Tsae

Web Marketing Fundamentals

Online Best Practices

for Membership Organizations

Schipul The Web Marketing Company Ph. (281) 497. 6567 Tf. (877) 724.4785 Fx. (281) 497.1083www.schipul.com

http://www.schipul.com/

What we’ll Cover…

• Challenges of managing an association online• Competitiveness among membership organizations• An overview of Web user characteristics• The ten Web Marketing Fundamentals• Bonus: Search Engine Marketing!

Schipul – “The Web Marketing Company”. - www.schipul.com – 2005 ©

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Challenges of managing an association online

• Time and bandwidth pressures on staff

• Lack of automation for burdensome tasks, such as event registration

• Processes not in place to ensure association data is always updated and secure

Competitiveness among

Member Organizations

• How many of you consider yourselves to be in a competitive marketplace?

• Gale Research, publisher of the Encyclopedia of Associations says you have no shortage of competition:– The U.S. has 147,000 associations

– Approximately 1,000 new associations are formed each year


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Investing in Technology

• The Adoption of Technology is Accelerating:

– Associations in the U.S. invest $2.2 billion annually in technology

– 81% of U.S. associations use Web sites and e-mail to share information with members


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The Key Question…

• As we enter the second decade of the Internet age, here’s the key question that should be keeping you up at night:

– Is your organization strategically using technology to become more competitive….

– Or are you simply using it to disseminate information?


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First Things First

• Leading organizations are finding creative ways to deliver these services online:– Online professional development courses

– Online forums and tools for information sharing

– Job listings and resume boards

– Grassroots mobilization

– Impromptu meet-ups

– Blogs, Podcasts, Wikis & RSS


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Characteristics that drive web users

• They are incredibly smart

• They use search engine tools to navigate

• Their smarts are exceeded only by their impatience

10 Ways to Achieve Marketing Success

• Grab ‘em

• Don’t mix messages

• Feature a call to action

• Retain your branding

• Make it easy to

contact you

• Use expected colors and imagery

• Optimize for search engines

• Feature testimonials

• Focus on the visitor

• Adopt a privacy policy

www.schipul.com/en/art/?1 for more detail

http://www.schipul.com/en/art/?1

Grab ‘em With a Strong Headline

• A good headline…

– Is focused on the visitor, with words such as

“you” and “your”

– Is the dominant element on the home page

– Appears larger than even your logo, company

name or tagline

http://www.passaicparc.com/killer/caples.html

Put Your Product/Service

on a Pedestal

• Feature what you offer– Use pictures

– Use relevant text

• Link directly from those images on the home page to detailed pages with extensive information and more pictures

Feature a Clear Call to Action

• Tell the site visitor, on the home page, exactly what

you want them to do

• Visitors will read your site content at length if it

answers their questions

• Be sure to ask for the business at the end of the

page or article

Don’t Stray from Your Branding

• Building upon your existing brand identity is key toimmediately establishing trust…

• These elements need to be consistent with your brand’s off-line identity…

– Brand logo– Brand name– Key messaging – Graphics

Make it Easy to Contact You

• Your visitors don’t want to dig for the basics, so make sure it’s easy to find the following:

– Telephone numbers– Contact forms (mini and full)

– E-mail links – Physical address of your place of business in an easy to copy format

No Surprises

• Use industry-appropriate color and imagery

– Give your visitors what they expect exactly as they

expect it– Don’t attempt to re-brand your industry– This is your opportunity to be consistent and professional

at the beginning of the sales process

Optimize for Search Engines

• Search engine optimization is the art and science of increasing your website’s visibility in the major search engines across a

strategically defined set of keywords and phrases that apply to your

products or services

• An estimated 77 percent of Internet users employ search engines to find Web sites

• If you are not listed on Google or Yahoo, you are invisible– It doesn’t matter how well known your brand is!– Visitors will not guess your site name but will go through

Google or Yahoo just to be safe

Optimize for Search Engines

Feature Testimonials

• Assure visitors that you are a “real” company with a solid reputation

– Gain client approval to use a quote

– Even better, use client logos and link to their Web sites

– Never assume that everyone knows you want

their business

Focus on the Visitor

• Cater to what the visitor wants and needs from your site, then give it to them…

– If you are a association, offer online registration and case studies– If you are a plastic surgeon, offer dynamic before-and-after photo

galleries– If you are targeting the younger generation, offer games or social software tools (myspace.com) that feature your brand

Adopt a Privacy Policy

• Respect the privacy of your site visitors with a privacy policy

– Link to a written privacy policy at the bottom of

every page

– Be sure policy is written in normal language,

not legalese


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• Unique Content

• Links to Your Site (ask!)

• Design Fundamentals make a difference

Marketing to Search Engines


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Who Searches Where?

Top Search Engines by Search Share, January 2005, U.S., Home & Work

Search Engine Searches* in thousands Share of Total Searches

Google Search 1,923,153 47%Yahoo! Search 868,174 21%MSN Search 523,188 13% Total 4,085,880 81%

• Note: Searches are the total number of queries conducted at a search engine during the specified reporting period, excluding internal site searches.


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SEM (Search Engine Marketing) What Matters?

• Search Engines measure popularity through links

• Don’t be a copycat – unique content matters


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What are you telling the search engines?

• Find out what you are saying to the search engines

• Keyword Density• Bloggers Linking to you?

Test Your Associations Web Site Here:http://www.schipul.com/en/sem/keywords/

http://www.schipul.com/en/sem/keywords/


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Buy your way to the top!


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Links from a high powered siteto your web site!

• Often overlooked quality links

• Make sure your link – is done right!

• Organization sites typically rank well.


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Front Page? Google?

• Term: Kingwood Writers

• Link directly from directory view page

• Organization sites typically rank well.


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The Popularity of Business Directory Listings!

• 1654 views in October

• 983 views in the first ten days of November

• Launched in September, it is been in the top three activities accessed on the site each month!


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Exactness of speech?

?• Am I a Picture

Framer or Web Developer?

• You are what they say you are!


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Converting a visitor to a contact!

• Find out what works and you can optimize your dollars.

Schipul – The Web Marketing Company

11999 Katy Freeway, Suite 386

Houston, TX, 77079, US

Creators of www.tendenci.com

Web Based Association Software

v. (281) 497-6567

f. (281) 497-1083

THANK YOU!

http://www.tendenci.com/

Tsae

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