In the digital age, your website is critical. Organisations simply cannot afford to survive without a solid web presence. And while some are embracing advanced initiatives such as social media and multi-channel marketing; others have very under-developed online programs.

In Australia, with the planned rollout of the National Broadband Network over the next few years, consumers are only going to get more demanding of their web experience. Enhanced broadband access will enable customers to take full advantage of web tools, digital content and applications – and people will have even higher expectations of your website.

With this in mind, any organisation with a less-than-effective web presence needs to think fast about taking action.

But first, it pays to look at the reasons behind this ineffectiveness. What is causing these websites to fail in their assigned tasks?

The four reasons websites let you down

In speaking with respondents in the survey, we identified four main reasons why websites are not performing.

1. Your website is not used in the right way

Is your website essentially “brochureware”? Is there nothing on there except rudimentary product information and the standard “About us” pages? For websites to deliver value, they must be built with business processes in mind. They must support the business in whatever way they can – whether it be to generate sales, capture leads or engage deeply with customers.

2. Your website has architectural issues

This is a common one. Navigation, forms, content and links are all critical elements that will make or break a website. It pays to conduct regular assessments of your website architecture to ensure that it meets all objectives and satisfies the user experience.

3. Your website doesn’t get enough traffic

Sounds obvious, but it’s true. Many organisations invest significant funds to build their websites – but no-one sees them. You will never have an effective website if your customers don’t know about it. Invest in search marketing and other promotional activities to drive traffic to your site.

4. Your website doesn’t support your campaigns

Too many organisations are still failing here. In these instances, there is a massive disconnect between the campaigns that customers interact with offline – via TV and print advertising, in-store promotions, out of home – and what they see on your website. These organisations are not using the online channel to its maximum potential, and therefore getting mixed results in their campaigns.

The only way is up

The good news is that all of these issues are easily rectified. With the right plan in place, organisations can significantly boost the performance of their online channel.
At Bienalto, it’s our job to help you transform your online presence – and it’s our goal to help reduce that 49% statistic to something much more respectable.

Want to improve your online channel? Contact Bienalto today.

The competition, which ran for 12 weeks and closed on 15 May 2010, smashed its targets and delivered huge results for our client. Engineers Australia has set a new precedent when it comes to using a CRM and the digital channel to connect with their audience.

Make it so. Animated Re-cap:

A quick re-cap on the campaign

A benchmarking study conducted in May 2009 found that, despite high levels of advocacy (at 59%, engineering came in second behind medicine as one of the most respected professions), engineering was poorly understood by the broader public (only 37% of people knew what engineers actually do).

So Engineers Australia devised Make it so, a national publicity campaign with the tag, “If you can imagine it, engineers can make it so.” The campaign sought to change the face of engineering in Australia and attract more students to the profession.

To do this, a national competition was launched in February, inviting Australians to share their dreams and ideas – with the winning idea being turned into reality by a team of engineers.

Before this, Engineers Australia spent six months recruiting its members and asking them to get them on board as advocates. These advocates would essentially become the ‘worker bees’ of the public campaign.

We shared how successful this phase was in a previous blog post.

Make it so the public loves engineering

Phase two – in operation since February – has involved driving traffic to www.makeitso.org.au and encouraging the general public to submit their ideas. Following on from the success of phase one’s purely digital approach to recruitment, we implemented a similar digital strategy to spread the word about the competition.

Make it so was promoted in a range of cost-effective and memorable ways via the digital channel, such as via social networks, EDMs, blog posts and online advertising.

Some of the highlights of the campaign results are outlined below:

• Engaging with members: Of the 85,000 members, 52,000 had opted-in to receive communications from Engineers Australia. Of those who had opted in, 8,000 people signed up as advocates. This represents 16% mobilisation of members.
• Cleaning up the database: Before the campaign, the bounce rate on the Engineers Australia database was high. Following the campaign, 6000 permanent bounces – or 7% of the database – were cleared. The database now holds 52 fields per contact (many of which represent new data such as graduation dates), so campaign managers are more responsive in using the data to shape strategies on an ongoing basis.
• Facebook: there were very strong results through Facebook. Entrants could promote their ideas on their Facebook site, and encourage friends to visit the site and vote. This proved a highly effective channel.

