Digital Web StrategyBy Mike Sutcliffe

Brief

How would I approach preparing a web strategy?

Stage 4

How would I implement it?

Key Strategy Stages

Research & Plan

Stage 2

Stage 1

Stage 3

Stage 4

Aims & Objectives

Implement & Promote

Monitor & Improve

Research & PlanStage 1

Planning Stage

Stage 1

Intro

Failure to plan is a plan for failurePlanning gives a better understanding of what to create and improves your success rate.

Planning Stage

Stage 1

HomesDevelopmentsIndividual SupportLandscapingNeighbourhoodsFinancial Services

Understand the brands and service offerings

Homes for private rent

Non-profit making housing association

Nurseries

Rent and shared equity properties

Scotish housing association

Builds properties

Planning Stage

Take stock

Take stock of what Places for People currently has for a digital presence and review past performance.

x4 Brand websites

x3 Development websites

x2 Social media

Planning Stage

SWOT analysis

Understand the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats to PFP

• Gives insight into potential growth areas

• Help gives foresight into potential threats and to be proactive

• Highlights strengths and USPs that can be utilised in future marketing

• Highlights weaknesses that could be improved to give added stakeholder value

Planning Stage

Produce PESTLE

Understand the ‘Big Picture’

Examine all external factors that do, could and will influence present and future performance.

• Helps avoid undertaking projectsthat are condemned to failure

• Improves longevity of sites and reduces potential future costs

• Highlights potential opportunities which will give competitive advantage

This analysis will enable…

Planning Stage

Think and be 21st Century

Defining characteristics:

• Up-to-date content that can be pushed to, and accessed by customers at a time and device of their choosing

• Makes good use of rich media to add to the overall experience

• Contains community and collaboration tools

• Provision for personalisation but continually delivers relevancy

• Supported by a strategy for engaging customers and prospects outside of the domain, EG: blogs, Facebook, etc.

This is imporant because…

Planning Stage

The world is changing

• Although there will always be times where traditional communication methods and human contact is preferable, PFP must prepare for a more digital future

• It’s not just about a corporate web site. Many customers are already engaging with brands and services through multiple digital devices, and channels

• How do customers use this technology? Do they search and access different data? EG: Mobile site – used for accessing contact details or searching property locations.

Web browserMobiles/

smartphones

Tablet devices

Internet TV

Social networks Blogs Forums YoutubeEmail

Game consoles

Planning Stage

Benefits of a changing world – improves operational efficiencies

• Organizations have a continuous challenge to do more with the same resources in

less time, whilst raising quality – Digital can help!

• Reduce time to market for new marketing campaigns

• Enables quick reaction to changing market conditions at reduced cost

• Reduce internal costs by providing online self service tools

• Proactive customer service

• Google ads and SEO techniques to reduce acquisition costs

• Digital tools can support internal processes, procedures and governance

To do this PFP must…

– Reduce inbound calls for common tasks and enquiries

– Social media listening

Planning StageUnderstand your customers

• Strategy must be focused around the user needs

• Many types of user

– Prospects/potential customers – Acquisition strategy

– Existing customers – Retention (customer service) and upsell strategy

• It's about relevance – communications in the right place, at the right

time with the right message for that specific user

– Older people looking for sheltered housing spend time online in different places

than a young first time buyer – and the messages are very different

– Corporate bond investors have a completely different need

• We need to identify each type of user and how best to communicate to them online

Planning Stage

Conduct customer interviews

The only way to create relevant strategies is to understand whom you're talking with and what interests them.

• One-on-ones• Questionnaires• Web usability tests

This is time consuming in the short term, but saves money and considerable cost in the long term.

Any investment online should be about adding customer value, better ROI, increased sales, customer loyalty.

Planning Stage

Build PERSONA

Example PERSONA and user journey developed for Butlins.

Putting yourself in the mindset of the customer – I would…

Create a fictional character (PERSONA) for each brand of PFP to clearly identify the audience and their demographics.

Why should they come on your site? What are they looking for? What needs of your users can we satisfy? What are their interests? How do they interact? Etc.

This will help…

Planning Stage

Improve the customer engagement experience

• Helps your ‘time poor’ customers access to information and services remotely, from multiple devices, 24 hours a day 365 days a year

• Enables PFP to engage their customers in a partnership, working together to develop products and services, bringing innovation into the workplace

• Improves customer service and help reduce operational and marketing costs

• Supports and enhances a consistent customer life cycle experience

• Provides valuable insight to help improve products and service

• Provides PFP with additional channels (blogs, etc) to promote services and develop a stronger identity

Its also very important to…•

Planning Stage

Conduct internal stakeholder interviews

• Talk and listen to key internal stakeholders (colleagues) to understand their wants and needs

• Can the digital experience improve departmental results and efficiencies?

• Its surprisings what ‘Gold Nuggets’ you can earth from speaking to front line, customer facing employees

• Produce a stakeholder map

Planning Stage

Know your competitors

Identify key competitiors for each brand and service with an overview of their digital presence.

How does PFP compare in comparison?

What strategies are you competing against?

It's important to understand your competitors so you don't simply duplicate a competitor's efforts… but improve on them.

