketing objectives
5. Foster a fluid experience (i.e. smart interactivity) as opposed to static web pages
6. Develop an effective search engine marketing strategy (this encompasses search engine optimization)
7. Develop an effective social media optimization strategy
8. Consistently measure “quality” as opposed to “quantity” of traffic
   
9. Don’t just let the web stats sit on your desk! Use your web metric analysis to continually improve the performance of your website (where “performance” is based on you predetermined measurable objectives)
10. Don’t get left behind! Continually scan the macro environment, look for emerging trends, technologies, laws/regulations and economic forecasts that could affect your online marketing campaign.

There you have it, that’s my thought for the day…

Interactive Online Annual Reports vs. Scanned PDF Online Annual Reports

Why is it that every government department seems to think that people actually “read” things online. Read this carefully: THEY DON’T!

People “scan” text…reading online is unpleasant and unnatural given screen limitations, eye fatigue and an expectation for rapid information access. Study after study has proven this over and over again.

A good example where many public sector organizations fail at this miserably is in publishing online annual reports. For some reason, they are always displayed as scanned copies (PDF format) of the print version. This used to be all great in the past if your website was meant to simply act as a storage of information/warehouse for people to come and print documents. However, for those of you that haven’t noticed, the web has changed, such a website purpose is no longer acceptable.

Your website must now be engaging and interactive, this is what web users are used to, this is what they demand! It should help users find what they are looking for quickly and efficiently. There is nothing quick and efficient about a PDF (note: PDF’s should always be offered as an option but not as the ONLY option).

Take a look at what the Civil Service Commission has done in the UK with its annual report. This is a great example of effective integration of a PDF document with an interactive Annual Report (click on the link once you get on this page):Civil Service Commissioners | News | Annual report for 2006-07

Stop using Splash Pages!

I was recently at a client meeting where the client stubbornly insisted on incorporating a splash page on their website against my advice, claiming it builds a “brand”. I get a strong urge to voice my true profane thoughts out loud at moments like that but I know better..

A BRAND is not just a logo, picture or creative concept!
A BRAND has something called BRAND EXPERIENCE as its core component (intangible values). This experience must be reflected at every touchpoint. If my organization is supposed to provide a solution to a problem (be it a product or service), then my first and foremost aim is to make attaining that solution EASY and ENJOYABLE….this is BRAND.

Providing, yet another obstacle for someone trying to get onto your site creates a negative brand experience…and as if that’s not enough, everytime they return there it is again, your pretty logo blocking their way into your site. Do you really think that each website visitor (typically with a 3-click attention span) is thinking “wow, what a pretty colourful logo, this is really a great brand, i’m glad they keep reminding me what their colours are…”?

Think of running into your local gas station in a hurry to pay for your gas. Imagine opening the front door and entering a hallway with another set of giant mahogany closed doors at the end of it which have ” WELCOME TO COMPANY X “WHERE THE CUSTOMER COMES FIRST” written above them. You have to walk forward and press down on the big heavy handles to enter….(the offline equivalent of having to do an extra click online). Now doing that once may not seem so bad, but would you still return to this gas station [website] if another one was built beside it with no extra door [splash page], just a place to make your payment [substitute with primary goal of your site]?

This is just a fraction of SPLASH page problems. An even bigger problem is search engine visibility. Search Engine spiders will crawl a splash page (typically the root directory of your website) and make their opinion about your website content based mainly on the text on that page (ususally…”enter here”..or “French” “English”). These words would be seen as the primary keywords on your website since they are dominant on your first page. Are those the search queires you are targetting? Have you looked at the latest stats showing the over 80% of users use search engines (specific keywords) to find what they are looking for (even if they know the url)? How many times have you Googled a wesite whose URL is familiar to you?

A splash page will hurt your website’s visibility consideraby. Don’t believe me? Google this “SEO and Splash Pages”

I’ll leave you with a link to one of my favourite blog entries on this topic:

http://www.jemjabella.co.uk/scribblings/scr-splash.php

 

The 1-2-3 Call-To-Action concept; simple yet often overlooked

I have always been a big advocate of websites that have a clear call to action based on their objectives. The most popular design I see is the “1-2-3″ step concept. Example sites are: www.smartmoves.ca, www.mycanadaday.com, www.ready.gov. Can someone tell me what the disadvantages are of using this sort of strategy? I want to be able to play the devil’s advocate. As far as I see it, the 1-2-3 concept is fully measurable and helps address the short attention spans of today’s web surfers.

Government website ROI measurment…STOP measuring just "visitors"!!!

After working with numerous government departments and coming across the same issue I have decided it is time to write something about it.

A recent client asked me why I wanted to get rid of their Site A, which had 1Million unique visits last year, and yet I wanted to keep Site B, which had 50K unique visits (they had to ged rid of one or the other). A simple answer: Stop looking at quantity, look at quality of your visits.

What is the purpose of your site? What are your objectives for the site? What do you want your target audience to accomplish?…Is it to :

• Sign up for a newsletter?
• Fill out a survey?
• Use the interactive application built into the site?
• Read something important?
• Download a pdf Guide?

All of the above can be measured and tracked via free analytics software (such as Google Analytics) .

In the case of Site A, none of its initial objectives were being met. Visitors were leaving after browsing a few insignificant pages (there was no clear call to action, but rather a storage room of information). Over 70% of the 1Million visitors were staying on the site for less than 5 seconds…meaning essentially that they stumbled upon the site accidentally or were immediately turned off.

In the case of Site B, nearly 50% of the website visitors were actively engaged in the site and reached essentially every goal set forth in the website strategy. Many were staying on the website for 15+ minutes each time and returning on numerous occasions.

Which one would you keep? One that delivers on its mandate or one that you can show senior management is getting a lot of “hits”? The sad truth is that many public servants choose the latter because they cannot show the ROI/ROE of their website effectively.

Here’s a hint:

• Assign a relative importance value to each conversion goal (objective) you assign to your website out of 10
• Set up your analytics software to track how you are doing on each conversion goal (assign a performance value out of 10)
• Multiply this value by the weight of that objective
• Add up the scores
• Take this number and divide it by an ideal score to give you a percentage.
• Use this percentage as a quantifiable indicator with which you can gauge ROI/ROE

Simple technique , yet too often it is overlooked or seen as something for the techies. It’s not.