We kept a monitor on the results using Google Analytics. “We were particularly impressed with the traffic graph. It peaked when we launched, then we witnessed another peak with our ‘Make it so towel give-away’. Then, as soon as we bumped up online advertising – through cost-effective channels like Facebook – it grew massively again,” said Charlie Graves-Morris, Campaign Manager, Bienalto.

Long-term outcomes for Engineers Australia

In addition to these great results, Engineers Australia has also laid the foundations for future success – by engaging with its members like never before.
This deep level of engagement will have positive repercussions for some time to come. For example, Engineers Australia has achieved:

• An up-to-date database, with richer information about members to enable more targeted marketing in the future
• Identification of active members through the “Make it so Champions” micro-campaign
• Activation of new, cost-effective channels of communication like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

For an organisation that exists for its members, relationship marketing is critical. The professional association has demonstrated a new and incredibly effective way of engaging with members – via a CRM – and building a bridge between engineers and the wider community.

The Make it so campaign exemplifies new and successful ways that an organisation can engage with its membership and the broader community – cultivating lasting relationships that will reap mutually beneficial rewards into the long term.

Competition update

Engineers Australia is now busy selecting a winning idea, which will be announced on 7 June 2010.

This idea will be made a reality by an engineering team, and regular updates about their progress will be posted at www.makeitso.org.au.

The www.makeitso.org.au website will now be used by Engineers Australia as a public interface – a place where engineering news, stories, events and forums can be promoted. It will build upon the organisation’s original goal to change the face of engineering in Australia.

Visit www.makeitso.org.au.

A recent survey by McKinsey Quarterly found that “more than 50 per cent of executives consider sustainability – the management of environmental, social, and governance issues –‘very’ or ‘extremely’ important in a wide range of areas, including new-product development, reputation building, and overall corporate strategy.”

The findings of this survey resonate strongly with Bienalto; and we have implemented a range of environmental initiatives that guide our everyday work practices.

In and around the office

• Secure storage and showers make it easier for staff to ride bikes to work. On any given day, up to 20% of the team ride.
• Full kitchen facilities encourage staff to bring their own food, rather than relying on takeaway products.
• We use Alternative Waste Technology (provided by WSN Environmental Solutions), which diverts waste away from landfill, recovers more resources from the waste stream, and minimises the impact on the environment. As a part of this, we recycle all batteries used in the office.
• Natural fibre floor coverings were used in our recent office fit-out.
• Fans are used for airflow and cooling wherever possible. Air conditioning is only used in extremes.

The way we work

• Staff can work from home, using remote desktop applications and the wiki – to avoid lengthy commutes.
• Where clients’ offices are far from our office, we use virtual meetings to reduce the amount of long distance travel. Through online services such as Skype and dimdim, we hold conferences between team members and clients in Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne.
• By implementing a wiki, there is now less reliance on paper collaboration. All documentation is stored online, and is client accessible (and editable). There are less paper revisions, and multiple team members can have input into the same document at the same time.
• Client projects can be carbon offset through the purchase of carbon credits. These would be purchased through a third party and charged at cost.

In addition to environmental initiatives, broader sustainability issues around culture and community are important to us, too. We actively support the arts community, offering at-cost services to three arts organisations; and we constantly strive to create a place of work that our people feel proud to be a part of.

It goes without saying that we like working with companies that also take sustainability seriously.

If you want to share some ideas – or are looking for good ways to promote what you’re doing from a sustainability standpoint – have a chat to us today or leave a comment below.

From our observations, most users will only click on one link in your newsletter or EDM. Put simply, they’ll read only one article or news item, and then they’re gone.

This sobering statistic sheds light on the criticality of content. What will the outcome of that all-important, solitary “click” be? Will it deliver the user deep into the appropriate section of your website, where they will find exactly what they are looking for?

