Questions to ask when you run the website.

Posted on December 7, 2009 by David

Good news! You are now in charge of the website!

Now what?

Here are a few critical questions to consider when you take over the website. Discuss these with your team, your boss, and your peers.

How well does the site support our strategic outcomes?
What is your organization trying to achieve? How much of a contribution is the site making to those goals? What more could it do to provide value?

This is the first thing you have to understand before you can really do anything significant with the site.

Which segments of our target markets are the most relevant for us online?
Of all the markets your organization serves, which are the most relevant to your online goals? How well does your site target and serve those people?

Attracting welders to a knitting site probably doesn’t do anyone much good. Make sure your site has the right audience. If it doesn’t, you have a great opportunity to have a tremendous impact by getting the right people to the site.

Do we have the tools, technology and skills to execute effectively on our current goals?
Does your content flow freely to the site without errors or revisions? Do you have process bottlenecks? Are some things that should be simple to achieve highly complex?

As the new leader of the website, you have an opportunity to spot problems that have become invisible to everyone else yet are a big drag on productivity. Fixing some of these right off the bat is often relatively easy and gives you some early wins for your team and organization.

Does your new responsibility signal a great shift that the site must reflect?
Big picture: does your new role signal a broader change in the organization? If so, make sure you consider how that new high-level direction can be best supported by your team and website.

Get a mentor.
Finally, be sure you have a mentor or two to help you explore and master this new job. A mentor can be your boss, another internal leader, a colleague or someone outside the organization. The key thing is to have someone who will ask the tough questions of you to make sure you are focused on creating results and executing effectively to do so.

I offer coaching and mentoring to web and IT leaders if you desire an independent, external, source of feedback and advice.

Two Web Strategy Screencasts

Posted on December 3, 2009 by David

I created two screencasts (video of a browser session with voice over) showing websites that demonstrate several of the web strategies that I cover in my book, Online and On Mission: Practical Web Strategy for Breakthrough Results. The videos accompany an article I wrote for the December issue of Associations Now, What Drives Your Web Strategy?. You can view the videos below or go to read the article and see them there as well.

Revenue Examples

Market Needs and Marketing Examples

Many thanks to the folks at the following organizations: Air Conditioning Contractors of America; American Institute of Physics; Maryland Chamber of Commerce; and HopeWell Cancer Support.

Finally, thank to Lisa Junker for inviting me to be their first author to contribute both text and online video for Associations Now.

Revenue is a Great Metric

Posted on December 3, 2009 by David

A brief thought for the day:

People paying you money via your site for products and services is actually a pretty useful metric. While certainly not the only one you should look at, I’ll take increasing online revenue over increasing page views any day.

What revenue flows can you measure through your site? Track them and see if you can correlate promotions, changes in design, user interface improvement, blog mentions, etc., to changes in revenue. This will provide you with knowledge about what works and doesn’t for creating online sales.

This kind of knowledge is not priceless: it has a specific hard dollar value to it. This is a very good thing. Don’t forget to leverage it.

Zappos using video to drive next actions

Posted on December 2, 2009 by David

Zappos.com, the online shoe (and more) retailer recently acquired by Amazon.com, is experimenting with video promotions to drive click throughs to produce detail pages. Here is an example* from their first effort, promoting Nike running shoes. (Scroll down to see the video.)

As you watch the video you can mouse over both the shoes as well as the shirt the model is wearing. The video shows a box over clickable items, which then launches a small dialog box from which the viewer can then click to go to learn more about that product. Nifty technology!

The way Zappos is deploying this facilitates seeing the product in a rich medium while still making it very easy to progress to the product detail page where the sale will be completed. This approach could be effective for any product that would benefit from a video presentation to convey its value and message.

* I tried to use the embeddable video for this post but the way they have created it takes up a huge amount of space since it displays a lot more interface than just the video. This will need to be adjusted because few people will share a video that will blow up their web site layouts.

Internet, Second Floor

Posted on November 19, 2009 by David

I’m in Toronto kicking off a new client project. Last night I had to walk the last few blocks to my hotel due to a subway shutdown that had snarled traffic. As I lugged my luggage, I saw a small sign on a store front, saying “Internet, Second Floor.”

I love that sign! Looking for the Internet? Second floor, please. I tweeted last night, “I always wondered where they kept it!”.

The truth is, you no longer have to go to the second floor to access the Internet. It’s everywhere. Back in the day, you could go online via your home or work computers, maybe an Internet cafe (which is what this sign was most likely referring to), and that was it. You had to go somewhere else to go online. Now, Internet access tends to be where you are.

The current trend with Internet ubiquity is to connect small devices to the online world so that people can access information and services while on the move: smartphones and netbooks being the primary examples today.

This raises the question for web strategists: how can we provide value to people on the move via a tiny screen and still relatively low bandwidth?