Example Housing Association competitors

Planning Stage

Success criteria and KPIs

Develop a series of SMART success criteras and a set of robust KPIs.

• Web strategy is cyclical in nature and requires constant refinement

• You cannot improve what you cannot measure - one of the great things about digital is that everything is measurable

Planning Stage

Conclusion

Draw up conclusion

Aims & ObjectivesStage 2

Aims & Objectives

An agreed vision for the business

3 Years2 Years12 Months

What is the grand vision for PFP’s online presence? What is it we ultimately want to achieve?

Examples:

Reduce operating costs by meeting customers needs and wants in the digital environment.

Embrace new technologies to add customer value and increase sales.

Gives a clear target, inspires and aids decision making.

Aims & Objectives

Short and long term objectives

Phase 112 months

Only when PFP has an agreed Vision can we develop a set of measurable strategies and objectives.

• Redevelop existing sites: Castle Rock, Places for Children• Build new sites: Lothian Homes, PFP Scotland• Develop a similar and consistent structure across sites to aid

quicker and more efficient content management and free resource Q. Can some of the sites be consolidated to save time and money?

Phase 22 Years

Phase 33 Years

• Up-to-date content that can be pushed to, and accessed by, customers at a time and device of their choosing. EG Mobile Site.

• Produce an app to aid home searching (EG Rightmove)• Develop customer personalisation of the site(s) – The future!

• Add rich media to site• Develop a Blog (EG Adactus) and one centralised forum to build a

community

Implementation & PromotionStage 3

How would I implement it?

Implementation

Identify project requirements

• What are the ultimate aims and objectives of the project? • Develop a robust set of success criteria and KPIs (SMART)

• Define approach to project – EG: inhouse or external agency

• Identify requirements and constraints – EG: expertise, resource, culture

• Produce a MOSCO based on constraints

• Clearly identify colleagues roles and responsibilities

• Define ‘roadmap’ of time scales and key project milestones

• Prepare a clear brief (blueprint) for implementation meeting

Gives clear direction, structure, manageable goals resulting in less wasted time

Implementation

Procuce a development roadmap

Produce a detailed but flexible roadmap for each stage of the project

Implementation

Project meetings and implementation

Implementation meeting• Ensure a clear understanding and agreement

from everyone involved of the project brief, roles, success criteria and responsibilites

Regular progress meetings• Evaluate performance and timescales• Discuss effective solutions to problems• Ensure any changes meet project objectives• Ensure each person understands the

needs and wants of others throughout

End stage or completion meeting• Assess performance

against success criteria• Learn from mistakes• Present plans for next stage

Clear understanding, agreement and goals are key

Promotion

Can people find you?

You can have the best website on the internet, but can your potential customers find it?

Without typing the exact words ‘Places for People’ in google, I couldn’t, without visiting third party sites.

Promotion

Where to start? The digital landscape

Within the strategy I would take advantage of the digital tools available to promote the relevant brands and services:

• PPC Strategy – Targeted audience – deliveres results quickly

• SEO (Organic Search) Strategy – Increases visability (Blog, Forums), long term

• Digital PR strategy – Yesterdays news isn’t tomorrows chip paper!

• Affiliate marketing strategy

• eNewsletters – Cuts cost of print and postage

• eMail strategy – Add a sign-up section to the homepage

Most important areas for consideration…

Promotion

Benefits of social media

Digital Touchpoint

Social media is increasingly becoming the first point of contact with customers. Marketing used to be about advertising, now its about engaging.

Customers visit social media sites daily, even hourly. They might only visit your site once a week or less.

• Increases brand visability and service offerings

• Develops a sense of community… SPIRIT

• Allows for greater interaction with customers

• Real-time responses to issues and questions

Promotion

Social media - Blogs

Google favours blogs and social media rather than websites because they are more relevant to a person’s search and up-to-date.

PFP should use a Blog for their news section to engage with customers.

• Increases customer participation

• Increase search engine rankings

• RSS feeds and trackbacks

Promotion

Social media – Twitter and Facebook

Facebook – 86 FriendsTwitter – 794 Followers

Is Twitter and Facebook adding stakeholder value at present?

• Add F&Q section

• Links to service offerings

• Update wall more frequently

• Increase friends and followers EG: social media links on homepage

• Encourage customer involvement

PFP has a strong Twitter following but competitors appear to be doing a better job of promotion.

Promotion

Social media – Forums

PFP’s customers currently use a whole range of different forums across the internet.

One centralised messageboard would offer huge customer and business value.

• Builds a large communitylocally and nationally which can be utilised by both stakeholders

• Huge potential for up-selling and cross-selling opportunities

• Improves PR and enables questions and issues to be dealt with in real-time before escalating

• Gives a consistent and professional look

Monitor & ImproveStage 4

Monitor & Improve

Web strategy is cyclical in nature

Like the Forth Bridge it requires:

• Continual maintenanceand improvements

• Digital tools give huge amounts of info and stats to measure effectiveness of work

• Use analytics and stats to refinePFPs digital offering

• Moving with the times; technology, social trends, etc.

• Calculate ROI to ensure maximum return Never ending paint job that is the Forth Bridge

Thank youQuestions