Using Your Web Presence to Enhance Membership Value

March 5, 2009

and Audience

Agenda

Web Evaluations: MSAE & National Sports Center

» Using the web to find new members?

» How do you provide ongoing value & engage members?

» How do you make it easy to retain and renew members/audiences?

» Questions

Target Audience- Coaches/Team Leader (esp. Hockey & Soccer)

- Individuals who are going to clinics/tournaments- N. Central Community

- People looking for an event facility- Developers of sports facilities

Business Goals-Recognize Sponsors

-Cut down paper forms

Customer Goals- Register teams

- Raise awareness for all sports offered- Central hub for all communication

Target Audience- Current association members

- Prospective members (all sizes)- Allied members (provide services to members)

Organization Goals- Make it easy for members to find information

- Attract new members- Communicate pro-actively to members

How visible is your organization?

Finding New Members

6

Potential Members are Online

» 1.3B internet users worldwide

» Nearly 75% of US Households

subscribe to an internet service

» 92% of households with annual

incomes over $70K are internet

subscribers2

» 55% of all US Households have

high-speed Internet Access3

Search Growth

Search is quickly approaching email as #1 Internet activity

» 49% (60 million) of Internet users search every day+ 90% of all internet users use search

» 60% (76 million) of Internet users email every day+ 91% of all Internet users use email

Source: Forrester Research

Global Search Volume

» Global Percentage of Volume+ Google: 77.4%+ Yahoo: 12.5%+ Live Search (MSN): 5.9%+ AOL: 2.1%

» Over 400 Million U.S. Internet Searches Per Day

Search A Critical Component

» People’s first interaction with your content is often filtered through the “eyes” of the search engines

» Without these software programs that search a data sets (such as the Web) user would have a very hard time sifting through all the information online.

Offline Media Complements Online Search

Source: iProspect Offline Channel Influence on Online Search Behavior Study, August 2007

Question: Within the last 6 months which of the following prompted you to go to a search engine to look forinformation on a particular company, product, service or slogan? (Select all that apply)

Two-thirds of Online Search users are driven to perform searches as a result of exposure to an offline channel

Television ad

Word of mouth from friend / acquaintance

Magazine / newspaper ad

Company’s store / physical location

Radio ad

Billboard, indoor sports venue sign

Ad / company name on company truck /

van /car

Ad / company name on taxi / train / city

bus

I have not preformed a search

0% 20% 40% 60% 100%

Percentage of Online Search Users

33%

3%

7%

9%

17%

20%

30%

36%

37%

Good Visibility on Branded Terms

Branded Terms – Good Visibility

Local Search – They own the page.

Localized Keyword Search – - Visible - Partner links are important

Localized Keyword Search – Visible, but not in the broader context.

Regional Keyword Search – Not showing up

General (National) Keyword Search – - Not visible- Paid search campaign?

General (National) Keyword Search – Nice visibility on soccer facility

General (National) Keyword Search – No visibility

General (National) Keyword Search – Nice visibility “Wild Hockey” search

Branded Search –Good visibility considering the competition

Branded Search –Good visibility

Branded Search –- Good beginning on 3rd Party Links

Keyword Search –Missing visibility on general keywords

Keyword Search –Missing visibility on general keywords

Keyword Search –Missing visibility on general keywords

Keyword Search –Missing visibility on general keywords

Keyword Search –Missing visibility on general keywords

Keyword Search –Missing visibility on general keywords

Keyword Search –Missing visibility on general keywords

Google Keyword Tool

Understanding a Search Results Page

Organic Listings “Free”

Pay-Per-Click Listings “Paid Advertising”

Organic Search - How it works

Once indexed, a page’s relevance is determined by the engine’s algorithm

» Keywords/Metadata (Page title, keywords and descriptions)+ Does this matter? + Search engine “Road Map”+ The “main themes” of a website or page+ Control content displayed on search results page

» Content+ Where on page, where within site, surrounding words, clarity+ Aligned with page title, keywords, and descriptions

Metadata

Organic Search - How it works

A page’s relevance is also determined by…

» Inbound Links+ Links from 3rd party websites to your website+ How many and from which sites+ Not having too many Outbound links

» URL - what is your website address?

» Frequency of page refresh - are you publishing content often?

» Website code - does the code prevent search engines from spidering your content?

PPC Search Advertising

» Advertisers bid for positioning (think online auction)+ In most cases, the higher the bid, the higher the placement+ “Relevance – Click Index” factor is applied to algorithm

» Advertiser pays only when text ad is clicked (PPC)

» Two major distribution methods + Search match - Ex: search directly on Google.com or Yahoo.com+ Content match - Ex: PPC ads displaying on partner sites

PPC: Search Match

#1 Search Match#2 Search Match#3 Search Match

#4 - #7 Search Match Listings

PPC: Content Match

#1 Content Match

Previous #3 Fidelity.com loses placement in Content Match

#2 Content Match

Search Engine Listings

+ Have seen stats saying 80 to 90% of all

users are clicking through on organic

listings, but this varies by topic and

relevance to what the searcher is

looking for.

