Friends of Sea Otter-Digital marketing evaluation

Presented byYuka HoriguchiPallavi Singla

Guided by Prof. Blodwen Tarter

Assessing the digital marketing and e-commerce for Friends of the Sea Otter

Email marketing E-commerce Privacy Secondary Research Social media SEO Website Personal interviews

Do you know,

Male 4-5 feet long / Female 2-3 feet long

Male 50-100lbs/ Female 30-70lbs

Lavy, you are the same size with my dad!

Source : www.seaotters.org/faqs

Is there anyone who has

over 1 million hairs per

square inch?


Sea Otters eat 25%-30% of their

body weight in each day.

If you were sea otter, you need to

eat…..


Company introduction

Friends of Sea Otter

• Non-profit organization

• Founded in 1968

• Based in Carmel, California

• Protecting sea otters and their habitats through education,

research, and policy decisions

• Increasing awareness about sea otters and their

conservation issues

• Able to donate money or buy merchandise through website

Source: Friends of sea otter official website

Scope of presentation

• Target market for FSO• Assessing the website and auditing it• Primary research results• Social media analyzed• Email marketing• Search engine optimization• Competition• Conclusions and recommendations

Target market

Identifying the target?

• Being an non profit to create awareness and attract donations, FSO targets– Every age group from 18

years of age onwards through their website

– Target groups like classes in schools like elementary schools grade 6 where the kids collected donation and FSO in turn sent them booklets and other merchandize.

– Target groups of animal lovers like whale society or residents of san diego sea area.

Target

Every age group

Groups like

classes

Animal or sea lover groups

Animal loving

individuals

Source : personal interview with Frank Reynolds, FSOVisitors on the website (11/2/14 – 12/2/14) : Source - Google analytics (FSO

Identifying the target?

45.85%

54.15%

GenderAge

FSO targets people to donate as well as help in spreading a word about the same. Remember their mission?

•Here the age of 55 and above are the people who donate•The 18-34 are people who generally spread the word•35-54 are the people who are a mix

Recommended to :Create personas like55-64 years old male inclined towards fitness

25-34 years old female, loves to travel and active on facebook

Match personas to those who will donate and those who will help in viral marketing


Auditing the website and e-commerce

Auditing the website

• Infrastructure :– HostGator is their hosting vendor and their contract mentions just about the basic

technology used and the price (nominal) they will charge per month. – They however do not have the scalability clause which is one of the recommendations.– On an average IE : 5.45 s, Chrome : 6.9s, Android 6.22 s, average : 6.72 for US. – More than half visitors leave the website within 10 seconds. What have we offered them?– Speed is an issue in terms of experts too () but not visitors ()

• First byte time is 975ms instead of standard 90ms• Scope to work further on compressing images• Standard cache program missing causing higher processing time

Source : personal interview with Frank Reynolds, FSOVisitors on the website (11/2/14 – 12/2/14) : Source - Google analytics (FSO)

Home page : above the fold

www.seaotters.org

Website : User experience

• Website :• According to the primary research conducted amongst 32 respondents :

• User experience is driven by Speed of the website followed by look and appearance and ease to understand the language of the website primarily (Results of multiple regression)

• Visitors rank the primary driver best but appearance / looks not really appreciated by visitors

P-value

Intercept 0.9857

Speed 0.0034

Look/ appearance 0.0209

Ease to understand 0.0474

Experience Speed Appearance Ease to u’standMean 3.67 4.09 3.54 3.74

Source : primary research

First impression of website to respondents

• Lovely pictures specially the aquarium in the background

• Lovely logo• Easy to scroll• Videos are nice to have

• Nothing exciting• Unconvincing mission statement• Messy home page• Too many fonts on the first page• Too big font under pictures make it

difficult to read• Relationship of sea otters to

disney package/photo contest?• Why don’t they have clear motto

stated?• Why frozen navigation bar?

Source : primary research

Our review

• Appearance :– Good use of pictures , videos,

attractive logo– Loose the big font under the pictures

as it is not possible to read, use the space effectively

– To have consistent fonts on the home page

• Content : – Good navigation titles– To have a message above the fold to

convey the aim– Definitely need breadcrumbs– FAQs section to be renamed : facts

Source : primary research I www.seaotters.org

http://www.seaotters.org/

Our review

• Functionality and task flows :– The donate button redirects to razoo.com in a new tab

• According to the primary research, people had issues with donating to a new site

• An easier recommendation : have own payment• Actionable : A message to pop-up like,

– “You are being redirected to razzo.com from FSO website. – Add a line about credential of razoo.com like razoo.com is a non profit site

which collects donations for 2500 other non profit organizations– Razoo.com is a trusted partner of FSO”

• The page holds review of people under the fold; to have them above

– Merchandize is sold through zazzle.com : in the same tab– Mobile friendly website– So is the case with FAQ page

• Redirecting to other websites or pdf documents in the same tab should be abandoned.