In considering serving your own users online via the ubiquitous Internet, think of what few things your audiences would want to do with you while on the move and focus on fulfilling those. Is it quickly looking up a key bit of data? Finding another user of your site? Updating their status?

The most effective strategies for mobile users are going to be those based on highly focused needs and serving them simply and elegantly via tiny screens.

I’ll have to back and snap a picture of that sign with my cell and post it online before I head home. Via the ubiquitous Internet.

Update: No need to go back, here is the sign courtesy of Google Maps Streetview.

That is just too cool.

Lessons in New Customer Process

Posted on November 9, 2009 by David

Seth Godin has a good post this week onupside vs. downside, looking at how much effort you put into preventing bad things vs. creating wonderful new things. He listed a hospital as one that does a lot of preventative work compared to the actual improvement of health. An art show, he says is all about the upside and very little effort expended on prevention of downside.

I had a visceral experience with a telecommunications company this week that not only spends way too much time on the downside, it’s actually their downside they are protecting rather than mine, their customer. Verizon has been pushing a new business phone plan for quite some time, calling me often and sending lots of mail. Actually looks like a reasonably good deal. I agreed to it this week when someone called me about it again. So far, so good.

Then they went into a very long process, recorded for later use, of the dire consequences of canceling this plan before the contract term is up. Fine, I said, let’s keep going. After that call I then received three separate calls from Verizon reps again confirming (with recording!) that I knew and accepted the early cancellation clause.

I’m now thinking: gee, this must be a pretty bad product if they are going to this length to make the contract length ironclad. I’m primed for failure at this point and the thing isn’t even active yet.

And I just now got an e-mail from them that misspells my last name.

I know your organization is not this bad. (Unless your with a phone company perhaps.) But how much are you doing to wow your new customers? They just invested money with you in exchange for value. Per Seth’s point, the faster and greater you can deliver value to them on the updside, the better they will appreciate the investment they just made and become predisposed to loving your product or service.

Some Opportunities to Hear Me Speak

Posted on November 3, 2009 by David

I have a few public presentations coming up that might interest you. From soonest to latest, they are:

Creating the Complete Social Media Experience for Your Event
A free webinar in the Avectra Academy series. Noon to 1 p.m. on Nov 16. Register here.

Two sessions at ASAE’s 2010 Technology Conference:
Integrate Your AMS, CMS and Website to Improve the Member Experience on February 11th.
Online and On Mission: Work with Your Board of Directors to Formulate Online Strategy on February 12th.

I am a panelist in the first and the sole presenter in the second.

Online Marketing Mastery: The Digital Secrets to Association Success
Session at the Improving Your Marketing through Technology workshop. March 18th at the Mathematical Association of America’s Conference Center in Washington DC. Registration not open yet but save the date.

If you are interested in having me speak at a conference or in-house event, see my speaking page for details. 2009 is closed and I’m now booking 2010 and beyond.

The Growth Trap

Posted on October 23, 2009 by David

I’ve written and spoken much about how associations and non-profits in general tend to have a hard time ending programs and services. You can read more about this here: Slaying Sacred Zombie Cows.

I’m going to take this same idea in a bit of a different direction today. Many organizations innovate through growth. As membership increases or non-dues revenue goes up, they now have more resources with which to start new initiatives. Innovating new value is much easier for leaders when you have a healthy growing organization. You can just put that new money to work and let the rest of things carry on, avoiding tough conversations and decisions.

The challenge comes when that growth stops or reverses, something many have become familiar with over the past year or so. If the only way your organization can innovate is through growth, then you now face a serious problem: just when you need to be the most nimble you are actually at your least flexible.

This is what I call the Growth Trap: relying only on growth for change traps you in the status quo when that growth goes away. Thus, being able to stop doing things not only makes for a more responsive organization, it is an existential necessity in tough times.

If your organization has come through the depths of the recession, you have probably learned how to stop doing things that are no longer of value, allowing you to reallocate those resources. Don’t forget this precious skill once your revenues are back on the upswing. It will continue to serve you well in good times and will make it much easier for you to weather the inevitable downturns when they come.

That skill will help you to escape the growth trap.

Fiber to Cuba Illuminates Future Opportunity

Posted on October 16, 2009 by David

I wrote an article for Association’s Now earlier this year on the web strategy implications of a more open Cuba. One of the key factors I noted was that Cuba has no fiber optic lines, to the rest of the world, which drastically limits the available bandwidth in the island country. Looks like that may change in a couple years: Miami Firm Plans First U.S.-Cuba Fiber Optic Cable.

If an open Cuba is an opportunity for your organization, then you have a window in which to prepare for making greater connections online with Cuban citizens.

C. David Gammel, CAE

Helping associations pursue goals that matter.

Author Archives: David