How Users See a Listings Screen

Adding Natural Search to a Paid Search Campaign Dramatically Boosts Performance

Source: iCrossing, “Search Synergy: Natural and Paid Search Symbiosis,” March 2007.

Online Performance % Change

When Natural Search Is Integrated With Paid Search

92%

45% 45% 44% 41% 39%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Clicks Actions Orders Page views Visitors Time on site

Acquisition–The Big Ideas

1. Think about how what your key audiences would type into Google to find you.

2. Review how you are helping people find you online.

3. Use Google’s free Keyword Tools to find out traffic on keywords

4. Spend time and money on your search strategy both paid and organic when it

makes sense for your acquisition strategy.

+ Costs can range widely depending on the keywords you want to target.

+ The most popular words are the broadest and most expensive. Look at less popular words

that might be more targeted for your audience.

» E.g., Minnesota Soccer rather than Soccer

How can the web add value and help engage members/visitors?

Providing ongoing value and engaging members

Is your site useful?

» Makes it easy to join

» Support your brand & mission

» Built to make updates easy

» Saves your organization time & money

» Useful to your members/audiences

» Easy to use for everyone

Observations

Design

» Homepage tells me you are mostly about meetings and events

» Feels older and not as up to date as it could be

+ Broken links

» Have to dig a little bit for information

+ Below the “fold”

+ Jobs and Events – two biggest trafficked areas are visible right away

» Too many PDFs

+ Tell people when they are downloading something so they expect that

» Not as many ways to engage in a two-way exchange

» Site search not visible to help users find information

Observations

Technical

» ColdFusion system is running it with a minimum content management tool

+ Makes pages hard to add content to without asking for help from a programmer

+ ColdFusion is software for managing web applications that has lost ground to newer

platforms and programming languages

» The HTML is not using much CSS

+ Makes pages hard to change quickly

» There's more navigation links in any given page's HTML than there is

content which can cause confusion to search engines

Off Site Efforts

Social Media or Off Site Efforts

» Monthly email, bi-monthly events

» LinkedIn Account?

» Blog – missing MSAE brand identity elements

» iBizRadio hosted video

?

Engagement–The Big Ideas

1. When you redesign the site, update the technology rather than try

to reuse what you’ve got to make it easier to update

2. Ask your users what they want to see on the site (and they are in

the room) what they want to see on the site and move that content

front and center

3. Find ways to encourage ongoing virtual networking on

communication – make it simple

Observations

Design

» Deep rich content to get customers back to the site for specific sporting leagues

and events

+ Unless you are familiar with it, it takes sometime to learn

» Content geared for people in-the-know, not necessarily for the person coming to

the site to find out quick logistics information

» Does a good job of setting up all that the Sports Center has to offer

+ Maybe just needs a little more context around it for the business audiences

» Design is consistent though not always idea when linking to 3rd party content

pages (Point Streak stats on games)

Observations

Technical

» Site looks well put together from a template and management

structure

» Using Dreamweaver and Contribute?

» Site is on a solid infrastructure that has some search optimization

working

» Sitemap was broken when we viewed it

Off Site Efforts

Social Media or Off Site Efforts

» Mini-site for Schwan’s USA cup a nice idea-helps direct user to more relevant

content for them

» LinkedIn Account?

» Blog – blog is nicely integrated using site design and identity

» WebCasting events – very nice way to engage families/friends

» Weekly TV

» RSS subscription to events and news

» Facebook for events

Engagement–The Big Ideas

1. Think about creating ways to get to content more directly

1. Create mini-sites

2. iPhone/Mobile site for days events/directions

2. Ask your users what they want to see on the site and create

pathways to that content – Create User Profiles of key site

audiences and design experiences for these users

3. Make it easier for people to customize their view of the site (like

MyYahoo to help them prioritize information)

4. Work with 3rd party providers to skin their systems to fit into your

site.

About Social Networks

1 Social Networks are Not Just a Teen Fad

• 37% of US adult Internet users and 70% of teens use Social Networks• Nearly 50% of all page views on the web are on social networking sites

2 Advertisers are There Already

• Online spending on Social Network advertising will grow 75% in 2008 to $2.2 billion

3 Demographics are moving toward society as a whole

• Largest growing demographic of Facebook is 40+ women• YouTube demographics mirror US as a whole

Source: eMarketer, “Social Network Marketing Ad Spending and Useage”, December 2007; BusinessWeek “Generation MySpace is Getting Fed Up”, February 7, 2008

Do you make it easy to leave?

Retaining & renewing members/audiences

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Retention–The Big Ideas» Put your time and effort into projects that will bring real value to your

customers/members so they can’t do without you (Create ROI Models)

» Think about how you provide real value and extend that experiences

online

» Don’t be afraid to get transactional

» Don’t be afraid to license third-party tools that are already build and cost

effective to deploy

» Go where your audiences are – offsite if necessary

Thank You for Participating

Questions?

Thank You!

Lisa Helminiak

Principal | Strategist

Email: lisa.helminiak@azul7.com

» View a copy of this presentation at www.azul7.com/blog