Strong calls to action that relate to the “click” must be clearly available, to convert the lead and get return on the EDM investment. At every step of the customer journey, every content element must work in collaboration to achieve your desired business results.

The solitary nature of the “click” also sheds light on the value of content. Online marketers must strike the right balance between creating their own content – which can be a costly and time consuming exercise – and repurposing other people’s content for their own use, while being mindful of copyright and branding issues.

An often neglected area of website development

Content is king. Long live content. This is the mantra which all online marketers should live by. From the labels on your links, to instructional copy and calls to action, to the all-important body copy of your site – content speaks volumes about your brand and can make or break the customer journey through your site.

Yet too often, content is a hodge-podge accumulation of different content editors’ contributions. From a lack of consistency in the way your products are proselytised, to conflicting calls to action, your customers are guaranteed to get frustrated if their journey is not predictable enough.

So it is important to invest in well-produced, thoughtful content. But herein lies the rub. You could spend vast amounts of marketing dollars on producing highly engaging case studies, whitepapers, glossy product brochures and more. But how proportional are these investments on the customer’s eventual purchasing decision? In an era where consumers value their friends’ and blog evangelists’ opinions over your marketing statements – and when they can find these opinions at the click of a Google link – is it worth producing any of this content in the first place?

Reconsider your content creation strategy

For some organisations – IT companies come to mind – the production of whitepapers and case studies will still reap value and aid the sales process. The purchase of a multi-million dollar server environment will not be swayed as much by social commentary as by hard-hitting facts and figures.

But for many others, particularly retail companies, content creation is undergoing a marked shift. Smart marketers are recognising the value of investing in new media to fill the content gaps. For example, search engine positioning, the efficacy of the snippet – the copy that appears in the organic Google search results – and the place that link takes the user in your site are now critical in the lead-generation process.

Likewise, social media cannot be ignored. Facebook, Twitter and the like are valuable channels for the generation of content, particularly “fan” pages where you can maintain some semblance of control. Within these channels, your customers are doing your work for you. You can then analyse what they’re saying, the language they’re using, and much more – to help guide your subsequent marketing activities. For example, the words they use to describe your products should be injected straight into your SEO efforts.

Given that you’ve got an average of one click per user, you need to consider your agenda in delivering an EDM. What is the primary goal? Are there other business agendas that need to be met in this piece of communication, too? Can you repurpose other content to reduce the publishing and production costs, given that you’ve likely only got one click per customer? Simply by being aware of the way that users interact with your pieces of communication empowers you to make smarter decisions about the way you construct them.

Make every word accountable

Every word, statement and web page you produce should be held accountable to your bottom line. You need to be strategic in the way you produce it, and in the way it is managed and used to shape further marketing decisions.

In a nutshell, your content should be:

• Consistent across all channels – traditional media, advertising, EDMs, web pages, campaign microsites, your sales team’s spiel, the list goes on.
• Cost-effective – with the amount spent on content creation proportional to customer acquisition and retention volumes.
• Relevant – give the customers exactly what they’re looking for, and they’ll trust your brand as one that delivers on what they need, when they need it.

Need more guidance? Speak to Bienalto today about your content strategy – whether for EDMs, digital newsletters, websites or any other online channel.

These are just some of the questions posed by the 2010 Web Analytics Survey, which Bienalto conducted during February and March 2010. We asked more than 100 Australian organisations some hard questions about their online channel – and have collated the results into a valuable and insightful report.

For the first time, Hurol Inan will be launching the report at the eMetrics Summit in Sydney. He’s sharing the key findings of the report in his summit session on Thursday, 22 April 2010.

What the report includes

The report examines, in detail, the following key areas:

• Perception of web analytics and the online channel
• Technology adoption
• Expenditure and resource allocation for web analytics activities
• Key challenges faced by web managers
• Priorities for the year ahead.

The examination of the online channel is a new addition to the Web Analytics Survey, with comments classified into three useful categories: consumer engagement, management and marketing.

By introducing this section, we sought to reveal the issues, challenges and priorities for web managers; how effective the channel is perceived to be; and, of course, how web analytics contributes to its performance.

