are we there yet? create, manage & measure your web campaign success

ARE WE THERE YET? CREATE, MANAGE & MEASURE

YOUR WEB CAMPAIGN SUCCESS

#pseweb

The Road Ahead…

In the beginning, there was the web

But Higher Ed websites were largely bad

The Website Redesign Movement

A look at the WCMS Phenomenon

Embracing Web Analytics

The Social Media Revolution

To be or not to be…Social Media ROI

Are We There Yet?

“The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”

- Sir Winston Churchill

Remember When….circa mid-1990’s

The internet was EVERYWHERE – WWW = Wild, Wild West

Every college or university started putting up a “brochure” website—”Look we’re on the web, we’re cutting edge!”

Not that anyone could find you…. Dude, Where’s My Car!

The web was an abyss of websites Difficult to find and categorize any

website

Lost & Found…

Web Aggregation & Search tools to the rescue!

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE!!!)

Then students found your site and…

Uh Oh! The pot at the end of the road was mostly gol…coal?

Dated designs with rudimentary tools

Uninspired use of available screen space and website real estate

Hello?! Does anyone live here?

The Website Redesign Movement Revamp Information

Architecture Audit & Remove bad

and out-dated content

Improve visitor experience on website

Better segment content for various audiences

Use latest technology standards (XHTML, CSS, HTML5)

Accessibility & SEO improvements

Consistent & modern branding “look & feel”

Increase targeted visitor traffic

The Website Redesign: Bonus TrackREALLY think this should be called Website

CONTENT Redesign….

Too often organizations focus on the “Web” and the “design” portion but the “site” and the “content” is what makes a difference

But that’s for another day and someone else’s presentation

The Website Redesign Movement

GOALS! OBJECTIVES!

OUTCOMES!

The Website Redesign Movement OBJECTIVES: What are you trying to

accomplish with your new website?

GOALS: What are the desired actions you want visitors to take?

OUTCOMES: What are the desired results you want to measure to determine your progress?

Goals & Objectives are S.M.A.R.T

Specific – “Apples” not just “fruit”

Measurable - “Double” apple yield not just “a lot”

Attainable – “100%” apple yield, not “500%”

Relevant – “Apples” not “bananas”

Time-bound – By next harvest

The Website Redesign Refine Option

If you’ve already done a Redesign, you might want to embrace these philosophies going forward…

REFINE, Don’t Redesign! From a recent presentation given by Lou

Rosenfeld:

“Website redesign must die”http://www.slideshare.net/lrosenfeld/redesign-must-die

Agile Project Methodology

The WCMS Phenomenon…

“It’s time to stop drowning in outdated web content, start thinking about a better content management strategy for your website, and choose to invest in the right web content management system”

- Karine Joly (collegewebeditor.com)

What a WCMS will do…

Streamline the publishing process Efficiently reuse content throughout your

website Eliminate the IT and web team

bottleneck for content updates Provide enforcement for branding and

style guidelines Serve as a hub to manage campus-wide

content reusable across web, print, mobile and social media channels

What a WCMS won’t do…

Replace a good content strategy Create relevant, useful and quality

content Resolve long-standing organizational

politics around web management or content strategy

Eliminate the need to determine Goals, Objectives & Outcomes for your website strategy

Solve all your web and social media challenges

WCMS…Create

WCMS….Manage

WCMS…Publish

WCMS…Multi-channel Publishing

How to choose the right WCMS… WCMS should support the current work

people do and simplify the process. Verify “fit” not just bells, whistles and

polished demos. How does each WCMS tool fit what

you’re trying to accomplish? How does each WCMS tool meet your

business objectives?

WCMS…So You’re Back to

GOALS! OBJECTIVES!

OUTCOMES!

WCMS…Don’t Forget

Support & Culture“You're not just buying technology, or just a Web CMS product – you're buying a relationship.”