• In fact PDF documents can be incorporated on the webpage

Source : www.seaotters.org

Our review

• No search option– There is limited content; you may not have it– It is actually easier to develop it at this time– Helps connect more and more information

• Interactive elements : – Good to have 2 places to sign up for

newsletter– Chiclets let you like or retweet from the page

itself– On signing up the newsletter

• To confirm with a message, “Thank you for your interest, you will receive an email shortly”.

• Must send them a newsletter, send the last one.• These are people interested in you, don’t loose

them

Source : www.seaotters.org

Social media

Social Media Usage - Facebook & Twitter-

Facebook

• 4,901 total Fans

• Uploads a post in two/three days

• Facebook traffic driven: 1.5 %

• Facebook driven viewers stay at website for 2.2 min average

• Each post obtains 5 comments, 209 likes, and 30 shares in average

• There are almost six different contents

– Fun fact, Fun photo, Quotation, Article link, Announcement, and Otter cam

Fan Demo-graphics

People who engaged with post

Sources: Google Analytic, Facebook analytic page

Social Media Usages-Facebook

Posts’ Contents and Engagement Rate

Article Link31%

Quotation23%

Fun Photo15%

Fun Fact15%

An-nounce-

ment 8%

Link to Otter live camera8%Number of posts

Experts’ quotes

(October 15th to November 15th ) Engagement rate by types of post

Article

Lin

k

Exper

ts' q

uotes

Fun P

hoto

Fun F

acts

Announce

men

t

Link

to O

tter

live

cam

era

050

100150200250300350400

ShareCommentsLike

• Experts’ quotes is the most engaged contents

• Link to otter webcam is unpopular

• Like > Share > Comments

• Article link was most frequently posted

Source: Friends of the sea otter Facebook page

Social Media Usages-Facebook

Links & Landing pageLinks mentioned in the posts

Total posts Total engagements

chicagosuntimes.com 1 521

seaotters.org/ottercam 2 269

Santacruzesentine.com 2 193

News.sciencemag.org 1 186

• Less engagements than another link

But Landing page is relevant to the

link & contents

Landing page

Source: Simplymeasured.com

Recommendation for Facebook usage

• Make the contents more interactive

– (Ex, include question so that viewers can answer)

• May add some “Call to action” message in landing page

• May need to include more FSO’s website link in Expert’s

quotes, fun fact, and fun photo posts

Social media usages

Twitter

Twitter

• 1,117 followers

• Has tweeted 532 tweets since March 2011

• Frequency: Once in 2.5 days

• Twitter traffic driven: Only 0.4%

• Twitter traffic driven viewers stay at website for 8 min

average

• 80% of posts include photos

Sources: Google Analytic, Twitter

Social media usages- Twitter

Contents of the Tweets

Awareness campaign

Fun fact

Quotes

Otter cam

Report

Protest

Retweet other's tweet

Introduce video

• 35% of Tweets are about otter cam

Otter cam

Experts’ quotes

Source: Friends of sea otter Twitter page

Social Media Usages-Twitter

Engagement rate by Topic

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Favorite RT

• Most frequent topic, Otter Cam, is less engaged

• Experts’ quotes is most popular topic

• One of competitors, Seaotter.com tweets 4 times more frequent

• Tweets more frequent (Even Re-tweet )

• Conduct tests

Sources: Friends of the sea otter & seaotter.com twitter page

Email marketing

Email marketing

• The CRM tool used by FSO is email marketing

• Outsourced to salsalabs.com• Only members receive their

emails (Donate to become member)

• Emails sent with pictures of otters and information

• Contain to the point contentEmail Total sent Open

count Open rate Clicked CTR Click open rate

Unsubscribe

1 (Gift) 2487 563 22.6 68 2.7 12.1 2

2(Disney) 2487 542 21.8 36 1.4 6.6 10

3(Pic) 2484 859 34.6 55 2.2 6.4 9

4(contest) 2496 669 26.8 16 0.6 2.4 10

Source : www.salsalabs.com

Email marketing

• An automated email is sent to people who donate

• Every email is sent to all the members which is leading to such small percentage of CTR– There is a need to club target personas with the data

of members. Accordingly content can be created for emails for different groups : Customize• Eg: younger audience gets more facts and numbers and

actions taken• Elder audience gets more reading material which is

informative• Males get more content/action oriented and females get

more pictures oriented emails• Sending photo contest emails to everyone one the list

does not make sense

• Include privacy policy• Need a clear call to action button• Do not redirect to many pages• Most emails are not personalized