We have also included two in-depth case studies, with Deakin University and Sydney Water. The comments provided in these case studies place the results in a real-world context that should provide some great take-outs for our other clients.

Who should read the report?

Any web manager seeking to validate investment in the online channel should be reading the 2010 Web Analytics Report.

With extensive comparisons to the 2008 and 2007 survey results, the report maps the growth of web analytics, and the areas in which organisations are gaining the most from their investment.

Download your copy of the Report

The report will provide commentary on best practices, preferred tools of the trade, and more. You can pre-register to receive a copy of the survey report.

All people who completed the survey went in the draw to win a free pass to the eMetrics Summit, valued at $995. Congratulations to our winner: Simone Joyce, Web Analytics Manager at News Digital Media. We hope she gains much value from the Summit.

Hurol Inan will be speaking at the Summit; and it’s not too late to purchase tickets to this significant digital marketing event.

Learn more about the event and book your tickets now.

The premise of Make it so is simple. It will take people’s dreams and turn them into reality; showcasing how engineering teams solve problems with creativity, innovation and the application of science. In doing so, it will change the face of engineering in Australia forever.

We encourage you all to submit your ideas to the competition.

Ordinary Australian can submit their wildest dreams and challenge a crack team of engineers to transform those dreams into reality. The best suggestions – voted on by an army of engineering advocates – will go in the running to be “made so” later this year.

Bienalto has been busy recruiting advocates

In addition to building the competition website – which is what you see here – we have been hard at work recruiting advocates to the campaign.

Given that the success of the competition requires the support of thousands of engineers across Australia – to rank suggestions, help promote it and eventually turn dreams into reality – this has been a critical campaign.

From July 2009 to February 2010, the Make it so website targeted engineers, encouraging them to sign up as advocates.

Learn more about our scientific, technology-driven approach to mobilising advocates

To capture as many advocates as possible, and to generate wider buzz, we promoted the competition in a range of cost-effective and memorable ways via the digital channel:

-   Social networks – Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn

-   Digital campaigns and competitions

-   Monthly email newsletters to advocates

-   Regular blog posts.

These actions helped Engineers Australia to recruit nearly 8,000 advocates since the campaign kicked off.

“The Make it so campaign is absolute proof of the power of digital marketing. We have chosen our digital channels carefully – and put them to great use to maximise exposure of the Make it so campaign,” said Hurol Inan.

“Now, with the public competition launched, we look forward to applying best practice technologies to help spread the word and generate massive digital buzz.”

-   Enter the competition now

-   Check out some of the ideas already submitted

-   Learn more about our online marketing strategies for Make it so

Bienalto was appointed to manage the online component of the 12-month public awareness campaign, and has been educating and engaging with the engineering community since August 2009.

Online activities are supported offline by an extensive public relations campaign being rolled out by Pulse Communications, which focuses on sharing inspirational stories of how engineers are ‘making it so’ in the community.

Advocates key to the campaign’s success

Getting engineers to sign up as advocates – and asking them to throw their weight behind the Make it so campaign following its public launch on Tuesday – has been critical to the campaign’s success.

Bienalto implemented a series of step-by-step micro-campaigns to galvanise the support of engineers. It worked – nearly 8,000 people have signed up as Make it so campaign advocates, far exceeding the initial target of 4,000.

Each micro-campaign was meticulously planned to collect content for the website, and to ensure the advocates would be ready for action once the competition reached voting stage.

“This has been an incredibly scientific and technology-driven campaign, from the very outset. It’s like a complex machine – where every single step has a purpose, and nothing is wasted,” said Hurol Inan, Managing Director, Bienalto.

For example, one of the micro-campaigns was a competition where engineers had to enter a definition for their engineering discipline (such as electrical, civil, mechanical, etc.). From the data collected in this competition, a taxonomy was developed that is now being used to automatically workflow ideas to the right engineers.

“With hundreds of ideas coming in every day, we wanted an efficient and intelligent way of sending ‘civil engineering’ ideas to civil engineers, for example. By creating this powerful taxonomy, we can apply scientific rules to every aspect of the competition website,” said Inan.