-(Irina Guseva, Real Story Group)

Verify 5-year cost in addition to initial cost $0 initial cost + $100K Services/Support > 50K initial cost + $20K Services/Support

Recap…

Website Redesign or Refine – CHECK

Web Content Management System – CHECK

Now what?

Embracing Web Analytics

Why Analytics?

Content is King, But WHICH content? And is the RIGHT content being published out?

"We spend a huge amount of time in higher ed maintaining content that has little return on investment.”- Michael Vedders, director of Web services at Bethel University in Minnesota.

Web Analytics…

Outcomes matter, But the RIGHT outcomes matter

most!

The Data is Available…

But Data Needs Context

“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

- T. S. Eliot

And we’re back to…

GOALS! OBJECTIVES!

OUTCOMES!

Web Analytics…

Start small by defining just a few measurable goals with specific “calls to action”

Measure conversions—macro and micro Focus on trends, not just raw data Segment data as much as possible Based on stated objectives, analyze the

data to inform your website content decisions.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Objectives => Goals => Actions => Outcomes

KPIs – Give context to outcomes so you know if you’re accomplishing your Objectives and meeting Goals # of page views & unique visitors # of campus visit forms completed online # of clicks on admissions form “Apply Now”

button # of completed admissions applications

Analytics & KPIs…Dig Deeper Average time per page visited

If you notice a visitor with lots of page views but short time/page this likely means they’re having trouble finding what they really want.

If a visitor has fewer page views, but is on each page for a relatively long time (let’s say 1-2 minutes) this means they’re probably getting to relevant pages easily--and you did something right

The Social Media Revolution

The Social Media Revolution

Conversations are important Engagement is important Quality content is still King Website user experience is still key This is a new medium with new tools but

remember the fundamentals haven’t changed…

The Social Media Revolution…

GOALS! OBJECTIVES!

OUTCOMES!

The Social Media Revolution…

Ask Why?

Everybody’s doing it!

It’s so much fun! To improve our

Klout score Do we have a

choice?

Support web marketing Goals, Objectives, Outcomes

Engage prospective & current students as well as alumni

Utilize another medium for your quality content

Bad Reasons Good Reasons

Why Social Media?

Why Social Media?

“How do you measure the value of a relationship?What is the ROI of a handshake? At the end of the day, that’s something that’s very difficult to measure. Schools need to tie ROI back to institutional goals rather than metrics for the sake of metrics. One hun- dred thousand fans doesn’t mean anything if you aren’t meeting your goals.”

- Mark Greenfield, Office of Web Services,

University of Buffalo

The Social Media Revolution

Social Media ROI or…

“How to help Administration support your marketing efforts”

Measurement Personalities Spectrum

-http://overtonecomm.blogspot.com/2010/09/commonsense-approach-to-measuring.html

Social Media ROI…

Naysayers: "What's the ROI on social media? I don't know,

what's the ROI on our phone system?”

Bean-counters “People who say you cannot measure social media

are lazy.”

Explorers “What is the ROI of worrying about ROI of social

media?”

Social Media ROI…

Social Media ROI…

S.M.A.R.T rules still apply

Segment and measure specific social media goals # of followers on Twitter or # of fans on

Facebook # of comments per blog post % of unique website visitors attributed to

social media post or tweet referral link # of subscribers to specified RSS feeds

Social Media ROI & Tools…

RSS Broadcast functionality Send once to multiple social media channels

Track each channel as a unique referral link Campaigns can now be measured independently on per

channel basis

Centralized social media management Listen and track conversations, create and manage posts

within a single resource

Create and manage conversion forms for calls to action

Social Media ROI and Tools…

Social Media ROI & Tools…

Are We There Yet?

Consider using Agile Marketing process Shorter marketing campaigns Allow for testing across wider variety of

channels Inspect, Adapt, Optimize Inherent ROI tracking Supports efforts for fresh content

Q & A

THANK YOU!

JOEL DIXONSolutions ConsultantHannon Hill Corporationjoel.dixon@hannonhill.com678-904-6900 x119@joelddixon