Search engine optimization

Search engine optimization

As organic search is the key driver of traffic to the website, it becomes important to cash this channel

49.76

30.84

1.82

1.49

16.09

Google search Direct Yahoo searchBing search Others


Key words and performance : FSO

sea o

tter

sea o

ttersotters otter

cabrill

o mari

ne aquari

um

sea o

tter fac

ts

otter ca

m

sea o

tter habita

t

seao

tter

facts

about s

ea otters

05,000

10,00015,00020,00025,00030,00035,00040,00045,000 40,000

12,0008,000

2,500 1,600 1,300 600 500 500 400 Impressions

6.4 78.6

12

5.2

9.57.7

2.8

6.7 7.8 Average position

0.0027

0.009200000000000

010.002 0.002 0

0.0269

0.02

0

0.010.012

5CTR


Links on search pages : Position and Click through rate

Average position CTR

31(71.97%) 0.0095

26(60.23%) 0.0213

58(133.55%) 0.0091

96(224.32%) 0.0068

74(172.97%) 0.0113

120(284.36%) 0.0047

66(152.60%) 0.075

110(256.26%) 0.0138

99(231.45%) 0.0092

8.4(17.52%) 0.0273

43 1.32

http://www.seaotters.org/

http://www.seaotters.org/checkoff/

http://www.seaotters.org/blog/

http://www.seaotters.org/Friends%20of%20the%20Sea%20Otter.kmz

http://www.seaotters.org/kids-drawing/

http://www.seaotters.org/photo-contest/

http://www.seaotters.org/otterspotting/

http://www.seaotters.org/nootterzone/

http://www.seaotters.org/ourteam/

http://www.seaotters.org/information/uploads/2013/02/FSO-Sea-Otter-Fact-Sheet_Final.pdf

Average

The home page average position is 31.

Search engine optimization is definitely not being targeted here

Absence of a search option also contributes to lacking in this feature. It get difficult to guess what people are looking for.

•Key phrase in title•Tag in header•At least 3 times in the body•Use strong tags around keyword•Use keyword in url•Descriptive keyword filled names of images•Meta tags•Use keywords in twitter and fb


Competition

Competition

Sources: The FSO, seaooter.com, TOP facebook, twitter, offical webpages

The FSO Seaotter.com The Otter ProjectYear 1968 2012 1998

Place Carmel, CA Santa Cruz, CA Monterey, CA

WebsiteTransaction

Donation (Razoo.com)Merchandise (Zazzle.com)

Merchandise *Own payment system(All proceeds support sea otter’s protection)

Donation *Own payment systemMerchandise

Social media

Facebook: 4,902 likesTwitter: 1,118 followers



What they do

Federal environmental policyState environmental policyWater qualityLitigationEducationResearch

Raising awareness about California's threatened sea otters

Water quality

Conclusions and Recommendations

• Things to keep• Targeting groups and enthusiasts

– Website• Pictures and videos• Team page• Contact us page• Navigation titles• Newsletter sign-up• Logo• Mobile optimized design• Chiclets

– Social media• Continue with the posts on facebook• Experts’ quotes to increase• News and other information• Pictures

– Email• To the point content• Un-subscribe option• Information with pictures

– Relevant promotions like holiday packages to be bought

• Things to change:• Create personas for the target market and

match that with the database to create more customized content for emails and facebook

– Website• Improve speed• Loose big font / use consistent font• Above the fold mission• A document highlighting where donations

go• Use breadcrumbs• Rename FAQ page• Use pops when redirecting to other pages• Do not use other links in same tab

– Social media• Involve people more by including discussion

topics and use customized content• Use more links to website• Increate frequency of tweets

– Email• Email with clear call to action and privacy

policy with personalization

• Follow the Search engine optimization tactics• Learn from competition

Primary recommendations

• SEO : use SEO tools and reach more and more people• Social media : engage people with more relevant posts

(quotes) and retweet (use research/personas/database)• Email marketing : Personalize and customize emails to get

the most out of it specially with promotional events going on.

• Website : Work on the redirecting function first and then on look and appearance

Thank You

Do you have any questions for us?

Friends of Sea Otter-Digital marketing evaluation

Documents

Transcript of Friends of Sea Otter-Digital marketing evaluation