The competition website runs on a cloud computing environment, with servers in US and redundancy in Ireland.

“This is a first for Bienalto. We selected cloud technology for its massive scalability, as we are expecting huge peaks when the mainstream media pick up on the competition and drive masses of people to the site. The last thing we’d want is server failure,” said Inan.

Rich online marketing strategy

To date, the Make it so campaign has utilised a broad range of online marketing strategies, from direct response campaigns to social media campaigns on Facebook and twitter.

A social media survey conducted by Bienalto indicated a significant Facebook presence amongst advocates. “We responded by developing a distinct Facebook strategy; and also introduced a ‘trivial pursuit’ style micro-campaign on twitter to build up a following in this channel,” said Charlie Graves-Morris, Campaign Manager, Bienalto.

Now in the competition phase of the campaign, Bienalto will continue to apply a scientific approach to managing the competition website.

“With a rich array of analytical tools available to us, we can afford to be responsive – the data will give us the agility to shape strategies on an ongoing basis. Otherwise, we continue with our weekly engagement with people already committed to the competition and use them to spread the word,” said Graves-Morris.

For Engineers Australia, the Make it so campaign seeks to lift the curtain on what it is engineers actually do.

“We want to help Australians understand that from bridges to Blackberrys, drinking water to the Water Cube – engineers and engineering teams help ‘make it so’ in the community,” said Jamie Penrose, Director of Communication and Marketing at Engineers Australia.

“We have achieved an incredible level of engagement with the engineering community through Bienalto’s rich online marketing strategy – and now we plan to build that same level of engagement, using similar strategies, with the general public.”

Visit the Make it so competition website

The survey – now in its fourth year – takes a snapshot of the current state of the web analytics industry in Australia. The subsequent report has become a valuable tool in the online marketer’s arsenal, to help plan and shape future web analytics strategy.

As per previous years, our goal with the survey is to understand where we are at with web analytics, and gain insights into what is motivating, prohibiting or inhibiting organisations’ adoption of various tools and methodologies.

All participants in the survey will receive a copy of the report.

Take the survey now

Win a pass to the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit

The 2010 report will be published to coincide with the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit, to be held in Sydney for the very first time on 22-23 April 2010.

It is great news that the eMetrics Summit is coming to Sydney this year, as it is renowned for equipping marketing professionals with insights to help them succeed online.

Hurol spoke at the inaugural summit in Santa Barbara in 2002, and has since watched it grow to become a respected think-tank that travels to major cities around the globe such as Munchen, Toronto, San Jose, London, Madrid, Sao Paula, Stockholm and Washington DC.

He will be speaking again at this year’s summit; and Bienalto is proud to be a major sponsor.

We are giving away a pass valued at $995 to one of the participants of Australian Web Analytics Survey 2010.

> Take the survey now
> Learn more about eMetrics summit

Any client who has paid us a visit lately will have seen how cramped our growing team was. Given the space constraints, a new office was high on the agenda at the end of last year - and the good news is that we’ve finally found something!

After much searching, we found a beautiful old building just up the road in Riley St, Darlinghurst.

But things didn’t go exactly to plan. Read on to learn more and take a peek at the reno.

Much to our dismay, we discovered termites in the roof beams and floors as we prepared to move in over Christmas. But, fortuitously, these little pests gave us the excuse we needed to reinvent the floor plan and design the space just as we’d like it to be.

In renovating the interior, we have exposed some of the original features of the building; and are doing our best to give the space the green seal of approval. That means no air conditioners for now… and we’ll wait and see how cold it gets over winter!

“We’re now looking at making the building 100 per cent sustainable – with the right mix of ventilation, insulation and more. We’re also speaking with Heritage Council of NSW to protect the wonderful façade of the building,” said Hurol Inan, Managing Director, Bienalto.

We welcome all of our clients to pop in and say hello next time you’re in the area. Visit us at:

Bienalto House
165 Riley Street
Darlinghurst NSW 2010

Our phone numbers remain the same.